MEDIEVAL MYSTICAL THEOLOGY

2019, VOL. 28, NO. 1, 3–13

https://doi.org/10.1080/20465726.2019.1620488

Eckhart, Aquinas, and the Problem of Intrinsic Goods

Reginald Mary Chua
Catholic Theological College, University of Divinity, Camberwell, Australia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
I discuss Eckhart’s and Aquinas’ conception of human-divine union Meister Eckhart; Thomas
with reference to what I call the problem of intrinsic goods, a Aquinas; Germain Grisez;
problem concerning how to reconcile the pursuit of actions which union; deification; creation
are prima facie sought for their own sake (e.g. pursuing justice for
the marginalized, listening to a work of music) with the pursuit of
God as the ultimate end of every action. I introduce the problem
with the help of Germain Grisez’s critique of Aquinas’ account of
union with God, and I suggest that Eckhart’s alternative
conception of union may be understood as an attempt to resolve
(or dissolve) the problem.

1. Introduction
The necessities of circumstance and our human condition require that our earthly life
consist of many varied activities: the pursuit of justice, the pursuit of leisure, the preser-
vation of our bodily health, and so on. However, according to a prominent strand of
the Christian tradition, our life is one that ought to be lived in union with God.1 How
are we to understand the relationship between the ultimate pursuit of union with God,
and the more immediate earthly pursuits which are necessary parts of our earthly spiritual
life? In this paper, I explore two conceptions of what our union with God consists in, due
to Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart respectively. I consider the implications of their
conceptions of union with God for how we ought to conduct our earthly lives in union
with God. In particular, I evaluate their conceptions with reference to a problem which
I call the problem of intrinsic goods (a problem I will define in the next section of this
paper). I introduce the problem as one which arises from several assumptions implicit
in Aquinas’ account of union with God, and I suggest that Eckhart’s alternative conception
of union may be understood as an attempt to resolve (or dissolve) this problem.
This paper is structured as follows: in section two, I briefly introduce the question of
how humans are united to God. In section three, I discuss Aquinas’ conception of
union, before discussing in section four its implications for we are to live in union with
God, and in particular, with the help of Germain Grisez’s recent criticisms of Aquinas,
I discuss the way it gives rise to the problem of intrinsic goods. In section five, I discuss

CONTACT Reginald Mary Chua reginaldmarychua@gmail.com Catholic Theological College, University of Divinity,
St Dominic’s Priory, 816 Riversdale Rd, Camberwell, VIC 3124, Australia
1
For instance, in the words of a recent magisterial statement of the Catholic Church, our “ultimate end is God himself”
(Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church [2004], n. 47; cf. Catechism
of the Catholic Church, English translation, 2nd ed. [1997], n. 2247).
© The Eckhart Society 2019
4 R. M. CHUA

Eckhart’s conception of union and in section six I consider the extent to which his con-
ception has the resources to dissolve the problem of intrinsic goods. I conclude in
section seven.
Before we begin, a note by way of caveat. The comparative nature of this paper unavoid-
ably raises the issue, hotly contested in recent times, of whether and in what sense Eckhart
could be called a ‘Thomist.’ Some, siding with Eckhart’s Franciscan contemporaries, have
regarded his views as clearly non-Thomistic and indeed outside the Christian main-
stream;2 others have suggested may be regarded as orthodox, even a Thomist.3 This
paper makes no attempt to answer this broader question of Eckhart’s overall relationship
to Aquinas (or indeed, to the wider Christian doctrinal and spiritual tradition). Hence, in
presenting Eckhart’s views, I make no attempt to accuse them (or defend them against the
charge) of unorthodoxy or anti-Thomism.4 What I do take my discussion of Eckhart and
Aquinas to show is that each can be seen as engaging with and responding to common
concerns (albeit in different ways, to different effects, and with varying levels of
success), and that their contrasting responses can be mutually illuminating for our under-
standing of both Eckhart and Aquinas.

2. Clarifying the question

To clarify the question of how we ought to live in union with God, it will be helpful for
present purposes to identify two separate questions:

(1) What does union with God consist in?

