What do you think of Meister Eckhart?
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I think he's great. To the best of my knowledge he was not condemned as a heretic, and himself repudiated any interpretations of his teaching that would have been outside of orthodoxy.
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Meister Eckhart
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Meister Eckhart
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zippy2006
Dragonsworn
I like him, but he does say some strange things. The reason he wasn't condemned is because he died first. Several of his propositions were condemned.
Now I've heard folks defend him, saying that the censor was reading him out of context in an unfair way. Having looked into this, it seems incorrect. Sure, some propositions were read out of context in an unfair way. Others... not so much. I don't have the propositions handy, but various books on Eckhart include them. There are some pretty weird ones.
In any case, the sermons we have of Eckhart's don't find him doing Biblical exegesis in any straightforward way. I don't think the majority of his work is incompatible with the Bible, but he had lots of extra-Biblical sources, often Platonic thinkers.
Now I've heard folks defend him, saying that the censor was reading him out of context in an unfair way. Having looked into this, it seems incorrect. Sure, some propositions were read out of context in an unfair way. Others... not so much. I don't have the propositions handy, but various books on Eckhart include them. There are some pretty weird ones.
In any case, the sermons we have of Eckhart's don't find him doing Biblical exegesis in any straightforward way. I don't think the majority of his work is incompatible with the Bible, but he had lots of extra-Biblical sources, often Platonic thinkers.
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"The same pope [John XXII] in 1329 proscribed among the errors of Meister Eckhart the assertions that (prop. 10) we are totally transformed into God just as in the sacrament the bread is changed into the Body of Christ; that (14) since God wills that I should have sinned I do not wish that I had not sinned; that (18) we should bring forth the fruit, not of external actions, which do not make us good, but of internal actions which are wrought by the Father abiding within us (Denzinger-Bannwart, 501, sqq)."
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Quietism
Whether Eckhart actually taught these things and what he actually meant by these teachings is an open question.
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