Three Categories of Nothingness in Eckhart

Three Categories of Nothingness in Eckhart
Author(s): Beverly J. Lanzetta

Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 72, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 248-268
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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Three Categories of Nothingness
in Eckhart
Beverly J. Lanzetta / villanova University
Eckhart's exuberant mysticism has attracted wide attention from think-

ers both within and outside religious traditions. In particular, his star-
tling use of nothingness, with its seeming unconcern for traditional
Christian imagery, has generated a number of vital comparative studies.
Primarily, these studies have dealt with the relationship of Eckhart's God
beyond God to the Buddhist nothingness, although comparisons with
other traditions also have been made, most notably from Hindu advaita
and postmodern philosophy.' Interestingly, each of these studies focuses
its point of comparison on the apophatic, nontheistic aspect of the
Meister's thought and not on the explicitly trinitarian and theistic sub-
structure that remains an integral and dynamic part of Eckhart's dialecti-
cal mysticism.
I For comparisons with Buddhism, see Masao Abe, "Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata," and
David Tracy, "Kenosis, Sunyata, and Trinity: A Dialogue with Masao Abe," both in The Emptying
God: A Buddhist, Jewish, Christian Conversation, ed. John Cobb, Jr., and Christopher Ives
(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1990); D. T. Suzuki, Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (New York:
Macmillan, 1961); Reiner Schiirmann, "The Loss of Origin in Soto Zen and Meister Eckhart," in
Thomist 42 (1978): 281-312; Shizuteru Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt in der Seele und der Durchbruch zur
Gottheit: Die mystische Anthropologie Meister Eckharts und ihre Konfrontation mit der Mystik des Zen-
Buddhismus (Giitersloh: G. Mohn, 1965), "'Nothingness' in Meister Eckhart and Zen Buddhism
with Particular Reference to the Borderlands of Philosophy and Theology," in The Buddha Eye:
An Anthology of the Kyoto School, ed. Frederick Franck (New York: Crossroad, 1982); Hans
Waldenfels, Absolute Nothingness: Foundations for a Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, trans. J. W. Heisig
(New York: Paulist Press, 1980). For studies on Eckhart and Hinduism, see Rudolf Otto, Mysti-
cism: East and West (New York: Collier, 1962); Ewert Cousins, Global Spirituality: Toward the Meet-
ing of Mystical Paths (Madras: University of Madras, Radhakrishnan Institute for the Advanced
Study in Philosophy, 1985). For a postmodern reading of Eckhart and nothingness, see Reiner
Schiirmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1978), "Neoplatonic Henology as an Overcoming of Metaphysics," in Research in Phenomenology
13 (1983): 25-41; John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (New York:
Fordham University Press, 1986), particularly chaps. 3, 4, "The Nothingness of the Intellect in
Meister Eckhart's 'Parisian Questions,'" in Thomist 39 (1975): 85-115, "Mysticism and Trans-
gression: Derrida and Meister Eckhart," Continental Philosophy 2 (1989): 24-39; Emilie Zum
Brunn and Alain de Libera, Metaphysique du verbe et theologie negative (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984).
?1992 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-4189/92/7202-0005$01.00
248
Nothingness in Eckhart
In this article I am particularly interested in exploring what I consider

to be two unresolved puzzles in Eckhart scholarship. The first revolves
around the provocative way in which "nothingness" or wilderness (wiiste)
is employed by Eckhart in the German sermons. Both Buddhist scholars
and contemporary philosophers resonate deeply with the Meister's anar-
chic use of language and his obvious prescinding from the standard meta-
physical categories of the day. Each sees reflected in Eckhart's mysticism a
partner with his or her own thought, albeit slightly veiled by his Christian
roots, and each holds that Eckhart in some way leaves behind metaphysics
for a radical and liberating nothingness. While I cannot disagree with
these interpretations, and in fact believe they unlock a deeply significant
aspect of the Meister's overall project, I also contend that they are not suf-
ficient to explain the "whole-cloth nature" of his mystical virtuosity. This
brings me to the second unresolved puzzle in Eckhart scholarship: why
does the Meister, if he is moving beyond Christian metaphysics, still retain
the theistic structure in dynamic and integral relationship with the
indistinction of the abyss? Some scholars have claimed that the trinitarian
Eckhart is a foil for his inquisitors-a device to keep them at bay and to
preserve his mystical anarchy.2 This is a position I do not share; in fact I
believe that the relationship between the Trinity and the desert is essen-
tial to understanding Eckhart's stance on nothingness and the vital,
exuberant freedom which pulses throughout his sermons and Latin
commentaries.
There is a tendency, therefore, either to ignore Eckhart's ontol

vocabulary or to see it as an impediment to understanding in a co
tive context. Because of the startling a-theistic and "un-Christian
ments in his thought, comparative study on Eckhart has been with
traditions in which priority also is assigned to the indistinct, nondu
transrevelatory ultimate. Most of these investigations, whether wi
Hinduism, or postmodern philosophy, assume that the dynamic rel
ship in Eckhart's thought between theistic metaphysics and the a
divinity is either resolved or transcended in (1) the indistincti
nondualism of the God beyond God in the same or similar w
nontheistic Eastern traditions,3 (2) a Neoplatonic strategy in which
minate reality is left behind for the sublime difference/distance
2 Reiner Schiirmann, Maitre Eckhart ou la joie errante (Paris: Planete, 1972), p. 143; E
Underhill, The Mystics of the Church (New York: Doran, 1926), p. 134.
However, for Buddhist scholars Eckhart's nothingness is not an absolute because h
tion of Christian metaphysics implies that his experience of nothingness is mediated by
mately bound to theism. See Ueda, "'Nothingness' in Meister Eckhart," pp. 157-60. T
assumed that the relationship between nothingness and theism in Eckhart can only be
through a negation of ontological claims in a way similar to the absolute negation o
249
The Journal of Religion
One,4 or (3) the existential flux of the human condition, where life lives
out of its own ground "without why."5
Each of these philosophical angles, however, concludes with an unac-
countable remainder where the Meister's thought eludes the framework
of hermeneutical inquiry. In fact, the tension in Eckhart scholarship
between the "Zen Christian" and the "loyal son of the Church" can be
traced to a philosophical uncomfortableness in attempting to fit Eckhart
into a radical Christian Neoplatonism, a quasi postmodernism, or a sub-
dued version of Zen nothingness. The task is intriguing because these var-
ious interpretations are interwoven in Eckhart's thought and cannot be
easily separated from the whole of his corpus; but the essential question,
what view of reality did Eckhart hold that is simultaneously theistic and
a-theistic, trinitarian and abyssal, has not been worked out. In what fol-
lows I will briefly explore the epistemological and Zen perspectives on
nothingness and theism in Eckhart and then present a third, and I believe
more adequate, reading of this mystical dynamic. In a concluding section,
I will address how these varied manifestations of nothingness can be rec-
onciled in light of this third proposal.
NOTHINGNESS AND UNKNOWING
The first order of nothingness to be discussed in Eckhart is epist