(2) What should the ultimate purpose of our actions consist in?

It may be thought that Scriptural answers,—indeed, one and the same Scriptural
answer—can be given to both questions, e.g. that union with God (and our ultimate
purpose) consist in the attaining of a corporate communion of believers in the Trinitarian
life of God;5 or in attaining charity and the seeing of God ‘face to face;’6 or, furthermore
(especially if one reads Scripture via a patristic lens), that entering into this Trinitarian
union of charity is one that elevates humans to share in the divine nature itself, such

2
Witness the conclusion of Kurt Flasch’s recent magisterial treatment of Eckhart:
One need not love Pope John XXII[…] [for] any other pope—no matter how high-minded—would have had to
condemn [Eckhart] dutifully. Eckhart’s dissent was blatant[…] Eckhart’s teachings in unmitigated form had no
place in the Christian self-understanding of the Roman Church from John XXII to Benedict XVI. (Flasch, Meister
Eckhart, 273).
3
Echoing recent trends in the Dominican Order pushing for a reversal of condemnatory attitudes toward Eckhart, Michael
Demkovich OP has this to say:
our defending Eckhart’s orthodox meaning is extremely important[…] it was Eckhart’s own conviction that his
intended understanding was orthodox. Defending Meister Eckhart requires a variety of strategies but the
most important principle for us to retain is the principle of orthodoxy. How is Eckhart consistent with the Catholic
faith and what value does such orthodoxy bring to our modern world? Such a defence contributes to the good of
all, a richer sense of the human project
(Demkovich, ‘Defending Meister Eckhart’, 34).
4
I do assume, however (in line with Demkovich’s point above) that a charitable reading of Eckhart requires recognizing that
his views are at least capable of being construed in an orthodox way.
5
Jn 17:21. For a discussion of this passage in Eckhart, cf. Commentary on John, n. 129–30, in 173.
6
Cf. 1 Cor 13:12-13.
 MEDIEVAL MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 5

that (to use Athanasius’ phrase) ‘we might be made God.’7 Aquinas and Eckhart would not
disagree with these answers as far as they go; indeed, they accept all these claims as theo-
logical data since they both regard the Scriptures as a pre-eminent theological source8 (and
they read Scripture through a patristic lens). However, importantly, Aquinas and Eckhart
also share a further commitment to the unity of faith and reason, which leads them to
provide a philosophically informed account of these theological data, i.e. an account
which goes beyond echoing the patristic and Scriptural witness by making precise meta-
physical claims about God, human beings, and their interrelationship.
It is in light of this further aim that Aquinas and Eckhart can be seen as ultimately
diverging in their considered answers to the foregoing questions. In particular, it is
helpful to note Bernard McGinn’s programmatic distinction between two ways of answer-
ing question 1:
In the history of Christian mysticism it is possible to distinguish two broad models of under-
standing union with God—union as the perfect uniting of the wills of the divine and human
lovers, the unitas spiritus suggested by the oft-cited text of 1 Corinthians 6:17 (Qui autem
adhaeret domino unus spiritus est); and union as indistinct identity between God and
human in what Eckhart called the grunt, or ein einic ein, “A Single One”.9

We can characterize McGinn’s distinction between the ‘union of wills’ and ‘indistinct
identity’ models as two distinct answers to question 1. In the sections that follow I will
reinforce the oft-made claim that Aquinas and Eckhart espouse a union of wills model
and an indistinct union model respectively; more importantly for this paper, I will go
on to argue that their diverging models of union are intimately tied to their diverging
respective answers to question 2. With this in mind, let us now turn to Aquinas’ model
of union.

