The Eckhart Society recently held its 25th Annual Conference. It was held at High Leigh Conference Centre, just north of London, England. The Society was founded in 1987 to promote understanding and appreciation of the work of Meister Eckhart, to facilitate scholarly research into his life and work, and to promote the study of Eckhart’s teaching as a contribution to inter-religious dialogue.
This year’s conference focused on Eckhart and St Thomas, the only two friars to be re-called to the Dominican chair at the University of Paris. Two papers showed how on certain points the thought of these two great Dominicans is very close and the other two papers showed that on certain other points their thought is not at all close and is even contrasting.
Fr Michael Demkovich OP of the Chicago province argued that in presenting his understanding of ‘deiformitas’, or the transformation of human beings in Christ, Eckhart uses Aquinas’s theology of the Eucharistic change. fr Rupert Mayer of the province of South Germany and Austria considered the themes of ‘ground of the soul’ and ‘sparkle of reason’ to show how Aquinas and Eckhart share compatible views about the sources and possibilities of human knowing.
Dr Andreas Speer of the Thomas Institut in Cologne argued that they have contrary views about theology. Aquinas presents a case for two theologies, one that pertains to philosophy and the other to revealed religion. Eckhart speaks in terms of one theology, returning (so Dr Speer argued) to a view proposed by Boethius, rejected by St Thomas, but accepted also by St Albert the Great.
Dr Eleonore Stump OPL, professor of philosophy at the University of St Louis, showed how the two Masters differ subtly but significantly in explaining how the human being unites his will with the will of God. Eckhart takes a stern view of this, asking his readers to eliminate their own wants in order to want only what God wants (and perhaps to give up wanting altogether). Aquinas takes a less stern view, that also seems closer to ordinary experience: the human being has desires which are not extinguished even when he wants also what God wants for him. The prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane is the supreme teaching about this.
About fifty people attended the conference which included times of prayer, meditation and fraternity, as well as an evening concert of chamber music. The Master of the Order wrote a letter to the conference sending his best wishes and expressing his thanks for the ways in which the Society has promoted the teaching of Eckhart.