Passion for Creation

These words which I have spoken in Latin are read in today’s liturgy. They are words our Lord spoke to his disciples when he wanted to return to heaven: “Stay with one another in Jerusalem and do not depart. Cling to the promise of the Father that after these days, which are neither many nor few, you will be baptized” (Ac. 1:4).

No one can receive the Holy Spirit, for he dwells beyond time in eternity. The Holy Spirit can be neither received nor given in temporal things. When a person no longer centers on temporal things and turns inward to his own heart, then he becomes aware of a divine light which comes from heaven. It is under heaven and yet breathes of heaven. It is in this light that such a person finds something spiritual which is nonetheless so tangible that one calls it material. It is like a piece of iron whose nature it is to fall down which nevertheless lifts itself up against its nature and hangs on to a magnet because of the power which the magnet has received from heaven. Wherever the magnet turns, tie iron moves in the same direction. It is the same way with the divine spirit in the human soul. This spirit does not allow itself to be satisfied with that light. It storms the firmament and scales the heavens until it reaches the Spirit that drives the heavens. As a result of heaven’s movement, everything in the world flourishes and bursts into leaf. The spirit, however, is never satisfied; it presses on ever further into the vortex (whirlpool )f and primary source in which the spirit has its origin. This spirit—that is, the human spirit which we have been talking about—counts without numbers. It understands what it understands in numberless number-namely, in quantity-less, metaphysical number—and such a number (without number) is given not in the time of insufficiency (by this I mean in this earthly time of transiency and imperfection). In eternity, on the other hand, no one has any other root than precisely this numberless, quantity-less number. In heaven there is no one without number.

† I have taken Quint’s in den Wirbel in preference to DW in den Gipfel (Q, p. 290).

This spirit has to go beyond all quantity and break through all diversity. Then it will be broken through by God. Quite the same way, however, as God breaks through me, I shall break through him in return! God leads this spirit into the desert and solitude of himself where he is pure unity and gushes up only within himself. This spirit no longer has a why. If it were to have any kind of why, unity would also have to have its why. This spirit remains in unity and freedom.

The masters of the spiritual life say that the will is so free that no one can force it but God alone. God, however, does not force the will. He rather places it in freedom in such a way that it wishes nothing other than what God wishes. This, however, is not its lack of freedom; it is its innate freedom.

Certain people say: “If I have God and God’s love, I can quite well do everything I wish.” They do not understand this statement about freedom correctly. So long as you want something that is against God and his commandment, you do not have God’s love. You might like indeed to deceive the world, just as if you possessed it. People who remain in God’s will and in God’s love take pleasure in doing everything that is pleasing to God and in giving up everything contrary to God. For such people it is just as impossible to give up something that God wants done as to do something that is contrary to God. Just as it would be impossible for someone whose legs were shackled to walk, it would likewise be impossible for a person who remains in God’s will to do anything bad. The prophet says that if God himself had ordered me to do evil and to avoid virtue, I would still not be able to do evil! For no one loves virtue the way the one does who is virtue itself. People who have given up themselves and all things, who do not seek their own interests in any kinds of things, and who do all their deeds without a why and only out of love—such people are dead to the whole world, and they live in God and God in them.

Many people say: “You make fine speeches to us, but we don’t understand anything.” I have the very same complaint! This being is so noble and yet so common that you don’t have to buy it, neither for a farthing nor for a halfpenny. If you only make a correct effort and have a free will, you’ll have it. People who in this way have given up all things in their lowest being, and to the extent that things are temporary, will receive them again in God, where they are the truth. All that is dead here is life there, and all that is of a material nature here is in God’s spirit there. If we were to pour pure water into a pure vessel—one that is completely pure and free of any stain—and if this vessel were held quite steadily while someone leaned his or her face over it, that person would see the vessel’s bottom as it is in itself. It is the same way with all individuals who remain in freedom and unity within themselves. If they receive God in peace and quiet, they should also receive him in discord and restlessness. For it is completely fitting. If they cling to him less in discord and restlessness than in rest and peace, it is not fitting. Saint Augustine says: “Let those who are grieved by the day and bored by time turn to God in whom there is no boredom and in whom all things are at rest. Whoever loves justice will be seized by justice and will become justice itself.”