3. Aquinas on divine union

Aquinas speaks of the union of human beings and God in many places and using a variety
of terms, such as deification (deificatio), participation (participatio), and communion
(communicatio). Scholars elsewhere have discussed these matters in considerable
detail;10 in what follows I will simply limit myself to considering one specific (but repre-
sentative) instance where Aquinas discusses the metaphysical nature of God’s union with
human beings, namely, article 3, question 8 in the first part of the Summa Theologiae
which discusses how God is present ‘in’ creatures.
There, we see Aquinas saying that God’s being ‘in’ creatures does not imply a physical
or concrete presence within creatures. Rather, it simply implies that certain kinds of
relationships hold between God and creatures. Aquinas does so first by providing a
careful interpretation of the scholastic maxim that God is everywhere ‘by essence,
power and presence.’11 Aquinas interprets the maxim as follows: being in something ‘by

7
Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi §54, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 4:65.
8
Cf. Summa Theologiae (henceforth ST), I q.1 a.5 for Aquinas on the dignity of Scripture as a source of theology; cf. Eckhart,
Commentary on John, §1 for Eckhart’s views on the truth of Sacred Scripture.
9
McGinn, The Mystical Thought, 147.
10
Cf. especially Cross, ‘Deification in Aquinas’, 106–32. My presentation of Aquinas on union is very much indebted to Cross;
however, for a contrary interpretation of Aquinas on these matters, cf. Williams, The Ground of Union.
11
ST I q.8 a.3.
6 R. M. CHUA

essence’ just means being the creator of that thing;12 being in something ‘by power and by
presence’ just means having control over and knowledge of (respectively) a thing, akin to
the way a king might have control over and knowledge of a subject.13 In short, God’s being
everywhere ‘by essence, power and presence,’ on Aquinas’ view, does not amount to God
being physically or concretely present in creation; rather, it amounts to God’s being the
creator of his creatures, having ultimate authority over them, and having full knowledge
of them.
Of course, God has a special relationship with human beings over and above all of cre-
ation. Aquinas thus devotes further attention to the way in which God is distinctively ‘in’
human beings:
[I]n another way [God] is in things as the object of operation is in the operator; and this is
proper to the operations of the soul, according as the thing known is in the one who knows;
and the thing desired in the one desiring. In this second way God is especially in the rational
creature, which knows and loves Him actually or habitually.14

Aquinas says that God is especially in a human being insofar as human beings can make
God the object, or aim, of their activities (in particular, the activities of knowing and
loving, i.e. faith and charity). The role of grace in our life of union with God, lies precisely
in the fact that human beings cannot know or love God by their own powers: ‘the rational
creature possesses this prerogative [of loving and knowing God] by grace … [God] is said
to be thus in the saints by grace.’15
What is crucial to note about Aquinas’ foregoing presentation of how God is in human
beings, is the way it illustrates Aquinas’ broader strategy in accounting for language about
union with God: Aquinas’ interpretation of that language is done in such a way as to main-
tain a very clear distinction between God and human beings. Even though Aquinas accepts
that God is in creatures and especially in human beings, he does not regard God to be in
any literal sense identical to human beings (or, for that matter, identical to any part or
aspect of human beings). Indeed, in light of this, Richard Cross has gone so far as to
call Aquinas a kind of ‘reductionist,’ in the sense that Aquinas regards the truths about
our union with God (and God’s presence in us) to consist in (or ‘reduce to’) truths
about God’s creative activity and the way we love and know God.

4. Aquinas on living in union with God

Aquinas’ conception of union with God has two important implications for how we live
out that union in our earthly life. Firstly, since Aquinas conceives of union primarily as an
activity by which we are united to a God who is otherwise distinct and separate from us, it
follows that the spiritual life in turn is paradigmatically based on doings rather than being.
(That is not to say that the doings are primarily our doings; they are still due to grace, and
hence primarily God’s doings. Nonetheless, they are still doings). Secondly, since Aquinas
holds that human beings are uniquely united with God only insofar as God is the object of
12
“He is in all things by His essence, inasmuch as He is present to all as the cause of their being” (ST I q.8 a.3 resp.).
13
“God is in all things by His power, inasmuch as all things are subject to His power; He is by His presence in all things, as all
things are bare and open to His eyes” (ST I q.8 a.3 resp.).
14
ST, I q.8 a.3 resp.
15
ST, I q.8 a.3 resp. It is worth noting that this applies also to the state of beatitude where the saints have the beatific vision:
for the beatific vision is nothing more than a perfected state of knowing (and loving) God.
 MEDIEVAL MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 7

