John Ruusbroec as a Major Contemplative Christian Author

Abstract

Ruusbroec's thought relies on the old Christian tradition of a relational, contemplative theology. The intellectual program of this tradition tries to value as much as possible that the Truth is a Person, and that the knowledge of this Truth is not acquired but given and therefore presupposes a mutual love relationship. For Ruusbroec, the love union between God and the human person is a complex reality, as it is simultaneously with and without intermediary. The love union without intermediary takes place in the immediate and continuous contact between the Creator and his creature. Therefore, the human person might experience that his being is not a closed individuality (as nominalist thinkers might argue), but that it is a fundamental openness to the Other. The mutual loving self-gift of God and the human person, in its most mature form, is also a complex reality: the two partners do not merge, yet a teal union takes place. Ruusbroec is a thinker for whom the ultimate unity, the founding principle of reality, is not that of the static, indivisible individuality but the dynamic, living unity of love. However, in the fourteenth century, the intellectual culture in Western Europe had already changed, and Ruusbroec's works faced misunderstanding and opposition.