Our Lord said: “I have not called you servants; I have called you friends, for a servant does not know what his master wishes” (Jn. 15:15). Even my friend might know something I did not know so long as he or she did not wish to make it known to me. But our Lord said: “I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father” (Jn. 15:15). I am surprised at many priests who are very learned and would like to be important priests because they allow themselves to be so easily satisfied and made fools of. They receive the message our Lord proclaimed: “I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.” They wish to understand this message in the following way, saying, “He has made known to us as much as is needed on the road to our eternal happiness.” I do not agree that it is to be understood in this way, for this is not the truth. Why did God become a man? So that I might be born the same God. God has died so that I might die to the whole world and all created things. This is how we should understand the message our Lord declared: “I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.” What does the Son hear from his Father? The Father can do nothing other than generate while the Son can do nothing other than be born. The Father generates in his only begotten Son whatever he has and whatever he is—the depth of divine being and divine nature. This is what the Son “hears” from the Father; this is what he has made known to us so that we may be the same only begotten Son. The Son has everything he has from his Father—being and nature—so that we may be the same only begotten Son. No one on the other hand possesses the Holy Spirit unless he be the only begotten Son. For in the place where the Holy Spirit becomes a spirit, the Father and the Son make him spiritual. For this is essential and spiritual. You may indeed receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit or similarity with the Holy Spirit. But it does not remain in you; it is inconstant. Just as if someone becomes red with shame and then pale again, this is something that happens to that person and then goes away. But a person whose nature is to be ruddy and handsome remains that way at all times. This is the same way with the human being who is the only begotten Son; the Holy Spirit remains in his same measure.

For this reason it is written in the book of wisdom: “I have borne you today in the reflection of my eternal light, in the fullness and brightness of all the saints” (Ps. 2:7; 110:3). He generates him now and today. Since the maternity bed is in the Godhead, they are “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” This is the promise that the Father has made them. “After these days of which there were not many or few,” this is the “fullness of the Godhead,” in which there was neither day nor night In it something that is a thousand miles away is as near me as the spot on which I am now standing. There is the fullness and bliss of the whole Godhead; there is the unity.

As long as the soul keeps any kind of differentiation, things are not well arranged with it. As long as any kind of thing looks into it, there is no unity as yet. Mary Magdalene sought our Lord in the grave; she sought a dead man and found two living angels. On this account she remained unconsoled. Then the angels said: “Why are you disturbed? Whom are you seeking, woman?” (Jn. 20:11–12). It was just as if they wanted to say: “You are seeking a dead man and finding two living creatures.” Thereupon, she might have said: “My complaint and my concern are precisely that I am finding two and was only seeking one!”

As long as any kind of differentiation of created things can still remain in the soul, this is a cause of concern to it. I say now, as I’ve often said in the past, that wherever the soul has only its natural, created being, there is no truth. I say that there is something above the created nature of the soul. Many priests, however, do not understand that there can be something that is so related to and one with God. It has nothing in common with anything else. Everything that is created is nothing. All creation and all that has been created, however, are distant and foreign to it It is a unit in itself that absorbs nothing from outside itself.

Our Lord went to heaven, high above all light and above all understanding and all comprehension. People who are thus carried above all light dwell in unity. For this reason Saint Paul says: “God dwells in an inaccessible light” (1 Tm. 6:16), which is a pure unity in itself. On this account people must die; they must become completely dead, and nothing to themselves; they must be quite divested of all similarity and no longer resemble anyone. Then they are truly like God. For it is God’s peculiarity and nature to be without any equal and to be similar to no one.

COMMENTARY: The Purpose of the Incarnation Explained/Baptism into the Holy Spirit Whose Origins Are a Whirlpool/In the Desert, God and We Become One Divine Person

Eckhart asks in this sermon the reason for the Incarnation. Why did God become a man? His answer is not the stock answer that a fall-oriented spiritual theology has dealt the West since Augustine. He does not even mention the erasure of original sin as the reason for the Incarnation. Rather, Eckhart answers the question this way: So that I might be born the same God. Christ, the great Reminder, has come to remind us of our divinity, and there lies salvation and healing—at one point he calls Christ a “doctor.” Indeed, Eckhart dismisses the popular and superficial theological preaching that says that Christ came to tell us what is needed on the road to eternal happiness. Such preachers miss the point—this is not the truth, Eckhart declares. The point Eckhart is referring to is the promise in John 15:

“I shall not call you servants any more,

because a servant does not know

his master’s business;

I call you friends,

because I have made known to you

everything I have learnt from my Father.” (Jn. 15:15)

What is this “everything” that Christ learned from his Father? It is more than moral imperatives and the rules and ways of religion, says Eckhart. What does God wish that God’s friends can know but which servants would not know? The fullest revelation is about this: our divinity. That I might be born the same God. This is why God bothered to enter human history as one of us: “The reason why he has become man is that he may beget you as his firstborn Son, and nothing less.”¹ Eckhart frequently returns to this theme in his sermons. Christ “became the child of a human being in order that we might become the children of God,” he declares.² “As true as it is that God became a human, so true is it that humans became God.”³

What is it that Christ has “heard” from his Father and reveals to us? The depth of divine being and divine nature. At this depth, generation and birth take place all the time between Father and Son. The Father can do nothing other than generate while the Son can do nothing other than be born. The truth of this birthing is the revelation we have received by way of Christ from the Father. This is what the Son “hears” from the Father; this is what he has made known to us. What is the purpose of this hearing and this telling? Our divinity as adopted sons. This is why there is revelation through Christ—so that we may be the same only begotten Son. “And since this same nature, after which you strive, has become Son of the Eternal Father because he assumed the Eternal Word, you become Son of the Eternal Father with Christ by taking on the same nature which became God and was assumed by Christ.”⁴

Being a Son of God means that we are filled with the Spirit in a constant way, irregardless of problems or difficulties. No one possesses the Spirit unless he or she be the only begotten Son.