our action, it follows that making God the object of our actions (again, not by our powers
or our achievement, but through God’s grace) is also fundamental to Aquinas’ conception
of the spiritual life.
These two implications may appear benign, and indeed align with a well-represented
strand of the Christian spiritual tradition. Nonetheless, they lead to a tension in
Aquinas’ account of the spiritual life which contemporary Thomists have highlighted in
recent decades: By centreing the spiritual life around actions which take God as their
object, does not Aquinas unduly devalue or denigrate those actions which, while not
taking God as their object, nevertheless seem integral to a balanced spiritual life?16 Con-
sider, for instance (among many possible examples) the act of helping a poor person for
the sake of justice, or playing a musical piece for the sake of leisure.17 What is distinctive
about these acts is that their ends (justice, leisure) are intrinsically valuable (as opposed to,
e.g. money, which is valuable only insofar as it is useful as a means to the pursuit of other
goods).18 Put differently, they seem to be goods which can intelligibly be sought as ‘reasons
with no further reasons,’19 i.e. objects sought for no reason beyond themselves. However, it
seems that if the foregoing presentation of Aquinas’ views is correct, Aquinas has no place
for these actions in a life of union with God; after all, he would have to regard acting for
such ‘intrinsic goods’ as of inferior moral and spiritual value compared to acting for the
ultimate end of union with God.20 The problem of providing a satisfying account of
these intrinsically valuable actions is what I call the ‘problem of intrinsic goods.’
Now, it is worth clarifying what the problem just mentioned is not. First, it is not saying
that we cannot or should not pursue justice and beauty for the sake of God (as if to do so
would be somehow to act immorally);21 the claim is simply that there seem to be least some
intrinsic goods other than the good of attaining union with God, and that (whatever else
we pursue these intrinsic goods for) one of the features of our spiritual life can and should
be the pursuit of these intrinsic goods precisely as intrinsic goods.

16
My presentation of this tension is inspired largely by the work of Germain Grisez and critics of Aquinas working in the
“New Natural Law” tradition (albeit without directly aligning with their own concerns or presentation of Aquinas). For
citations, cf. footnotes 17–19.
17
These examples are inspired by Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 81–97.
18
This contrast between the good of money and the good of leisure is from George, In Defense of Natural Law, 45–8.
19
To use a phrase from Grisez et al., ‘Practical Principles, Moral Truth, and Ultimate Ends’,110.
20
It is worth noting at this point a well-known reply available to Aquinas: we need not consciously make something the
object of an action, in order for that thing to in fact constitute the object of that action (cf. ST, I-II q.1 a.6 resp.). Consider,
e.g. if one were to begin preparing to clean their teeth in the morning even in the absence of any consciously formed
intention to clean their teeth. If this is right, then even actions apparently undertaken for justice’s sake alone, would in fact
still have God as their purpose or object. In this case, the objection to Aquinas’ line of thinking can be stated as follows:
Insofar as Aquinas’ account of the spiritual life requires subordinating all actions towards the goal of union with God,
either it fails to account for, or else it misdescribes (by characterizing as for the sake of God) many earthly actions
which are prima facie undertaken for reasons independent of the seeking of union with God, yet which seem integral
to our spiritual life.
21
A criticism of Aquinas along these lines is placed in the mouth of Eckhart by John M. Connolly, when he describes
Aquinas’ account of human action (according to which every act is for the sake of happiness) as one which, in light
of his broader ethical framework, “places intention for Thomas squarely within the mercantile framework” which
Eckhart condemned as fundamentally egoistic (Connolly, Living Without Why, 200). Now, whether or not Eckhart’s criti-
cism of mercantilism does in fact have Aquinas as an implied target (and I am not persuaded that Eckhart does), I think it
is in any case a criticism that does not hold water against Aquinas. For subordinating goods to the end of happiness which
is found in beatific union with God does not require that one pursue those goods for one’s personal gain. To think so
would be to fail to distinguish between (i) pursuing a subordinate good for the sake of personal gain, and (ii) pursuing
a subordinate good for the intrinsic good of the ultimate end (whatever that end may be). My assumption here is that
union with God (just like justice or leisure) is an intrinsic good which need not be pursued for a further end (e.g. personal
pleasure or satisfaction). For more on this distinction, cf. Toner, ‘Was Aquinas an Egoist?,’ 577–608.
8 R. M. CHUA