cal, in the sense that it refers to the act of knowing, and applie
negativity of knowing where being is negated for the sake of th
transcends rationality. In Eckhart, this mystical apophasis is pre
through a series of dynamic dialectics that prevents the mind from
gaining closure over reality. Anyone even slightly familiar w
Meister's texts is struck by his use of paradoxes and dia
strategies-a fact that lends an indisputable destabilizing and libe
undercurrent to his thought.6 The most predominant instances of
4 Most commentators see in the Meister a strain of Neoplatonic henology and would
Reiner Schiirmann that it is this foundational nothingness in Eckhart that gene
antimetaphysical strand and in which the real Eckhart should be understood: "It [
expresses the abolition of the positivity of being, [and] ... points, so to speak, not be
beyond being, as the hyper-on of the Neoplatonists" ("The Loss of Origin," p. 288
5 Postmodern readings of Eckhart emphasize the existential "flux," the negativity
edge, and the linguistic flexibility of his texts; see n. 3 above. For a more detailed ana
linguistic virtuosity in Eckhart, consult Frank Tobin, Meister Eckhart: Thought and Lang
adelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), esp. chap. 5, "Master of Languag
relationship between postmodern hermeneutics and Eckhart's mystical nothingness,
"The Nothingness of the Intellect," "Mysticism and Transgression," and The Mystical
Heidegger's Thought, particularly chaps. 4-5.
6 For superb studies on the Meister's use of dialectical language and his themes
nonbeing, distinction-indistinction, God and Godhead, etc., see Bernard McGinn
Eckhart on God as Absolute Unity," in Neoplatonism and Christian Thought, ed. D
250
of dialectical paradoxes are found in the following: (1) God is both One
and Three and "neither this nor that";' (2) God is both distinct and indis-
tinct, and the more distinct insofar as he is indistinct;8 (3) intellect and
being are in reciprocal relationship depending on where one "stands"-
sometimes intellect is assigned priority over being, at other times being is
higher than intellect;9 (4) nothingness is used for God and for creatures,
again depending on the ontological "location" of the journeyer on the
way. 10
It is possible to read Eckhart's dialectics from the perspective of a classical
Neoplatonic via negativa; in which case his dynamic strategies are an episte-
mological move designed to draw the soul beyond human affirmations into
the unknowing of a hidden God. In fact, Eckhart himself speaks of the neg-
ative ascent of knowledge into unitive unknowing: "These three things
stand for three kinds of knowledge. The first is sensible. The eye sees from
afar things outside it. The second is rational, and is much higher. The third
denotes a noble power of the soul, which is so high and so noble that it takes
hold of God in His own being. This power has nothing in common with
anything: it makes anything and everything out of nothing."" However,
the dialectical nature of the Meister's thought, and the negativity of the
O'Meara (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1981), pp. 128-39, "The God beyond God: Theology and
Mysticism in the Thought of Meister Eckhart," Journal of Religion 61 (1981): 1-19, "Theological
Summary," in Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, ed. and
trans. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), pp. 24-61, "Intro-
duction," in Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, ed. and trans. Bernard McGinn and Frank Tobin
(New York: Paulist Press, 1986), pp. 1-37; Vladimir Lossky, Theologie negative et connaissance de
Dieu chex Maitre Eckhart (Paris: Vrin, 1960); Zum Brunn and de Libera; Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt;
Schiirmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher; Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger's
Thought, and "The Nothingness of the Intellect"; and Tobin.
7 Meister Eckhart, Predigt (sermon; hereafter Pr.) no. 23, as found in Josef Quint et al., eds.,
Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen Werke (hereafter DW), 4 vols., and Josef Koch et al., eds., Meister
Eckhart: Die lateinische Werke (hereafter LW), 5 vols. (both Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1936-). The
quote is from DW, 1:404, lines 27-29; the English translation is from M. O'C. Walsche, ed. and
trans., Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, 3 vols. (Longmead: Element, 1987), 2:72. Also consult
Eckhart's Commentary on John (Comm. Jn.), par. 342 (LW, 3:291), and Commentary on Exodus (Comm.
Ex.), par. 16 (LW, 2:21-22).
8 Major appearances, Pr. no. 10, in DW, 1:174; "And since it is one, it can do all things" (Wisd. of
Sol. 7:27a), in Commentary on the Book of Wisdom (in LW, 2:481-94). Translations cited include
Colledge and McGinn, trans. (n. 6 above); Walsche, ed. and trans.; and McGinn and Tobin, eds.
and trans. (n. 6 above).
9 For Eckhart's most extensive development of the dialectic of esse and intelligere, see the Parisian
Questions as found in LW, vol. 5, and "Prologues" to the Opus Tripartitum, in LW, vol. 1. Also consult
Master Eckhart: Parisian Questions and Prologues, trans. Armand Maurer (Toronto: Pontifical Insti-
tute of Medieval Studies, 1974).
10 Comm. Jn., pars. 52-60, in LW, vol. 3; Pr. no. 4, in Josef Quint, Meister Eckhart: Deutsche
Predigten und Traktate (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1955), hereafter abbreviated as Q (for Quint),
p. 171, lines 8-18; Pr. no. 5, in Q, p. 175, lines 32-34; Pr. no. 48, in Q, p. 379, lines 30-33.
'' Pr. no. 11, in DW, 1:182, lines 21-26; Walsche, ed. and trans., 2:159-60.
251
intellect, are not the sum total of his theology but are the manifested
expressions of his seminal insight into the intradivine movement that
emerges from and returns to the desert of the Godhead. Eckhart's mystical
unknowing, therefore, is a necessary prerequisite to finding the naked
wiiste-where God is free of "god" and springs forth out of its own ground.
It is for this very reason, where Eckhart appears to stretch the boundaries
of classical metaphysics, that many contemporary scholars interpret
Eckhart's dialectical themes and his negative epistemology in light of his
stance on nothingness and see in these seeming paradoxes a profoundly
modern speculative philosophy. It is in what has been called the "negativity
of consciousness" that some of Eckhart's most provocative and fertile
themes emerge." Here nothingness constantly forces consciousness to "let
be" all categories of thought and to relinguish its predilection for the pre-
sumed security of substantial knowledge. The nothingness of consciousness
yields in Eckhart's thought a liberation from metaphysical hegemony, even
that directed toward God. For the Meister, the negativity of the intellect
allows ontological thinking to think itself free of the scholastic categories of
substance and accident, analogy and proportion, being and intellect and,
thus, to stand back from the metaphysics of presence. In this sense,
Eckhart's is a nonsubstantializing ontology designed to show the way to
God, and not show "God" itself.'" Further, consciousness that "lets be"
arises in Eckhart's thought, not from the self and human effort, but pre-
cisely from the gift of radical detachment in which the Godhead reveals
itself as the source and ground of the ultimate Gelassenheit-"that" which
draws the soul into its own indistinction and nothingness.
The virtuosity with which Eckhart commands his subject has been seen
by John Caputo, Reiner Schiirmann, and Emilie Zum Brunn to indicate a
deconstructive bent, where his subversive play on language not only is a
linguistic strategy designed to prevent the mind from assigning closure to
reality but also is a critique of the enclosure of being.'4 It is precisely on
the issue of linkages between Eckhart's negativity of consciousness and
postmodern metaphysical suspicion (as in Heidegger or Derrida) that
some of the most provocative studies have been erected. In particular,
some very significant points have been raised in regard to the whole ques-
tion of thinking and its relationship to Eckhart's mystical negativity.'5
12 See Caputo, "The Nothingness of the Intellect" (n. 1 above).

