Eckhart’s Imageless Image: Art Spirituality, and the Apophatic Way

Abstract

The doctrine of Images is a pervasive, deep, and difficult area in Eckhart studies. In recent years, a number of articles and even books have been devoted to this aspect of the Meister's teaching. Among those accessible from the Eckhart Review are Loris Sturlese's important article from 1993 and Bruce Milem's prize-winning essay of two years ago. I also highly recommend the pertinent section of Bernard McGinn's fine new book, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart. (I have provided a short bibliography for those who are interested in pursuing the subject further.) Despite its difficulty and medieval tenor, there is nothing quaint or musty about Eckhart's concern with the notion of Image, and in particular the human person as Imago Dei the Image of God. This ancient Christian doctrine is still very much at the front of theological disputation as indicated in the Santa Clara lecture given last April by Mary Catherine Hilkert, 'Imago Dei: Does the Symbol Have a Future?'l In her excellent address, which is available as a reprint from Santa Clara University; she summarizes much of the theological debate surrounding the theme and offers constructive suggestions about rehabilitating it in an era in which feminist, liberation, and ecological demands require a reassessment of both the concept, the language in which it has been formulated, and its historical and current implications for spirituality and ethics.2 Hilkert does not cite Eckhart, nor does Eckhart address issues that are of special importance to Hilkert and many people toda~ such as human arrogance in regard to other species and the planet as a whole, gender disparity, and the oppressive inequity between rich nations and poor nations. Still, Eckhart's approach to the Image, and the Imago Dei in particular, offers insights that are surprisingly similar to many of Hilkert' s observations and, I think, contain a wealth of spiritual wisdom. Eckhart did not approach this subject in a vacuum, of course. He drew on resources of both the biblical and philosophical traditions of the past, as well as theological speculation. Since I do not have much to add byway of textual exegesis to what has been so admirably discussed by Bernard McGinn, Bruce