Second, the problem does not suggest that we should be pursuing anything and every-
thing for its own sake (as if anything at all could be an ‘intrinsic good’). While it is true that
the question of which things count as intrinsic goods is a vexed one, one need not provide
an answer to that question before one is able to recognize at least some intrinsic goods (e.g.
justice). Indeed, it is the phenomenological plausibility that some earthly things (e.g.
justice) are intrinsically valuable, which lies in tension with Aquinas’ claim that no
action can be pursued for its own sake in a spiritually fulfilling way, unless God is the ulti-
mate object of that action.
A recent alternative account of the spiritual life by Germain Grisez can help to clarify
the objection. Grisez has presented an account of the spiritual life which involves (inter
alia) two claims directly at odds with Aquinas’ account. The first claim is that our
actions (even in a state of beatitude in heaven) need not, and indeed ought not, be
solely for the sake of union with God. Rather, there are a variety of basic goods which
are the objects of our action. Basic goods are precisely those which constitute ‘reasons
for acting which need no further reason’ which pursued are not for the sake of any
further good.22 For Grisez, some of these basic goods (e.g. the good of religious
worship) may involve God as their object, but others (e.g. the goods of health, of friend-
ship, and of leisure) need not. This leads to the second of Grisez’s claims, which is that
(contra Aquinas) the state of beatitude (i.e. when we see God ‘face to face’) does not
consist in union with God;23 rather, union with God is just one part of that final state.
As Grisez puts it, ‘every human member of the kingdom will be richly fulfilled not only
in attaining God by the beatific vision but in respect to all the fundamental human
goods.’24
What is noteworthy about Grisez’s two claims is that, firstly, whether or not one agrees
with them, they constitute a clear attempt to acknowledge the place of intrinsic (or as
Grisez calls them, ‘basic’) goods and their pursuit in the spiritual-ethical life; they thus
help bring the problem of intrinsic goods into clearer focus. Secondly, the attempt to
acknowledge intrinsic goods comes with a cost, one that Aquinas would likely have
regarded as significant. The cost is that, in treating basic goods as ‘incommensurable,’
Grisez eliminates the primacy of union with God as a basis for all actions in the spiritual
life, and likewise (by positing a final state of beatitude wherein God is but one of many
goods) undercuts the spiritual ideal of ‘living for God in all things.’25 What is noteworthy
about these consequences of Grisez’s view is that they reveal the difficulty of accounting for

22
One particularly clear example of this claim is the following passage:
there are reasons for acting which need no further reason; these are goods, one or more of which underlie any
purpose. We call these basic goods. Actions specifically human in their motivation are done for the sake of one or
more of these goods; every such action is chosen in view of one or more basic purposes. Basic purposes are those
whose achievement will immediately instantiate basic goods. (Grisez et al., ‘Practical Principles,’ 103).
23
Indeed, Grisez consciously sets himself apart from Aquinas’ view on this score:
[I]t is a mistake to hold, as Thomas does, that the true ultimate end of human beings ‘is not found in anything
created, but only in God’ and that human beings’ ‘ultimate and perfect beatitude can only be in the vision of the
divine essence’. (Grisez, ’The True Ultimate End of Human Beings’, 53).
24
Grisez, ‘The True Ultimate End,’ 58–9.
25
This is not to say that Grisez does not have resources to provide in any sense for the primacy of God in the spiritual life;
Grisez says elsewhere that religion is unique among the basic goods insofar as “only the good of religion could be at stake
in every choice,” and that hence religion alone can “provide an overarching purpose to unify one’s entire life” (Grisez,
‘Natural Law, God, Religion, and Human Fulfillment’, 3–36, at 16). My point here is simply that Grisez does not regard
every choice as being for the sake of God (even if God may be at stake in every choice), and in that sense decreases
the centrality of God in his account of human action.
 MEDIEVAL MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 9