13 See Reiner Schfirmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher (n. 1 above), and Maiztre
Eckhart ou la joie errant (n. 2 above).
14 Caputo, "Mysticism and Transgression" (n. 2 above); Schiirmann, "The Loss of Origin in
Soto Zen and Meister Eckhart" (n. 1 above), and "Neoplatonic Henology as an Overcoming of
Metaphysics" (n. 1 above); Zum Brunn and de Libera (n. 1 above).
15 See Caputo, "The Nothingness of the Intellect," in The Mystical Element in Heidegger's
Thought (n. 1 above), pp. 223-40.
252
Unfortunately, the scope of this article cannot address this very provoc-
ative area of comparative study between Eckhart's mystical perplexity and
postmodern hermeneutics at this time. Nonetheless, it is possible to infer
that it is the Meister's seminal insight into the relationship between noth-
ingness and metaphysics that is directly correlated to both the dialectical
paradoxes in his thought and the negativity of the intellect. In the final
section of this article, the preceding observation will be explored in more
depth.
PRAGMATIC NOTHINGNESS
The second category of nothingness might be termed "p

found most predominately in the "Zen Christian" Eckhar
as the nothingness of God, the nothingness of creatures,
out why," the Mary-Martha story, and pure detachment
things.'16 In this particular usage, nothingness expresses t
ing of life itself--free from category, metaphysics, ontology
The "nothingness of metaphysics" is expressed most
Eckhart in his discourses on leaving behind the Father,
Spirit to enter God where he is not "God" and "neither th
in his famous sermon on poverty of spirit where the deta
nothing, and knows nothing, and has nothing.""7 It is in
that Eckhart's nothingness comes the closest to the Mah
notion that "form is emptiness and the very emptiness is
his thought even displays traces of the Absolute Nothingn
if God is neither goodness nor being nor truth nor one,
He is pure nothing: he is neither this nor that."'9
The pragmatic nothingness in Eckhart bears a remarkab
the Buddhist expression of sinyata, or dynamic openness.
16 The nothingness of God, the nothingness of creatures: see Caputo, "Th

Intellect" (n. 1 above). Life lived "without why": see Pr. no. 5b, in DW,
1 1-12; Walsche, ed. and trans., 2:117: "Here God's ground is my ground and
ground.... Out of this inmost ground, all your works should be wrough
Mary-Martha story: see Pr. no. 2, Intravit Jesus in quoddam castellum,
detachment: see Pr. no. 10, in DW, 1:161-74; Pr. no. 12, in DW, 1:192-206; a
7 Pr. no. 52, in DW (n. 7 above), 2:487, lines 6-7; Colledge and McGinn
p. 199.
'8 The Heart Sutra, in Buddhist Wisdom Books, trans. Edward Conze (London: Allen & Unwin,
1966), p. 81.
19Pr. no. 23, in DW, 1:402, lines 1-3; Walsche, ed. and trans. (n. 8 above), 2:72.
20 The primary dialogue between Eckhart and Eastern thought has come in this century from
scholars of the Kyoto school, which draws from the philosophy of Nagarjuna (2d century C.E.).
Building on the Buddhist tradition, Nagarjuna developed a radical doctrine of iinyat& as an ulti-
mate letting go or nothingness, which always relates to salvation and liberation. This philosophy
of emptiness was developed by Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) into a comprehensive philosophical
253
religions, Buddhism achieves the penultimate expression of the in-
distinction of reality in Buddha's enlightenment to "that" which is neither
being nor nonbeing and, thus equidistant from all positions, is pure "noth-
ingness." A Buddhist, therefore, accepts the transiency of form, meta-
physics, and ontology on the precepts of the four noble truths and comes,
via transcendental wisdom (prajiia-paramita), to the experience of anatta
(no self), dependent coorigination, and the final releasement of ego iden-
tity in nirvana.21 In the movement from the transient emptiness of self to
ultimate nothingness, the metaphysics of being and its correlates of sub-
stance, form, and accident are not a soteriological problem for the Bud-
dhist since the ephemerality of their existence is affirmed by Buddha's
enlightenment experience.
In having to confront reality, not from the Buddhist side of its ultimate
nothingness, but from the side of its absolute presence, Eckhart's task is
decidedly different, but not unrelated, to the Buddhist one. For Eckhart,
as a Christian, the metaphysics of being and the death of Christ on the
cross with its ontological implications are of central concern. Unlike the
Buddhist who holds that the truth of form is emptiness, Eckhart, coming
out of his Christian roots, must explore what transforms the human condi-
tion or moves the finite to its ontological freedom. Following in the foot-
steps of his Christian predecessors, the Meister is concerned with a
fundamental soteriological puzzle at the heart of Christian thought: what
is the relationship between the death of the Son and Christian metaphys-
ics? In other words, how does the soul follow the path of Christ into the
ultimate death, in which definition and identity are shed into the openness
and newness of the resurrection? To use Buddhist language, we might say
that Eckhart is concerned with what makes conditioned reality (in this
case, the metaphysics of being) Boundless Openness.
In the many comparisons made between the nothingness in Eckhart's
thought and in Buddhism, the primary distinction regarding the seminal
faith experience and its relationship to metaphysics in the two instances is
overlooked. Because it is assumed that Eckhart's anarchic use of nothing-
ness is a radical moment in the history of Christian Neoplatonism, and not
a breakthrough of that history, the theistic aspect in his thought is seen as
evidence that nothingness in Eckhart is not an absolute, for if it were it
system. Some of the better-known members of the Kyoto school include D. T. Suzuki, Keiji
Nishitani, Masao Abe, and Shizuteru Ueda. Abe says sunyata should be understood as "a verb
which signifies 'emptying' or 'nonsubstantializing.' ... True Sunyata is a complete emptying, self-
negating function without any fixation" (Masao Abe, "The Impact of Dialogue on My Self-
Understanding as a Buddhist" (paper delivered at the American Academy of Religion annual
meeting, Comparative Studies in Religion Section, Boston, December 6, 1987, p. 4).
21 See Edward Conze, Buddhist Texts through the Ages (New York: Philosophical Library, 1954),
pp. 99-102, 146-72.
254
also would negate substantial metaphysics. Thus, in comparing the desert

of the Godhead with dynamic isinyata, Buddhist scholars contend that,
while Eckhart presents a radical apophatic perspective, the desert of the
Godhead still retains an ontological vocabulary intrinsic to Christianity.
Eckhart's wiiste is not an absolute nothingness, according to this view,
because it does not negate the ontotheological claim but, instead, reconsti-
tutes it in a higher, more indistinct realm: "In Zen Buddhism this same
coincidence is at stake-except that there negation and affirmation are
effected more radically than they are in Eckhart. The radicalness of Zen is
evident from the fact that it speaks of nothingness pure and simple, while
Eckhart speaks of the nothingness of the godhead. For Eckhart, to say that
God is in his essence a nothingness is to treat nothingness as the epitome of
all negative expressions for the purity of the essence of God, after the
manner of negative theology; conversely, when Eckhart arrives at affirma-
tion, he does so in the first instance mediately, through God who is the
first affirmation."22 In contrast, si`nyatia is depicted as a self-negating
ultimacy, which cannot be seen as any kind of "thing" and, therefore, can-
not be affirmed or denied in substantialist language. The importance of
nothingness in the context of Zen is its destabilizing dynamism in which all
duality is denied in and of itself, and not for the sake of a higher unity.
This is a negation of negation, which in philosophical terms "entails a pure
movement in two directions at the same time: (1) the negation of negation
in the sense of a further denial of negation that does not come back
around to affirmation but opens up into an endlessly open nothingness,
and (2) the negation of negation in the sense of a return to affirmation
without any trace of mediation."23
In the above quotes by Shizuteru Ueda, three themes can be detected
that are consistent with the position of Buddhist scholars that sinyata- is a
more radical and wider interpretation of nothingness than Eckhart's
desert of the Godhead. They can be summarized as follows: (1) Buddhism
speaks of nothingness and transparency, while Eckhart refers to the noth-
ingness of the Godhead; (2) "nothingness" in Zen is an absolute nothing-
ness ("zettai mu"); Eckhart follows the Christian apophatic tradition, thus
his "nothingness" is a linguistic strategy designed to preserve God's purity
of essence; and (3) affirmation, for Eckhart, is achieved through the medi-
ation of God, who is the first and formal affirmation, while in Zen ceaseless
negation leads to straightforward affirmation: tree is tree.
The problem with the absolutizing of contingent historical interpreta-
tions is that scholars risk implying that absolute nothingness logically can
be assigned only one normative description, or be one thing, and conse-
22 Shizuteru Ueda, "'Nothingness' in Meister Eckhart and Zen Buddhism" (n. 1 above), p. 159.
23 Ibid., p. 161.
255
quently that Sisnyata is its ultimate or universal expression. The risk of

