TY - JOUR
T1 - "In love I am more god"
T2 - The centrality of love in Meister Eckhart's mysticism
AU - Radler, Charlotte
N1 - Radler, Charlotte. "In Love I Am More God: The Centrality of Love in Meister Eckhart's Mysticism." Journal of Religion 90, 2 (2010): 171-198.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - In his German sermon 5a, Meister Eckhart (d. 1328), a Dominican teacher, preacher, and mystic, asks whether we can claim that the human being who loves God becomes God.1 Though he concedes that such a statement may appear impious, he asserts that in love only one exists, not two, because “in love I am more God than I am in myself.”2 “It sounds wondrous,” he admits, “that the human being is thus able to become God in love; however, it is true in the eternal truth.”3 Eckhart spools the metaphor of love into a supple descriptor that includes God, the human being, and the unifying force that transforms the relationship between human and divine. I contend that the multivalent signifier of love lies at the heart of Eckhart’s mysticism and constitutes a central topos that discloses the substance of his mystical theology. Such a perspective, however, is not widely shared, for Eckhart is commonly characterized as a speculative thinker—that is, as one who privileges the terms of being and knowledge in mapping the mystical journey— and as the father of German speculation. In this article, I want to challenge this characterization by retrieving the category of love as aprincipal theme in Eckhart’s mystical theology.
AB - In his German sermon 5a, Meister Eckhart (d. 1328), a Dominican teacher, preacher, and mystic, asks whether we can claim that the human being who loves God becomes God.1 Though he concedes that such a statement may appear impious, he asserts that in love only one exists, not two, because “in love I am more God than I am in myself.”2 “It sounds wondrous,” he admits, “that the human being is thus able to become God in love; however, it is true in the eternal truth.”3 Eckhart spools the metaphor of love into a supple descriptor that includes God, the human being, and the unifying force that transforms the relationship between human and divine. I contend that the multivalent signifier of love lies at the heart of Eckhart’s mysticism and constitutes a central topos that discloses the substance of his mystical theology. Such a perspective, however, is not widely shared, for Eckhart is commonly characterized as a speculative thinker—that is, as one who privileges the terms of being and knowledge in mapping the mystical journey— and as the father of German speculation. In this article, I want to challenge this characterization by retrieving the category of love as aprincipal theme in Eckhart’s mystical theology.
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U2 - 10.1086/649847
DO - 10.1086/649847
M3 - Article
SN - 0022-4189
VL - 90
SP - 171
EP - 198
JO - Journal of Religion
JF - Journal of Religion
IS - 2
ER -