the problem of intrinsic goods in a way that does not at the same time implicitly under-
mine the spiritual significance of union with God.
There is much more that might be said about the problem of intrinsic goods, and
whether or not Aquinas has the resources to respond to it; however, those are tasks
which lie outside the scope of this paper. The remaining task of this paper is to consider
the way in which Eckhart’s conception of union can be seen as a response to the problem
of intrinsic goods, a consideration to which we now turn.

5. Eckhart on divine union

As noted earlier, Eckhart is what McGinn calls a defender of ‘indistinct union,’ in direct
contrast to distinction-preserving accounts of union such as Aquinas’s. Unlike Aquinas,
Eckhart does not regard the presence of faith or charity in the believer as constitutive
of deified union with God.26 Rather, Eckhart regards human beings as united to God
by virtue of the very being of God and of human beings: in fact, God’s being is literally
identified with the very being of the Christian believer (or at least part thereof). In
order to clarify the nature of this identity, it will be helpful to briefly consider Eckhart’s
understanding of God and his relation to creatures in general. Eckhart holds that God
is uniquely indistinct: ‘God is something indistinct which is distinguished [from creatures]
by his indistinction.’27 For Eckhart, it is precisely this unique indistinctness of God which
constitutes the basis for claims about God’s presence in (or identity with) all of creation:
‘because the One is indistinct from all things … hence all things and the fullness of exist-
ence are found in it by reason of indistinction or unity.’28 These statements are admittedly
complex, and debates over their meaning continue in the literature (debates which in turn
hinge upon broader disagreements over the interpretation of wider issues in Eckhart’s
thought, such as his understanding of analogy and negative theology).29 For present pur-
poses, what is important to note about Eckhart’s statements is the way in which they reflect
the centrality of God’s indistinct nature as the basis for the union of all creatures with God.
As with Aquinas, Eckhart also regards the union of human beings and God as different
from and more substantive than the kinds of union between God and creatures in general.
Eckhart describes this unique relationship between human beings and God using the
language of the ‘ground’ (grunt, fundamentum). For Eckhart, ground refers to both some-
thing in God (the divine essence) as well as to the ‘innermost part of the soul’ in human
beings.30 In particular, it refers to the intellect, which Eckhart gives an elevated status, elev-
ated even over being itself.31 On Eckhart’s view, ‘in God there is nothing other’ than intel-
lect, and ‘every kind of existence that is outside or beyond intellect is a creature.’32 While
this provides on the one hand a foundation for a distinction between God and creatures
26
McGinn, The Mystical Thought, 129.
27
Commentary on the Book of Wisdom, n. 154, in Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, ed. Bernard McGinn (New York:
Paulist Press, 1986), 169.
28
Sermon 29, in McGinn, Teacher and Preacher, 224, emphasis added.
29
For a helpful survey of ongoing debates among Eckhart scholars regarding these issues in Eckhart, cf. Wendlinder, Speak-
ing of God in Thomas Aquinas.
30
Sermon 3, in The Complete Mystical Works, 46. My presentation of Eckhart’s understanding of the ground of the soul has
been informed by the helpful discussion of Rupert Mayer, ‘The Terms ‘Ground of the Soul’, 120–38.
31
Famously, Eckhart regards intellect as the primary name of God, in contrast to Aquinas, who regards being (esse) as the
primary name of God. For discussion, cf. Turner, The Darkness of God, 165.
32
Sermon 29, in McGinn, Teacher and Preacher, 226.
10 R. M. CHUA

(insofar as they are not pure intellect as God is), the reason why Eckhart regards the intel-
lectual ‘ground’ of God to be also present in human beings is precisely because they have
an intellectual (even if not purely intellectual) nature. As Eckhart says:
Intellect properly belongs to God, and “God is one.” Therefore, anything has as much of God
and of the One and of “One-Existence” with God as it has of intellect and what is intellectual.
For God is one intellect and intellect is one God. Nowhere and never do we find God as God
save in intellect.33

