is the new importance
which is given to the doctrine of immanence. The human soul is a
microcosm, which in a manner contains all things in itself. At the
"apex of the mind" there is a Divine "spark," which is so closely akin
to God that it is one with Him, and not merely united to Him.[246] In
his teaching about this "ground of the soul" Eckhart wavers. His
earlier view is that it is created, and only the medium by which God
transforms us to Himself. But his later doctrine is that it is
uncreated, the immanence of the Being and Nature of God Himself.
"Diess Fuenkelein, das ist Gott," he says once. This view was adopted
by Ruysbroek, Suso, and (with modifications by) Tauler, and became one
of their chief tenets.[247] This spark is the organ by which our
personality holds communion with God and knows Him. It is with
reference to it that Eckhart uses the phrase which has so often been
quoted to convict him of blasphemous self-deification--"the eye with
which I see God is the same as that with which He sees me.[248]" The
"uncreated spark" is really the same as the grace of God, which raises
us into a Godlike state. But this grace, according to Eckhart (at
least in his later period), is God Himself acting like a human faculty
in the soul, and transforming it so that "man himself becomes grace."

The following is perhaps the most instructive passage: "There is in
the soul something which is above the soul, Divine, simple, a pure
nothing; rather nameless than named, rather unknown than known. Of
this I am accustomed to speak in my discourses. Sometimes I have
called it a power, sometimes an uncreated light, and sometimes a
Divine spark. It is absolute and free from all names and all forms,
just as God is free and absolute in Himself. It is higher than
knowledge, higher than love, higher than grace. For in all these there
is still _distinction_. In this power God doth blossom and flourish
with all His Godhead, and the Spirit flourisheth in God. In this
power the Father bringeth forth His only-begotten Son, as essentially
as in Himself; and in this light ariseth the Holy Ghost. This spark
rejecteth all creatures, and will have only God, simply as He is in
Himself. It rests satisfied neither with the Father, nor with the Son,
nor with the Holy Ghost, nor with the three Persons, so far as each
existeth in its particular attribute. It is satisfied only with the
superessential essence. It is determined to enter into the simple
Gro