universalizing the particularity of salvation is always present in cross-
cultural or interreligious encounters, and it is found in many Christian cir-
cles where the ultimate and final expression of God's message is seen to be
universally present in Christ. The tendency to assess another's tradition
from the vantage point of one's own can be seen in this context where
Buddhist scholars assume that absolute nothingness can be achieved only
through an ultimate negation-the negation of negation-of ontological
structures. However, this interpretation emerged out of Buddha's
enlightenment experience and was formulated in direct response to
Hindu theisms. Thus Buddhism emphasizes the a-theistic and the noth-
ingness that is beyond both theism and nontheism, in part because Bud-
dhism develops in negative dialogue with a theistic tradition.
Instead, I want to keep open the following possibility in the context of
this article: Eckhart retains theistic metaphysics precisely because in the
Christian context he uncovers the road to liberation by going through the
metaphysics of Being to the point (or breakthrough) where Being itself
ceases to be (or unbecomes) in the ground and fount of divinity-the
womb of nothingness. Thus for the Meister, the Trinity, metaphysics, and
so on, are essential for Gelassenheit ("releasement") because it is only by
following the paradigm enacted by the Son at the moment of his death,
when the determinate divinity reenters the abyss, that the soul finds its
true ground and understands why God is both "One and Three." I believe
it accurate to say that Eckhart broke through into what might be loosely
called a Buddhist perspective, and he did so in a manner that is intrinsic to
Christianity itself. What is more remarkable is that he not only succeeds
but also offers us a profoundly provocative hermeneutic for comparative
study.24
THE DESERT OF THE GODHEAD AND "CHRISTOCENTRIC" NOTHINGNESS
The above interpretations-the one Buddhist, the other epistemo-

logical-illuminate two distinct categories of nothingness in Eckhart
the pragmatic and the deconstructive. Interestingly, they do so by
prescinding from the specifically theistic and trinitarian elements in th
Meister's thought. Now I want to turn again to the question raised at th
24 See Cobb and Ives, eds. (n. 1 above), esp. the chapters by Masao Abe and David Tracy;John
P. Keenan, The Meaning ofChrist: A Mahayana Theology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1989), esp. chap
10 and 11 (although this book does not specifically mention Eckhart, it traces the negative trad
tion in Christianity and concludes with a Mahayana interpretation of Christ and Trinity); Beverly
Lanzetta, "The Godhead as a Theological Foundation for Interreligious Dialogue, Drawn from
the Writings of Meister Eckhart and Raimundo Panikkar" (Ph.D. diss., Fordham Universit
1988), chaps. 4-6.
256
beginning of this article: what is the relationship between theistic meta-

physics and nothingness in Eckhart's thought? Further, if Eckhart is not
solely contained in a deconstructionist, Zen Buddhist, or Neoplatonic
framework, then how does one understand the inner logic of "nothing-
ness" in his thought?
One of the most striking aspects of Eckhart's mysticism is the depth to
which he moves along the path of negation. It has been said that the cen-
tral theme of Eckhart is actually a radical apophasis-so radical, in fact,
that it borders on a-theism.25 The desert occupies a primary place in the
Meister's thought, and in the German sermons this deeper ground
beyond the Trinity alternately is depicted as a womb, a nothingness, the
most indistinct of indistinctions, and a desert.26 Any serious student of his
thought is confronted with two Eckharts-one, in the Latin works, is trin-
itarian; the other, in the German sermons, has passed beyond the Trin-
ity into nothingness. Yet these "two Eckharts" are never separated in his
overall theology but, instead, are linked in a way unprecedented in the his-
tory of Christian mysticism. What Eckhart accomplishes can be expressed
as follows.
While Eckhart affirms the centrality of the abyss, he departs from

Neoplatonic henology precisely because he maintains that dynamic reci-
procity between the Trinity and the desert is at the heart of Christian sal-
vation. The nothingness, or "superessential ray of divine darkness," is not
the culminating moment for Eckhart;27 if it were, his thought would be
another instance of apophatic theology taken to a new height. Instead, it is
the nothingness that trans-forms and re-forms existence and thus meta-
physics, ontology, the spiritual journey, and so forth. True salvation for
the Meister is not complete in climbing the mystical ladder of ascent
because the soul comes to an "end" in a known (Trinitarian) or unknown
25 Schiirmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher (n. 1 above), pp. 117-18; John Caputo,
"Fundamental Themes in Meister Eckhart's Mysticism," Thomist 42 (1978): 211.
26 For the womb, see Pr. no. 71, in DW, 3:224, lines 5-7, and DW, 3:225, line 1, where Eckhart
says: "It appeared to a man as in a dream ... that he became pregnant with Nothing like a woman
with child, and in that Nothing God was born. He was the fruit of nothing. God was born in the
Nothing." See Pr. no. 21, in DW, 1:368, lines 4-8; Pr. no. 23, in DW, 1:402, lines 1-7; Pr. no. 52,
in DW, 2:486-506; Pr. no. 71, in DW, 3:222-3 1; Pr. no. 83, in DW, 3:437, lines 3-14, and in DW,
3:348, lines 1-3, for major references to God as "nothing." See Pr. no. 10, in DW, 1:173, lines
2-5, for reference to the indistinction of the Godhead. See Pr. no. 10, in DW, 1:171, line 15, and
1:172, line 1; Pr. no. 12, in DW, 1:193, line 4; Pr. no. 28, in DW, 2:66, line 6; Pr. no. 29, in DW,
2:77, line 1; Pr. no. 48, in DW, 2:420, line 9; Pr. no. 60, in DW, 3:21, lines 1-2; Pr. no. 81, in DW,
3:400, line 4; Pr. no. 86, in DW, 3:488, line 19; and the Liber benedictus, in DW, 5:119, lines 2-7,
for references to the desert. For further analysis of the desert metaphor, consult McGinn, "The
God beyond God" (n. 6 above), p. 5, n. 13.
27 The quote is from Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology, chap. 1, par. 1, taken from
Dionysius the Areopagite: The Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, trans. C. E. Rolt (London:
SPCK Press, 1983), p. 192.
257
(Dionysian darkness) God. Instead, salvation is premised on undoing both
the ontological structures that make the road possible and the intentioned
end of the journey: God. For Eckhart, liberation entails a moment of true
nothingness, when reality is "neither this nor that."28 To retain the sense
of radical uncertainty the soul encounters as true freedom, Eckhart
applies the insights of the desert to the language of Christian metaphysics
and shows the "how" of breakthrough-a feat he accomplishes by follow-
ing the soul's movement beyond the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into the
naked Godhead.29
Following the path of negation, the very foundation of Christian me

