The Kingdom of God within us as proof of the existence of God: the three deaths of the soul in the theology of Meister Eckhart

Abstract

This article researches the proof of the exist-ence of God that does not fall under any of the categories of rational proof of His exist-ence. This proof does not correspond to any of the five categories of Thomas Aquinas and does not correspond to any of the three cate-gories of Immanuel Kant. The meaning of this proof is reduced to the knowing of God and, therefore, to the recognition of His existence as a result of religious revelation, in the course of a simple and direct intuition. Ac-cording to Eckhart, the knowing of God is re-duced to the understanding of the existence of the Kingdom of God by the soul. The reli-gious-mystical understanding of God by the soul is, therefore, a mystical illumination-experience of the soul, as a result of which the soul understands that the Kingdom of God exists. Moreover, the Kingdom of God exists in the soul itself. To reach the Kingdom of God, the soul must go through three stages. According to Eckhart, the soul must die three times: as a creature, as a self, as God (as God's nature). The soul must become nothing three times. Soul is nothing to all created beings, because, in the process of the first death, it has lost its created nature. It is nothing to everything that is something, because it has lost the distinction and ceased to be some-thing (during its second death). Finally, when the soul dies the third (highest) death, the soul understands that the Kingdom of God is itself.