In holding the intellectual nature of humans in high regard, Eckhart mirrors Aquinas, who
(recall) held that the human capacity for achieving union with God resided (in part) in
their ability to engage in acts of knowing God. However, whereas Aquinas regards the
activity of the intellect as central to union, Eckhart regards the intellect itself as by its
very nature united to God. Hence Eckhart can say that ‘The soul has a rational, intelligent
being. Because of this wherever God is, there also is the soul; and wherever the soul is,
there is God.’34 This conception of the intellect as a basis for an ontological union
between human beings and God is also implicit in Eckhart’s famous claim that ‘the
ground of the soul and God’s ground is one ground’35: the ground of the soul is the
soul’s intellectual nature, and which is identical to the pure intellect of God’s own nature.
A further and related point Eckhart makes about union, which helps to clarify Eckhart’s
conception of union, is his claim which holds that human beings can come to a first-
person awareness of their intellectual identity with God through conscious self-identifi-
cation with God. Eckhart provides a striking example of this self-identification in a
well-known passage from his sermon on poverty:
In my birth all things were born and I was the cause of myself and of all things; and if I would
have wished it, I would not be nor would all other things be. And if I did not exist, God would
also not exist. That God is God, of that I am a cause[…]36

While this statement may appear blasphemous on an initial reading, it simply expresses
Eckhart’s account of union. Eckhart here is not claiming that he, a creature, is God.
Rather, as McGinn notes, ‘Eckhart is speaking in the voice of the eternal unborn self,
not the created corruptible self’;37 that is, he is simply expressing a claim about God
(specifically, the eternal Word) from a first-person perspective, a perspective which is poss-
ible through the ontological union that holds between God and the intellectual soul of the
human being.

6. Eckhart on living in union with God

Eckhart’s understanding of union has direct consequences for his conception of how we
are to live in union with God, and indeed, provides the basis for some of Eckhart’s
most radical claims on this score. For instance, Eckhart claims that those in union with
God do not unite their wills actively to God; rather, they let go of any self-activity, even
to the point of nothingness. Eckhart describes such a person as one who ‘has annihilated
33
Ibid.
34
Sermon 10, in McGinn, Teacher and Preacher, 265.
35
McGinn, The Mystical Thought, 45.
36
Sermon 87, in Walshe, The Complete Mystical Works, 424.
37
McGinn, The Mystical Thought, 138.
 MEDIEVAL MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 11

himself in himself and in God and in all things.’38 In such a state of annihilation, ‘God
must pour himself into this man, or else he is not God.’39
These claims may give the impression that Eckhart is advocating a kind of radical quiet-
ism on the part of human beings, or necessitism on the part of God’s actions.40 However,
in light of Eckhart’s conception of union with God, I suggest that these claims are primar-
ily an illustration of the consequences that follow from an ontological (as opposed to an
activity-based) conception of living in union with God. Instead of striving to conform our-
selves to God as an external object of our acts (or to any other external standard), we
should rather allow ourselves to discover God who is already within us.
In the foregoing section of this paper, I suggested that Aquinas’ activity-based account
of the spiritual life was susceptible to an objection, namely, the problem of intrinsic goods.
I would like to suggest that Eckhart’s account of living in union with God can provide the
resources for a striking resolution to that problem. Recall that the problem of intrinsic
goods arises for Aquinas’ conception of union because of his activity-based conception
of union, a conception which requires actions to take God as their object in order to con-
tribute to that union. By rejecting any such activity-based conception of union and articu-
lating a coherent alternative, Eckhart prevents the problem of intrinsic goods from posing
any threat to our union with God. One might say that, given Eckhart’s model of union, the
pursuit of intrinsic goods no longer poses any risk of fragmenting or undermining (even
slightly) our union with God, because our union with God is an ontological union which
holds irrespective of what actions we undertake.41
However, there is a further aspect to the problem of intrinsic goods. For even if we
remain ontologically united to God irrespective of our actions, the question still arises
as to what end our actions ought to be for the sake of. Even in a state of spiritual detach-
ment, our actions would have to be for some end or other.42 Given the apparent goodness
of pursuing a variety of earthly goods (e.g. justice, leisure) as intrinsic goods, can we recon-
cile this with the traditional imperative to pursue all things for God as our ultimate end?
Here, it seems to me that Eckhart’s model can again provide an important answer. For
given the union of God with all creatures, the intrinsic goods we pursue can likewise be
understood as partially (or even wholly) in ontological union with God. In that case,
any pursuit of an intrinsic good would by its very nature become a pursuit of God.
Eckhart’s conception of the relation between creatures and creation is one that, in
effect, eliminates the dichotomy between God as ultimate end or created goods as ultimate
ends. Both can be pursued, because both are in fact one, just as God and creatures are in
fact one.