physics must be "let go" and "let be" in order to enter the most indist
of indistinctions, to be One. While at times he distinctly implies the pr
ity of the abyss, Eckhart never strays very far from the theistic infrastr
ture that is intregral to the dynamism of his thought and to t
metaphysical breakthrough he unveils.30 His theology retains a c
terminous reciprocity between the indistinction of the God beyond
and the plenitude of the trinitarian life.3 For the Meister, distinction
indistinction, Trinity and One are intimately interrelated: "I on
preached in Latin ... that the distinction in the Trinity comes from
unity. The unity is the distinction, and distinction is the unity. The greate
the distinction, the greater the unity, for that is distinction without disti
tion."32 The startling power of Eckhart's mystical theology rests squar
on this dynamic relationalism that is not subverted or compromised in
of a final, metaphysical end. In Eckhart's thought, differences are n
brought to closure in the face of a higher, more transcendent rea
28 Various statements of this theme are present in Eckhart's thought. One of the more fam
instances, which attracted the attention of his inquisitors, is from Pr. no. 3, in DW (n. 7 ab
vol. 1, "God is neither this nor that. A master says: 'Whoever imagines that he has unders
God, if he knows anything, it is not God that he knows"' (McGinn and Tobin, eds. and trans. [n
above], p. 256).
29 One of Eckhart's more famous quotes is found in Pr. no. 48, in DW, 2:419, line 3,
2:420, lines 1-10, where he says, "This spark [of the soul] rejects all created things, and wa
nothing but its naked God, as he is in himself... this same light ... wants to go into the sim
ground, into the quiet desert, into which distinction never gazed, not the Father, nor the
nor the Holy Spirit" (Colledge and McGinn, eds. and trans. [n. 6 above], p. 198).
30 The priority of the divine abyss has been underscored by more than one scholar.
McGinn, "Theological Summary" (n. 6 above), pp. 35-38; Cousins (n. I above), pp. 119
Caputo, "Fundamental Themes," pp. 197-98; Schiirmann, "The Loss of Origin in Soto Zen
Meister Eckhart" (n. 1 above), and Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher, pp. 85-92. For furth
discussion on the theistic substructure in Eckhart's thought, see n. 8 above; and Bernard McG
"Meister Eckhart: An Introduction," in An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe, ed. P
E. Szarmach (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1984), pp. 237-57; Oliver Davies, God Within: The M
tical Tradition of Northern Europe (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), pp. 40-59.
3' For references to the fullness of life in Eckhart, see Cousins, pp. 123-26; Caputo, "Fun
mental Themes," pp. 197-98; McGinn, "Theological Summary," pp. 34-39.
"2Pr. no. 10, in DW, 1:173, lines 2-5; Walsche, ed. and trans. (n. 8 above), 2:145.
258
rather, he risks openness and uncovers one set of hermeneutical tools for
the determinate, trinitarian life and another for the indistinction and
nondualism of the desert. Further, Eckhart does not leave these two
domains distinct but, instead, climbs up the metaphysical ladder of Chris-
tianity to show a pathway from distinction to indistinction, and back again,
into the lived life, based on the logos structure itself.
As we have seen, the epistemological approach traces one dimension of
Eckhart's nothingness, but not its whole essence. Buddhism understands
the nonsubstantializing "thusness" (Tathata) but does not have (or need to
have) the language to explain its relationship to the determinate divinity
in a Christian context. I believe a more adequate reading of Eckhart's
inner logic lies in the following line of investigation. In addition to these
two uses of nothingness is a third that takes on another and wholly unique
perspective: the metaphysical/ontological nothingness that emerges from
logocentric roots. Eckhart, as an inheritor of the classical tradition, uncov-
ers the metaphysics of nothingness intrinsic to Western thought and,
therefore, related to the very theistic structure that remains a dynamic
part of his entire theological corpus. This nothingness is not only beyond
the metaphysical, antimetaphysical, or transmetaphysical; nor is it only a
linguistic strategy pointing toward the purity of essence. It is a nothing-
ness birthed into being with theism, without which determination could
not "be," and the prior ground given for its trans-form-ation. Where the
theistic God emerges, the nothingness does, too: "When the soul comes
into the One, entering into the pure loss of self, it finds God as in Nothing-
ness. ... In this Nothingness God was born. He was the fruit of Nothing-
ness; God was born in Nothingness."33 Eckhart underscores the undoing
intrinstic to all coming to be, even at the intradivine level, by distinguish-
ing the ground and fount of the Godhead as the locus where "God
becomes and unbecomes."34 Thus the ontological condition "to be"
precontains the existential letting go, or death, in which the pathway of
liberation is encoded in its original nature. For Eckhart, theism and the
inner trinitarian relations are the pathway to ultimate openness and free-
dom; they reflect the paradigm of transformation precontained in the
abyssal birth.35 In the mystery of the inner divine nature, theism is the
33Pr. no. 71, in DW, 3:224, lines 4-7, and 3:225, line 1; also see McGinn, "God beyond God,"
p. 10.
S4 "God and Godhead are as different as heaven and earth. I say further: the inner and the
outer man are as different as heaven and earth. But God is loftier by many thousands of miles.
God becomes and unbecomes" (Pr. no. 26, in Q [n. 10 above], p. 272, lines 13-17; and Walsche,
ed. and trans., 2:80).
35 It is because the Father pours into the Son all that he is that the Son's birth in eternity and,
by extension, in the world precontains the mystery of the soul's return to the Father's unbegotten
indistinction. Eckhart states: "I have often said that through this act in God, the birth wherein the
Father bears His only-begotten Son, through this outflowing there proceeds the Holy Ghost, that
259
desert and the desert is theism;36 thus at the base of the logos structure,
metaphysics, ontology, language, and the spiritual journey rests a noth-
ingness that both delimits and deconstructs reality, drawing the soul to the
source of its original openness and freedom.
In the generation of the Son in eternity, the Father pours into the Son
all that he is; thus Christ the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, con-
tains in himself the paradox of fullness and emptiness, theism and
a-theism. It seems that one could make a valid extrapolation from the
eternal self-giving to Jesus' historical death on the cross and conclude that,
for Eckhart, Christ is the deconstruction of ontology, for he embodies the
collapse of the transcendent-immanent distance by reenacting in history
the double kenosis that occurs within the divine nature, and must, there-
fore, be mystically present in the "now" of the world for salvation to take
place.37 In Eckhart is found a profound mystical understanding of this
twofold kenosis: the one occurs in the bullitio, the "boiling over,"38 of the
the Spirit proceeds from both, and in this procession the soul is outpoured, and that the image of
the Godhead is imprinted on the soul; and in the outflowing and return of the three Persons the
soul is poured back; being reformed into her primal and imageless image" (Pr. no. 50, in DW,
2:456, lines 7-13; Walsche, ed. and trans., 2:318). And again, "The eternal Word did not take
upon itself this man or that, but it took upon itself one free, indivisible human nature, bare and
without image.... And since, in this assumption, the eternal Word took on human nature
imagelessly, therefore the Father's image, which is the eternal Son, became the image of human
nature. So it is just as true to say that man became God as that God became man. Thus human
nature was transformed by becoming the divine image, which is the image of the Father" (Pr. no.
46, in DW, 2:379, line 6; 2:380, lines 1-5; 2:381, lines 1-2; Walsche, ed. and trans., 2:27-28).
36 "In the One, 'God-Father-Son-and-Holy Spirit' are stripped of every distinction and prop-
erty and are one" (Colledge and McGinn, eds. and trans., p. 227). And again, "The distinction in
the Trinity comes from the unity. The unity is the distinction, and distinction is the unity" (see
n. 32 above).
37 While scholars are in agreement that the Meister's texts are short on references to the his-
torical Jesus and his passion, I believe this is the result of Eckhart's mystical concentration on the
intradivine aspect, over the historical or ad extra component. Despite a lack of abundant refer-
ences, the centrality of the absolute self-giving of Christ's death is not compromised in Eckhart
but, rather, forms an implicit foundation for many of Eckhart's more controversial themes, e.g.,
detachment, poverty of spirit, the oneness of the soul and the Godhead, etc. In Eckhart's own
words from Latin Sermon no. 45 (LW [n. 7 above], 4:374-87): "The arms of the kingdom of
heaven and of Christians is the cross ... in light itself. ... While he was hanging on the cross, the
author of mercy divided up his inheritance, willing persecution to the apostles, peace to the disci-
ples, his body to the Jews, his spirit to his Father, [John] the 'best man' to the Virgin Mary, para-
dise to the thief, hell to sinners, and the cross to penitent Christians. ... This is why it says in
Matthew 16, 'If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and fol-
low me' ... 'after me.' Many wish to come along with Christ, but not after Christ. Thus 'it was
necessary for Christ to suffer and so to enter into his glory.'... Third, he says 'after me' by inspir-
ing us to follow, since he goes before us, struggling in our behalf.... Christ, who conquered for
us once and for all, is always conquering in us." Further, Eckhart says we ought to carry Christ's
cross in four ways: through (1) "frequent and devout remembrance of the Lord's passion," (2)
"hatred of sin," (3) "giving up the world's pleasures," and (4) "mortification of the flesh and com-
passion for our neighbor" (McGinn and Tobin, eds. and trans., pp. 227-33).
38 Eckhart says, "This is why the formal emanation in the divine Persons is a type of bullitio, and
thus the three Persons are simply and absolutely one" (Comm. Jn. [n. 7 above], par. 342 [in LW,
260
Trinity from the nothingness of the desert and in which the Father pours
the totality of his divinity into the Son;39 the other occurs in the ebullitio,
"flowing out,"40 of the Trinity toward creation, and the Son's self-
emptying of his divinity for the sake of the world.
I believe it is in this kenotic context that Eckhart's dialectical stance on
indistinction and distinction (God as One and Three) can be understood:
(a) the distinction within the Persons is the indistinction based on the
inner divine bullitio, or self-birth from the womb of nothingness; (b) the
distinction that takes place in the flowing out of creation from its
Principle/Logos is reversed by the path of indistinction that occurs in the
absolute self-emptying of Christ on the cross. Three things now occur in
Eckhart's thought that no doubt contributed to the unease of his inquisi-
tors: (1) the soul mystically reenacts the twofold emptiness; (2) the soul
mystically gives birth to the Son and, therefore, in its ground is beyond
the distinction of transcendent and immanent; (3) the moment of kenosis,
which in Eckhartian language is "radical detachment," is an absolute one
and, therefore, cannot be assigned predicates.
In the light of the first proposal, that the soul mystically experiences the
twofold detachment, Eckhart's radical stances take on new meaning. The
first kenosis takes place in a "breakthrough" (durchbruch) where the soul
as a "virgin" strips itself of images-even of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit-to enter the naked Godhead.41 This radical poverty of spirit is
necessary to reverse the process of creation by which the soul knows of its
creatureliness and therefore creates "god." To return to blessedness, to
the exuberant life of the uncreated ground, the soul mystically experi-
ences the radical death of the Son, which is that moment when the Logos
reenters the abyss and metaphysics is undone. The utter emptiness of the
soul, and its radical detachment from all created things, create a place in
3:29 1]). Again, "'I am who am' (Ex. 3:14), ... further indicates a bullitio or giving birth to itself,
and melting and boiling in and into itself" (Comm. Ex. [n. 7 above], numera 16 [in LW, 2:21-22]).
Translations are from Colledge and McGinn, eds. and trans., p. 37. For further elucidation of
these themes, see McGinn's "Theological Summary" and notes, as well as his article "God beyond
God" (n. 6 above).
39 "The first break-out and the first melting forth is where God liquifies and where he melts
into his Son and where the Son melts back into the Father" (Pr. no. 35, in DW [n. 7 above], 2:180,
lines 5-7, and McGinn's translation in "Theological Summary," p. 38).
40 "'Life' bespeaks a type of pushing out by which something swells up in itself and first breaks
out totally in itself, each part into each part, before it pours itself forth and boils over on the out-
side [ebulliat]" (Comm. Ex., par. 16 [in LW, 2:21-22]; and College and McGinn, eds. and trans.
[n. 6 above], p. 37).
41 For some key texts on the "breakthrough," see Pr. nos. 15, 26, 29, 48, 52, and 84. "Virgin" is
a favorite Eckhartian image that conveys the soul's detachment from all created things: "'Virgin'
is as much as to say a person who is free of all alien images, as free as he was when he was not"
(Pr. no. 2, in DW, 1:24, line 8, and 1:25, lines 1-2; also see Colledge and McGinn, eds. and
trans., p. 177).
261
which God must work and in which the birth of the Son occurs. The exitus
and reditus of the soul from the uncreated ground parallels the unceasing
generation of the Son ad intra and his return and resurrection through
death on the cross ad extra. Yet, the self-emptying of the soul is not final-
ized in the stillness and indistinction of the Godhead but flows out again
bearing the gifts of a "wife" and gives birth to the self-same Son in the
ground or "spark" of the soul. For Eckhart, the resurrected or new exis-
tence takes place in this life when the soul as a virginal wife lives out of its
own ground: "A virgin who is a wife is free and unpledged, without attach-
ment; she is always equally close to God and to herself. She produces much
fruit, and it is great, neither less nor more than is God himself."42 The
movement of the soul from radical detachment ("virgin") to the exuber-
ance of a fruitful life ("wife") follows the dynamic pattern of the intra-
divine kenosis. In Eckhart's thought, then, the theistic structure is not the
prelude to a deeper life that is finally transcended in lieu of a transhistor-
ical silence but (1) the necessary element required for the ultimate self-
emptying and transformation into a life lived "without why" and (2) the
recipient or structure, now fully detached, in which this new life is birthed
in the here and now of the temporal world.
If Eckhart had been content with the received wisdom concerning the
birth of the Son in the soul, he no doubt would have ameliorated some of
the attacks made against him.43 Instead, it is in reference to his
reappropriation of a profoundly Christian insight-the mysticism of the
birth of the Son in the ground of the soul-that the Meister betrays the
depth and profound creativity of his vision and departs from classical
Christian thought. According to Eckhart, to enter the naked Godhead the
soul must be fully detached from all created things; hence, in such a soul,
God must work.44 The soul, in passing through images and all categories
of existents-even the Trinity-dies to its distinction and mystically gives
birth to the Son. But the generation of the Son in eternity involves an
intradivine kenosis, and therefore the birth of the Son also must be a full-
ness that emerges from the radical detachment and self-emptiness of the
soul. The soul, if it could "naught" itself for one moment, would experi-
42 See DW, 1:30, lines 3-5; and Colledge and McGinn, eds. and trans., p. 178.
43 The birth of the Son imagery has a long history in Christian mysticism. For a detailed analy-
sis of the sources of this idea, see Hugo Rahner, "Die Gottesgeburt: Die Lehre der Kirchenvater
von der Geburt Christi im Herzen der Glaubigen," Zeitschriftfiir katholischen Theologie 59 (1935):
333-418.
44 According to Eckhart, in a fully detached soul God must work: "Indeed, when a ma
unpreoccupied, and the active intellect within him is silent, then God must take up the
must be the master-workman who begets Himself in the passive intellect" (Pr. no. 3; W
and trans. [n. 8 above], 1:30). Again, "First, because the best thing about love is that i
me to love God, yet detachment compels God to love me" (On Detachment, in Coll
McGinn, eds. and trans., p. 286).
262
ence all the blessedness of its uncreated ground.45 It is because of this

