Philosophy Models

Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim 1260 – 1328 AD) in different works written in Latin and German language (Opus Tripartitum, Rechtsfertigungschrift/Defense Document, Essential Sermons) presents an original take on the theory of transcendentals, according to which:

• The transcendentals, which are being, one, truth, good, primarily refer to God, not to creatures, things, as Philip the Chancellor (see [4.7]) and Thomas Aquinas sustain: “according to Thomas, the transcendentals belong to the level of ens or esse commune, while for Eckhart they belong primarily to God.”
• The transcendentals explain the inner divine life of the Trinity.
• God is primarily characterized by being and goodness, while being and truth and being and goodness are convertible.
• God creates the creatures. The transcendentals in creatures are analogically ordered the real transcendentals (in God). As such, the creature’s existence, oneness, goodness, truth depends, “eats” from the existence, oneness, goodness, truth of God.

The following OntoUML diagram shows Eckhart’s model of transcendentals:

Class	Description	Relations
(Trinitarian)God	“Eckhart uses the theory of the transcendentals to provide a philosophical explanation of the inner divine life of the Trinity [trinitarian God]. Through it, he achieves a new dimension in speculative thinking about the Trinity that leads to the equating of the persons of the Trinity with the transcendentals. […] The integration of henological and ontological discourses builds the following ontological scheme: God is Being (esse) per se as well as One (unum) per se. […] only God is Being, One, True, and Good in the full sense of these words.” (Tsopurashvili)	creates Creature
Transcendental	“The main questions of the first four treatises of the Opus tripartitum are Being, Unity, Truth, Goodness, and the concepts that are opposed to these. One significant characteristic of Eckhart’s theory of transcendentals is that they apply primarily not to common being (ens commune) but to the inner life of God. In his Expositio sancti evangelii secundum Iohannem, Eckhart claims that: Those properties which are God’s own are Being or being, Unity, Truth, Goodness. For God has these four transcendental as properties in as much as is ‘the first,’ which is ‘rich in itself.’ God has these because the rich in itself has that which is proper to itself. For the aforementioned four (terms) are for everyone ‘guests’ within the First, and ‘immigrants,’ household members to God. In this, Eckhart uses the theory of the transcendentals to provide a philosophical explanation of the inner divine life of the Trinity. Through it, he achieves a new dimension in speculative thinking about the Trinity that leads to the equating of the persons of the Trinity with the transcendentals.” (Tsopurashvili)
Being	In Eckhart’s view “nothing arises from the indifferent and the indefinite. He argues that these characteristics (the transcendentals) are suitable for being (esse), because being applies to the inner and essence. So, being is equated with the divine essence.” (Tsopurashvili)	subkind of Transcendental; characterizes (Trinitarian)God
One	“The integration of henological and ontological discourses builds the following ontological scheme: God is Being (esse) per se as well as One (unum, [ens]) per se. The One per se means unity, the unity of essence, or even the essential unity. The One as essential unity is without relationality in itself, but as such it is the grounding ground of all entities even through its relationality. God as relationless and the One is the unique One in which one does not find difference (i.e. the difference according to the persons): God as the unique One is neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Spirit. God as something means that God is completely free from the definite modes of divine Being. So, he is the simple One. The simple One is undefined and simple by comparison with the modes of Trinity. It is determined essentially through its simple and One-Being. Therefore, the simple One, as the positive in regard to the mode of triplicity of being, is negative at the same time as it itself presents the defining moment of being. […] The One (unum) or the unity (unitas) are the explications of the uniqueness of God.” (Tsopurashvili)	subkind of Transcendental; characterizes (Trinitarian)God
Truth; Good	When Meister Eckhart equates the transcendentals with God, he harkens back to the scholastic doctrine about the convertibility of the transcendentals. He formulates this idea with the following words: ‘Unum enim, ens, verum, bonum convertuntur.’ The reason for their convertibility is that all of them can name God in the full sense. He accentuates also the convertibility of Truth with Being as well as the convertibility of Being with Truth: ‘Verum et ens convertuntur.’ Based on this convertibility Eckhart understands truth not only as the truth of a sentence, but also as the truth of Being, that is, truth receives an ontological status through its convertibility with ens and connotes the truth of Being. It also concerns bonum [Good], which receives ontological status through the convertibility with ens and connotes the goodness of Being. So truth has epistemological as well as ontological meaning: what is true, also is. Goodness expresses the ethical as well as the ontological sense: what is good, also is.” (Tsopurashvili)	subkind of Transcendental; characterizes Being
Creature	“God acts and produces things [Creatures] through his divine nature. But God’s nature is intellect, and for him existence is in the understanding. Therefore, he produces all things in existence through intellect.” (Eckhart)
Analogy	“Analogous things are not distinguished according to things, nor through the differences of things, but ‘according to the modes [of being] of one and the same simple thing. For example, one and the same health that is in an animal is that (and no other) which is in the diet and the urine [of the animal] in such a way that there is no more of health as health in the diet and urine as there is in a stone. Urine is said to be ‘healthy’ only because it signifies health, the same in number, which is in the animal, just as a circular piece of wood which has nothing of wine in it [signifies] wine.” (Hackett, Hart Weed)	relates Transcendental with Transcendental InCreature
TranscendentalIn Creature	Transcendentals in creatures are analogue and ordered to the transcendentals (in God), and “eat” from those: “Being or existence and every perfection, especially general ones such as existence, oneness, truth, goodness, light, justice, and so forth, are used to describe God in an analogical way. It follows from this that goodness and justice and the like [in creatures] have their goodness totally from something outside to which they are analogically ordered, namely, God. […] The proof can be briefly summarized and formulated thus. Analogates have nothing of the form according to which they are analogically ordered rooted in positive fashion in themselves. But every created being is analogically ordered to God in existence, truth and goodness. Therefore every created being radically and positively possesses existence, life, a wisdom from and in God, not in themselves as a created being. And thus, it always “eats” as something produced and created, but it always hungers because it is always from another and not from itself.” (Hackett, Hart Weed)	ordered, “eats from” Transcendental
BeingInCreature; OneIn Creature	Being in creature (esse hoc et hoc) and one in creature (ens hoc et hoc) is analogically ordered to Being and One (in God) and “eat” from those. “Eckhart’s doctrine of analogy, then, is his way of showing that the creature is not autonomous, that is, in total self-possession of being. It has possession as an imparted possession, on loan as it were. The created is even in its own being a pointing away from itself to Being in itself, to the Absolute Being.” (Hackett, Hart Weed)	subkind of TranscendentalIn Creature; chatacterizes Creature
TruthInCreature; GoodInCreature	Truth in creature (verum hoc et hoc) and good in creature (bonum hoc et hoc) Analogically ordered to Truth and Good (in God) and “eat” from those.	subkind of TranscendentalIn Creature; characterizes BeingInCreature

Sources:

• Tsopurashvili, Tamar: “The Theory of the Transcendentals in Meister Eckhart”, A companion to Meister Eckhart, Brill 2013, edited by Jeremiah M. Hackett.
• Hackett, Jeremiah and Hart Weed, Jennifer: “From Aquinas to Eckhart on Creation, Creature, and Analogy”, A companion to Meister Eckhart, Brill 2013, edited by Jeremiah M. Hackett.
• Eckhart: “The Commentaries on the Book of Genesis”, Colledge and McGinn, Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons

First published: 11/7/2021