created
being according to the idea of God." The question whether the "ground
of the soul" is created or not is obviously a form of the question
which we are now discussing. Giseler, as I have said, holds that it
was created with the soul. Sterngassen says: "That which God has in
eternity in uncreated wise, that has the soul in time in created
wise." But the author of the _Treatise on Love_, which belongs to this
period, speaks of the spark as "the Active Reason, _which is God_."
And again, "This is the _Uncreated_ in the soul of which Master
Eckhart speaks." Suso seems to imply that he believed the ground of
the soul to be uncreated, an emanation of the Divine nature; and
Tauler uses similar language. Ruysbroek, in the last chapter of the
_Spiritual Nuptials_, says that contemplative men "see that they are
_the same simple ground as to their uncreated nature_, and are one
with the same light by which they see, and which they see." The later
German mystics taught that the Divine essence is the material
substratum of the world, the creative will of God having, so to speak,
_alienated_ for the purpose a portion of His own essence. If, then,
the created form is broken through, God Himself becomes the ground of
the soul. Even Augustine countenances some such notion when he says,
"From a good man, or from a good angel, take away 'man' or 'angel,'
and you find God." But one of the chief differences between the older
and later Mysticism is that the former regarded union with God as
achieved through the faculties of the soul, the latter as inherent in
its essence. The doctrine of _immanence_, more and more emphasised,
tended to encourage the belief that the Divine element in the soul is
not merely something potential, something which the faculties may
acquire, but is immanent and basal. Tauler mentions both views, and
prefers the latter. Some hesitation may be traced in the _Theologia
Germanica_ on this point (p. 109, "Golden Treasury" edition): "The
true light is that eternal Light which is God; _or else_ it is a
created light, but yet Divine, which is called grace." Our Cambridge
Platonists naturally revived this Platonic doctrine of deification,
much to the dissatisfaction of some of their contemporaries. Tuckney
speaks of their teaching as "a kind of moral divinity minted only with
a little tincture of Christ added. Nay, _a Platonic faith unites to
God!_" Notwithstanding such protests, the Platonists persisted that
all tru