moment of nothingness, when the self is annihilated, that Eckhart now
says that "my eye and God's eye are one seeing and one knowing and one
loving."46 The transcendent-immanent distance is mended, and the
wound in consciousness healed, through the soul's reenacting the mystery
of emptiness at the heart of Being. Thus Eckhart is not saying the soul is
God-this is not a monistic statement in the sense of one-on-one
identity-but, rather, that the soul "gods" itself when it mystically un
goes the self-same process of ultimate emptiness, a process that
Meister calls "detachment": "It [detachment] then draws a man into pu
and from purity into simplicity, and from simplicity into unchangeabilit
and these things produce an equality between God and the man."47
now that the transformed soul lives where life springs forth out of its ow
ground and, following the path of Martha, who leads a life of active
templation, finds the "better part" in this world.48
Thus we arrive at the very crucial third point in Eckhart scholars
Precisely because Eckhart sees the path of emptiness, and the effec
traces in terms of metaphysical dialectics and linguistic deconstructio
emerge from an intradivine kenosis, his theology cannot be christocen
in the normally accepted use of the term. In other words, while I be
the hidden element in Eckhart's thought is a christocentric nothingne
is this very metaphysical nothingness that cannot, and will not, culm
in any kind of substantial theology and, therefore, cannot rest at any fin
and definitive revelation of God. The very mystery of the twofold ke
intrinsic to Christian thought always points beyond itself never resting o
final identity. Therefore, the true "end" of the soul is not trinitari
christocentric, or necessarily tradition-centered, but the nothingness
is "neither this nor that." In terms of Christian mysticism, the mom
when Christ reenters the abyss is an absolute one, and therefore God
45 "If you could naught yourself for an instant, indeed I say less than an instant, you would
sess all that this [the desert] is in itself" (Pr. no. 28, in DW, 2:66, lines 7-9; Walsche, ed. and tr
1:144.
46Pr. no. 12, in DW, 1:201, lines 6-8; Colledge and McGinn, eds. and trans., p. 270.
47 In DW, 5:412-13; Colledge and McGinn, eds. and trans., p. 288. For a contemporary an
sis of the problem of monism in Christian mysticism, see Grace Jantzen, "'Where Two A
Become One': Mysticism and Monism," in Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series, no. 2
Philosophy in Christianity, ed. Godfrey Vesey (New York: Cambridge University Press, 198
147-66.
48 One of the more interesting themes in Eckhart is his reversal (see Pr. no. 2) of the
Martha story: "Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things, and yet f
needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from
(Luke 10:41-43). In the usual reading, Mary is assigned the better part as she sits at the f
Jesus and quietly contemplates his message, while Martha actively bustles about. In a reve
this traditional rendering, Eckhart assigns Martha the superior role, in that she has lear
live a life of active contemplation in the world.
263
not be a God of predicates but that which is indistinct, unspoken. Eckhart
is no longer in the silence of the Father but in silence, abyss, wiiste. The
desert of the Godhead is not an element outside the Trinity or Christ but
"that" in which the Trinity empties itself of distinction for the freedom of
its own oneness and indistinction. It is this nothingness of the Godhead
that liberates consciousness and that draws the soul through the metaphys-
ics of being, beyond being and nonbeing, to the ultimate openness of the
desert, and back again to experience liberation in history. For the Meister,
it is his seminal insight into the nothingness of the desert that frees him
from the confines of a fixed and static theism and in which his a-theistic
and unchristocentric theology can be understood.
Seen from this perspective, the main thrust of the German sermons
reveals a sustained working out of a theistic metaphysics of nothingness in
light of the desert of the Godhead. Eckhart insists that absolute negation
takes place not only within the soul but also within God itself: God
becomes and unbecomes. Thus no longer encountering divinity solely
from the revealed distinction of the Trinity, but following the Trinity as it
empties into the wilderness of the Godhead, Eckhart comes face to face
with a dynamic liberation intrinsic to theism itself. The dialectical rela-
tionships in Eckhart's theology are necessary for preserving ultimate
openness, an openness that takes place for him in the intradivine kenosis,
the Son, and therefore in the soul, the world, ontology, epistemology, lan-
guage, and metaphysics. The openness to the question is not stilled by the-
ism but preserved in a different way; the capacity for abyssal existence is
the potentiality in which self-emptying occurs in the very historicity of the
person. It is because of his seminal insight concerning the desert of the
Godhead that Eckhart's texts are astir with heterodox rumblings and that
he is able to uncover the end of Christian metaphysics that is precontained
in the beginning. Thus the path of salvation does not end in Eckhart's
mysticism with the reditus and breakthrough into the abyss but must be
followed as it pours forth again into the Trinity and the determination of
one's own existence. It is from this perspective that Eckhart's most radical
thought emerges, culminating in a theology that, no longer bound to
uphold ontological certainty, turns on end the classical metaphysical
thinking of his time.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
This article has attempted to show that the relationship betwe