38
Quoted in McGinn, The Mystical Thought, 137.
39
Ibid., 138.
40
For an interpretation of Eckhart along quietist lines, cf. Stump, ‘Not My Will but Thy Will Be Done’, 155–71. For a defence
of Eckhart against these charges, cf. Connolly, ‘Eckhart and the Will of God’, 6–20.
41
Of course, this claim may appear to create more problems than it solves: how, for instance, is it possible for Eckhart to
preserve the freedom of human beings to reject God’s offer of union, if his model of union builds such a union into the
very ontological structure of human beings? Unfortunately, this issue lies beyond the scope of this paper. For helpful
discussion, cf. Flasch, Meister Eckhart, §6.
42
In this regard, Connolly (in Living Without Why, 173) helpfully distinguishes between motive and purpose as a way of
clarifying how it is possible to be detached yet act for ends. For Connolly, detachment pertains to the motivation of
our acts, while goal-directedness pertains to the purpose of our acts. In this light, Eckhart’s advocacy of detachment
can be seen as one which in no way involves advocating a ‘purposeless’ life.
12 R. M. CHUA

7. Conclusion
The foregoing discussion leaves much unsaid. For instance, while I have suggested that
Eckhart’s ontological conception of union between God and creation provides a way of
accounting for reconciling the pursuit of intrinsic goods with the pursuit of God, one
issue that remains to be dealt with is how Eckhart’s conception of union might account
for the pursuit of instrumental goods (e.g. money or honour) as opposed to intrinsic
goods. In addition, the conclusions to be drawn from the foregoing discussion will
depend in large part on exegetical issues which I have not had the space to address in
this paper. To take but one example, if David Burrell is correct in reading Eckhart and
Aquinas as articulating one and the same view of the relationship between God and cre-
ation (a reading very different to the one offered here),43 the points discussed in this paper
may be seen to reveal not a development in Eckhart’s thought over Aquinas vis-à-vis the
problem of intrinsic goods, but perhaps rather a new way of understanding Aquinas’ own
response to that problem. In any case, I hope that the reading offered in this paper reveals
how Eckhart’s and Aquinas’ views provide contrasting and mutually illuminating accounts
of union with God which provide resources for competing responses to the problem of
intrinsic goods, and that there is much to be gained from a fuller consideration of their
ethically and ontologically informed conceptions of the spiritual life.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to Helen Frank and the brethren at St Dominic’s Priory, Melbourne for research and
material support. Also, I would like to thank Austin Cooper OMI, Chris Knauf, and David
Willis OP for helpful comments on earlier incarnations of this paper; thanks also to John Connolly,
Fergus Prien, and members of the University of Melbourne medieval Latin reading group for
helpful discussions. None of them should be held responsible for any confusions that remain in
this paper.

Notes on contributor
Reginald Mary Chua is a simply professed friar and clerical candidate with the Order of Preachers
(the Dominicans). He is currently a graduate student at Catholic Theological College (University of
Divinity), Australia. His research is on the metaphysics and ethics of St Thomas Aquinas.

ORCID
Reginald Mary Chua OP http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1180-5448

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