Eckhart applies two psalms from the royal tradition of wisdom literature to those of us who, like Christ, are reborn as sons of God. It is important to remember that these psalms refer to a king who “obtains justice for the weak and the oppressed,” as exegete Bernhard Anderson reminds us.⁵ Eckhart does not limit the application of the royal personage to Christ alone but to all who are reborn as adopted sons of God. We all become royal persons with the full dignity and responsibility which that title entails.

Let me proclaim Yahweh’s decree;

he has told me, “You are my son,

today I have become your father.” (Ps. 2:7)

God generates his Son, Eckhart comments, now and today. Wherever one is baptized in the Holy Spirit, there the maternity bed of the Godhead is ever active and God’s Son is born in us and is being born. The Word is generated eternally and that means now and today as well as in the past. Another application is made to our royal lineage that we share with God’s Son.

Yahweh’s oracle to you, my Lord, “Sit at my right hand

and I will make your enemies a footstool for you” . . .

Royal dignity was yours from the day you were born, on the holy mountains,

royal from the womb, from the dawn of your earliest days. (Ps. 110:1, 3)

In Sermon Thirty-six we will examine the royal person tradition in greater depth.

The text for the present sermon which Eckhart has read at the liturgy is that of the opening of the Book of Acts. It is the story of what happened after Jesus’ death and of how he had to leave the disciples—his friends—if the Spirit was to come.

In my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and taught from the beginning until the day he gave his instructions to the apostles he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. He had shown himself alive to them after his Passion by many demonstrations: for forty days he had continued to appear to them and tell them about the kingdom of God. When he had been at table with them, he had told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had promised. “It is,” he had said, “what you have heard me speak about: John baptized with water but you, not many days from now, will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (Ac. 1:1–5)

Who is this Spirit into whom we are to be baptized? This Spirit acts like a magnet, drawing people as a magnet does iron. More than that, the spirit is never satisfied. It pushes constantly forward . . . it presses on ever further into the vortex or whirlpool which is the primary source in which the spirit has its origin. Thus the spirit carries us ever and ever deeper into our center, which is a vortex of divine depths. When our spirit meets this Spirit a breakthrough occurs—a mutual piercing. As he breaks through me, I shall break through him in returnl With this breakthrough a great unity occurs—a unity that can be compared to a desert where there is no room for two but only for one. God leads this spirit into the desert and solitude of himself where he is pure unity and gushes up only within himself. The desert is God. At this union in the desert called God the human spirit no longer has a why. Another sign of our being born the Son of God is our living without a why or wherefore. It is a part of the divinity to be without why or wherefore and therefore a part of our divinity and a sign of it.

It is a property of God that God does all things for himself, that is to say, that he does not look for any “why” outside himself, but only for what is for his own sake. He loves and works all things for his own sake. Therefore, when a person loves him himself and all things and does all his works not for reward, for honor or happiness, but only for the sake of God and his glory, that is a sign that he is a son of God.⁶

We have met our end, and means no longer matter so much. There true unity and freedom occur, for the beginning becomes the end, the origin becomes the goal, and no whys need intervene. There too the will becomes like God’s will. An innate freedom occurs. Eckhart cautions that this freedom is not license but is a freedom that love, which is without a why, brings to all our deeds. There, in this desert of unity and freedom and love, we live in God and God in us. There all the goodness of creation returns to us and we see all things through the transparency of their being in God. All that is dead here is life there, and all that is of a material nature here is in God’s Spirit there. The peace of the desert, however, has nothing in common with a flight from the world into a narcissistic lap of tranquillity and quietude. Rather, discord and restlessness are themselves part of the desert and absorbed into it. Disturbances ought not to affect this deep unity and freedom. If

all individuals who remain in freedom and unity within themselves . . . receive God in peace and quiet, they should also receive him in discord and restlessness. For it is completely fitting. If they cling to him less in discord and restlessness than in rest and peace, it is not fitting.

Thus Eckhart leaves us with the strong impression that this breakthrough and baptism in the Spirit is not the final birth we undergo but that there will be many additional labor pains and many more births that follow this one. But the source of it all is our deep, deep vortex or whirlpool where the spirit swims and into which we sink ever deeper as we let go and let birth happen.

The one obstacle that can prevent this sinking into the Spirit is a dualistic consciousness—Mary Magdalene was finding two but only seeking one! Such distinctions and divisions destroy the unity that the desert experience is all about. Ecstasy does not allow divisions. It is one or nothing. Because Christ came to teach us we are divine, it can rightly be said that “the most suitable good that God ever communicated to humans was to become a human himself.”⁷