and nothingness in Eckhart can be understood in terms of
kenotic metaphysics, or movement, from distinction to indistin
takes place ad intra in the welling up of the three Persons and t
tion of the Son and which has an ad extra expression in the deat
264
urrection of Christ.49 The desert for Eckhart is one pole of a dynamic

soteriology that not only breaks through substantial metaphysics but also
traces a path of transformation of the determinate divinity in its reditus as
it reenters the abyss and its exitus from the womb of nothingness. His mys-
tical perplexity, therefore, also must be seen in light of this dynamic pro-
cess. From the side of return, as the soul undergoes a radical detachment
and breaks through all "gods," it is possible to interpret, along with Bud-
dhist scholars, Eckhart's dialectics as an antimetaphysical, a-theistic stance
that is not fully complete. Here he follows the nothingness of the logos
structure, the nothingness of metaphysics, and the nothingness of ontol-
ogy in the moment when the determinate divinity empties into the naked
Godhead. The radicalness of Eckhart's thought can be followed to the
flowing back of the Trinity into the One, which is exemplified historically
in the utter and absolute abandonment of distinction on the cross. How-
ever, after reentering the abyss, in the moment of pure self-giving, the
soul encounters an ontological nothingness-nothingness itself, that
occurs for Eckhart because of the intradivine movement from distinction
to indistinction. Theism is essential for ultimate openness, according to
the Meister, because precontained in the mystery of Person-and hence
time, space, history, metaphysics, and the like-is the existential "letting
go" or intradivine kenosis. Thus in Eckhart's mystical logic these two
categories-theism and a-theism, Trinity and nothingness-must re-
main in intimate relationship. It is because of the very openness of
theism, which arises from its simultaneous birth out of nothingness,
that the human person can return to the ground of divinity and salvation
occurs.
I now want to return to the two categories of nothin

logical and pragmatic) presented in the beginning o
the above proposed perspective. First, as noted ear
the negativity of the intellect, contemporary scho
postmodern and deconstructive element in Eckhar
49 Eckhart primarily focuses on the intradivine structures of re

archetypal expression. As noted by numerous commentators, how
itly explore the birth and death dimension of the historical Jesus b
eternal birth in the soul. In the sermon, Dum medium silentium,
clearly states that the birth of Christ in time and human nature is o
tion: "What does it avail me that this birth is always happening, if it
while Eckhart does not explicitly develop the ad extra dimension o
tion, he does develop, according to his soul mysticism, an ad intra
Son in the soul. It is in this interior christology that Eckhart see
intradivine kenosis and in which the soul becomes the self-same Son i
tions, even the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to enter the hidden c
soul and the ground of the Godhead are one. I believe this metaph
devotional chistological language that takes shape in Suso, and e
flowers in Ruusbroec and later in John of the Cross.
265
content with God in his "antechamber" but seeks the naked wiiste, where
God is free of all names. For Eckhart, to think that from which the entire
tradition springs and, more important, to reenact the ontological "letting
be" is to follow the metaphysics of being to its origin-there where it is
undone. It is precisely because of the liberating force of nothingness
precontained in the mystery of theism, that the Word/Logos, and that
which emerges from it-metaphysics, ontology, and the like-cannot be
static constructs superimposed on Being. In other words, for Eckhart, God
becomes and unbecomes, and therefore the flux of existence is precon-
tained in the intradivine process that transforms or undoes the entire
ground from which being comes "to be" or, in more Christian terms, that
moment when Christ the Logos mystically flows out from and returns to
the abyss of divinity. It is from a mystical perspective that Eckhart uncov-
ers a profoundly liberating and modern apprehension of a God who, from
the vantage point of nothingness, expresses the divine nature which itself
never comes to closure. If Eckhart's ontology and epistemology of detach-
ment are "on the way" toward the fullness and indistinction of the God-
head, this is so because the very capacity to "unbecome" is mystically
contained in the "origin" of tradition and is thus also present in language,
being, metaphysics, and so on. The Meister shows the futility of language
and signifiers not solely because they are historically conditioned signs but
also because the force of liberation intrinsic to consciousness-that spirit
which defies the notion of absolute speech-is itself divine. Hence the
deconstructive reading would appear to Eckhart, I believe, as an effect, ves-
tige, or residue of this intradivine emptiness that traces a pathway in lan-
guage to the origin of releasement and ultimate openness and, thus,
salvation.
Second, because thinking takes place in history and thus in language,

