Meister Eckhart’s Sermons and Talks of Instruction are discourses on the unity of God. Eckhart distinguishes between the unity of God’s will and the individuality of the human will. Eckhart argues that the human will is contingent to selfish interests and is imperfect, but that divine will is necessary and perfect. The only perfect will is one that has been merged with the will of God.

According to Eckhart, it is God’s will that we surrender our own self-will. To be righteous and just, we must want only what God wants. To be one with God, we must surrender all self-will. If we surrender all self-will, then our actions will be guided by God’s will.

Eckhart teaches that if we want only what God wants, then we will have happiness and joy. If we want only what God wants, then we will have no need of unnecessary things. We will act according to God’s will, instead of our own will. We will not act selfishly, and God will act through us.

Eckhart argues that perfection of our own will to act righteously is achieved when our whole happiness consists of being unselfish, and when we act only according to God’s will. When we renounce all selfish motives or intentions, then we are free to act according to God’s will. When we want only what God wants, then we can be truly happy.

According to Eckhart, true happiness is achieved when we know, and wish to know, only the will and truth of God. Perfection of our own will to act righteously occurs when, instead of being conscious of our own selfish desires, we are conscious of the will and truth of God.

In Eckhart’s theology, God is Being, and Being is God. If Being were something different from God, then God would not be truly real. If Being did not, in the deepest and truest sense, come from God, then there would be no God. However, God is Being itself. To the extent that any individual thing or soul has Being, it is like God.¹

Eckhart describes Being as the actuality of all things, and argues that all things have their Being from God. Therefore, all things have their Being from Being itself. Being itself is not caused by anything other than itself.

Eckhart also argues that there is a distinction between absolute Being, which is the same as God, and dependent Being, which is the Being of things. All things and creatures have no Being of their own, because they depend for their Being on God. Every created thing is given its Being by something other than itself. God is the creator, not the created. Every being derives the fact of its Being from God.

Eckhart teaches that there are no distinctions in God, because God is One. God’s unity brings the many into One. God’s unity includes the Being of all things. God is complete and undivided in Being. In God, all divided things are gathered into a perfect unity.

In Eckhart’s view, there is nothing prior to Being. God creates Being from nothing, but there is nothing prior to God. Only from God do all things have their Being. Every being derives all of its Being from God.

Eckhart also teaches that if we are to be one with God, then we must not look for God in anything that is temporary, because God is eternal. To live in God is to live eternally.

Eckhart argues that if the soul is to know God, then it must forget itself. The soul must surrender its own self-consciousness in order to achieve salvation. If the soul is self-aware and self-conscious, then it will not be fully conscious of God. If the soul is to be one with God, then it must surrender itself to God. If we are one with God, then we do not think of the soul without thinking of God.

Eckhart also argues that if we are one with God, then we do not know what God is doing in us, because we are not conscious of ourselves, and are only conscious of God. If we become one with God, then we have something in our Being which communicates God's love and understanding, and which has no beginning or ending.

In Eckhart’s theology, God is love, and from God’s love all things are given their Being. God’s love sustains us in our Being, and sustains the Being of all creatures and things.

Eckhart argues that if we truly love God, then we empty ourselves of selfish motivation, because we have no motivation to do anything other than God’s will. In order to truly obey God's will, we must empty ourselves of our own self-will. If we empty ourselves of own self-will, then we can act only according to God’s will.

Eckhart also argues that the human will is free, because God does not limit the human will. God sets the human will free to choose between freedom and constraint. The human will is free to choose God, and finds its freedom in God. Self-will causes inner conflict and constraint.

According to Eckhart, the human will is free to choose between good and evil. Good will is a motive to choose love, humility, unselfishness, and justice. Bad will is a motive to choose hate, selfishness, cruelty, and injustice.

Eckhart affirms that when we are one with God, God is in us evenly and impartially. We love others, because God’s love is in us, and because God is equally near to all of us. When we are one with God, we hold to the evenness of justice, and do not consider ourselves as more rightful or deserving of justice than others.

Eckhart emphasizes that when we love God, we are no longer motivated by selfish desires. When we love God, we attain an equanimity of mind and a detachment from selfish motivation. Unselfishness or detachment (abgeshiedenheit) from selfish motivation brings God to us, because we become aware only of God. The state of detachment from selfish motivation cannot be perfect without humility. Perfect humility depends on our surrender of our own self-will.

If we surrender our own self-will, we may become passive to the extent that we allow our own actions to be guided by God’s will. We must keep our minds open to God if we are to be ready to do God’s will.

According to Eckhart, there is an active human intellect, a passive human intellect, and a potential human intellect. The active intellect abstracts ideas from things and presents ideas to the passive intellect. The passive intellect is provided with ideas by the active intellect, and knows what is presented to it by the active intellect. The potential intellect may be provided with ideas by both the active and passive intellect.

Eckhart argues that God is not knowable by the active intellect, because God transcends any act of knowledge. However, unity with God may be achieved by emptying the intellect of self-will and by filling the intellect with God’s will.

A question that may not be fully answered by Eckhart's Sermons is whether there is any reliable method of determining whether we are acting according to God’s will or according to our own will. If we surrender all self-will, we accept the risk of becoming the instruments of a misguided human will. We may become the instruments of either a bad will or a good will.

Another question which may not be fully answered by Eckhart is whether being can be created from nothing. If God can create being from nothing, as Eckhart affirms, then it may be argued that non-being may be prior to being. However, if God is Being, and if nothing can be prior to God, then the question of how being can be created from nothing is in need of further clarification.

¹Meister Eckhart, "Being is more than life," in Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation, by Raymond Bernard Blakney (New York: Harper & Row, 1941), p.171.

Eckhart, Meister. Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation, by Raymond Bernard Blakney. New York: Harper & Row, 1941.