ultimately there cannot be a metaphysics of presence because all "coming
to be" is on the way to "that" which is beyond both being and nonbeing.
Eckhart, knowing the futility of substantialist thought, shows why meta-
physics can be "let be," what makes it possible to be free of "God" and the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The truly radical thing he does is not to put
the blame on human frailty or history or on negative theology that
prescinds from final knowing. Rather, he sees the "why," the "cause," to
be the very source of this freedom; God is the "why without why." God is
that which "lets be." The desert of the Godhead is the ontological noth-
ingness that draws consciousness outside the dialectical boundaries of
being and nonbeing into the indistinction and splendor of life. It is
because the Word is both fullness and emptiness, both silence and speech,
that the soul has the potential to live "without why" (sunder warumbe). The
possibility for new and transformed language, and the uncreated freedom
of existence, arise from the indistinction that is contained in distinction:
266
the nothingness in the Word. Metaphysics must be nothingness; and

hence can there be heretical speech?
While Boundless Openness is the goal of enlightenment and salvation
for a Buddhist, Eckhart, confronted with the death of Christ on the cross,
takes a seemingly opposite path. To the Meister, salvation is achieved
through entering into and breaking through the metaphysics of being, a
feat he accomplishes by tracing the effects of a radical "letting be"
(Gelassenheit) of God that takes place in the detached soul. While both
Buddhist scholars and Eckhart might agree on the ultimate soteriological
value of passing beyond theism, the ontological path they pursue is very
different in each case. For Eckhart, breakthrough and salvation occur
through entering into Christian metaphysics, and passing beyond the three
Persons, as a necessary condition for liberation in the abyss-a liberation
that takes place in and returns to the determinate divinity following a radi-
cal breakthrough in the desert of the Godhead. For Eckhart the pathway
of detachment is precontained in the mystery of being as giving rise to
both the ontological condition "to be" and the existential "letting go." In
complement to the Buddhist position, Eckhart sees nothingness as the ulti-
mate negation of distinction and, hence, all metaphysical speculation, but
in addition he also sees it as the womb from which the liberation from dis-
tinction takes place in the here and now of the historical world. Thus, in
Eckhart is found a movement from emptiness (desert of the Godhead) to
form (Trinity) and from form back to emptiness centered in the inner life
of divinity. To adopt a Buddhist viewpoint, we might say that for Eckhart
distinction is not indistinction until the moment of breakthrough (of
metaphysics, ontology, etc.), and indistinction is not distinction until the
moment of birth in its flowing out from the abyss. At all levels, the deter-
minate divinity, following its path of detachment, breaks apart or is eman-
cipated from its own self-distinction in the nothingness (or in Christian
terms, in Christ's death on the cross), and emptiness, following its path of
kenosis, or openness, pours its divinity or ultimacy into the archetypal
form, or Son.
Rather than asserting that Absolute Nothingness is fully grasped in the
Buddhist context, I would be more inclined to say that "nothingness" has
two pathways: one from the side of theism, in which it is concerned with
the transformative potentiality of form and, thus, history, time, and
matter; and the other from the side of nontheism, which focuses on the
limitless openness that, equidistant from all positions, affirms and pre-
serves the mysterious exuberance and newness of life. In keeping with
Buddha's enlightenment experience, dynamic isnyata reveals the pro-
foundly startling self-emptying Real, which is absolute by virtue of its ulti-
mate emptiness. In Eckhart, however, ontological nothingness, and the
dynamic, a-theistic exuberance of his thought occurs because the theistic
267
God reenters the abyss, and all metaphysical certainty is undone. Perhaps
the relationship of these two varieties of nothingness can be understood as
simply this. Buddhism, born out of the soil of Hindu monism, brings to
spiritual consciousness a radical nothingness equidistant from all posi-
tions, and neither theistic nor nontheistic. Eckhart, while he also uncovers
a nothingness beyond "this or that," focuses not on nothingness itself but
on the movement from distinction to indistinction that occurs in the inner
life of divinity.
From the classical Christian perspective of his day, Eckhart was accused
of heresy, a label he stoutly denied, primarily because, I believe, he was
bringing into speech an integral aspect of Christianity as yet unspoken,
and one with potentially threatening implications. In the German ser-
mons, we find an Eckhart pushing against the boundaries of Christian
metaphysics and breaking through the walls of dogma, substantialist lan-
guage, and popular piety. For Eckhart, nothingness was profoundly seri-
ous and real, and it was to the depths of its liberation, where the soul is
freed from "god" and God is finally "let be" that he harnessed his atten-
tion. Thus it can be seen that Eckhart develops a very particular and
dynamic road to salvation, a road that is intimately related to creation
itself. His Mary-Martha story, in which the Meister assigns superiority to
the active life over against the traditional priority given to the contempla-
tive life, may be seen to be a Western mystical version of the "samsazra is
nirvana" of the Buddhist world. For Eckhart, samsara is nirvana (condi-
tioned reality is Boundless Openness) because of the metaphysics of break-
through intrinsic to the nature of ultimate reality itself and precontained
in the Christian message via the twofold eternal birth from nothingness,
which returns (1) the Son to the fullness and mysterious abyss of the
Father and (2) the Trinity to the oneness and indistinction of the desert.
268

Three Categories of Nothingness in Eckhart

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Three Categories of Nothingness in Eckhart

Author(s): Beverly J. Lanzetta

Beverly J. Lanzetta / villanova University

Eckhart's exuberant mysticism has attracted wide attention from think-

In this article I am particularly interested in exploring what I consider

There is a tendency, therefore, either to ignore Eckhart's ontol

NOTHINGNESS AND UNKNOWING

The first order of nothingness to be discussed in Eckhart is epist

12 See Caputo, "The Nothingness of the Intellect" (n. 1 above).

The second category of nothingness might be termed "p

16 The nothingness of God, the nothingness of creatures: see Caputo, "Th

also would negate substantial metaphysics. Thus, in comparing the desert

quently that Sisnyata is its ultimate or universal expression. The risk of

THE DESERT OF THE GODHEAD AND "CHRISTOCENTRIC" NOTHINGNESS

The above interpretations-the one Buddhist, the other epistemo-

beginning of this article: what is the relationship between theistic meta-

While Eckhart affirms the centrality of the abyss, he departs from

Following the path of negation, the very foundation of Christian me

ence all the blessedness of its uncreated ground.45 It is because of this

This article has attempted to show that the relationship betwe

urrection of Christ.49 The desert for Eckhart is one pole of a dynamic

I now want to return to the two categories of nothin

49 Eckhart primarily focuses on the intradivine structures of re

Second, because thinking takes place in history and thus in language,

the nothingness in the Word. Metaphysics must be nothingness; and

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