On the soul's final perfection and true poverty of spirit

Speaking of the final perfection of the soul, theologians ask: what is meant by saying that the spirit, in its understanding, has become the intellectual existence of the eternal essence in the perennial now, with nothing between? That is the first question. The second question is: how can the spirit make good its intellectual return into the unchanging, and have the eternal image in perfect clearness and intrinsic intimacy and in the interior freedom of the spirit? The third question concerns the highest flight of the spirit, its nearest approach of all to the divine presence, and whether its own powers are equal to the task.

First, we must remember how the divine being proceeded forth in the present now, with fallen man, the gist of it, immediate in his spiritual prototype by reason of its nearness and also by reason of the inherent now of its light of glory and intellectual image, from which the intellect sees back quite clearly to the unproceeded splendor of its eternally immanent spiritual exemplar, wherein it is nameless and beyond all words, which are creaturely. The word is in the eternal Word and one presence with it, and God, with his whole nature and the full range of his power, can make out of his essence nothing more resembling the divine likeness in the ground of divine nature and reflecting him so well. He who receives the light of the spirit as it is the image of God, wherein is no division, that is the medium of perfection, for in it his spirit is one with divine nature.

1 See also Jostes, No. 34, of which this tractate forms the middle portion.

As to the second question, you must understand that although the intelligible image of God in the spirit partakes in its nature and purity more of the perfection of the content of its immanent essence than of its own emanation, nevertheless it is in this that essence has become manifest. Take the spirit in its nearest ground, abiding within in its endless image and eternal image. As the endless image it is always within, and in its eternal image it presents itself as an eternal question. As Christ asks, 'Whose is this image and this inscription?' Notice the difference between this image and its inscription. In the image exists God, and all his output in spirit and in nature, the human mind, or spirit, with all it is able to hold, and these are so closely and exactly matched that the image of divine glory shines in full detail in the spirit, and this image in the spirit is perfectly reflected back into its indwelling essence. So much for the image of God. And what of the inscription? That is the unspeakable likeness of the divine nature, which in its whole ground, actual and intrinsic, is a naked and immediate presence in the spirit, by virtue of which the spirit in its free nature and intellectual image undergoes all of God's operation beyond reason. The limit comes where divine freedom seizes the spirit's freedom and turns it into foolishness, and at this point all learned knowledge fails. There is no further progress to be made by natural, creaturely knowledge but only in spirit, by experiencing God.

Now to answer the third question. Philosophers say that what is one's own is always innate and can be had at will. It follows that the spirit can rise to the supreme perfection of its divine nature, for it can stand in its first now, in that from which it came. And that is the answer to the third question.

Then there is the question: can God leave the human spirit to itself or not? I say no, it would be against the justice of his nature and against his truth, and would make a mockery of God's whole creation. God must either let the spirit be God, external to himself, or else he must merge it into himself, once it has left all things. This will not wrong God, for the spirit is too exalted and touches too closely the honor of God for him to be able to make anything but himself the end of its perfection. It has this unique property: its ground can overleap all spirits into his super-intelligible spirit, namely the indwelling essence of divine nature.

A man was asked, 'What do you lack?' He said, 'Nothing, except poverty of spirit.' And though I have a will no bigger than a grain of mustard seed, I am no poor man, and if God were to ask me, 'Are you a poor man?' I would reply that, were my will as good as God's, still I am not poor, not even if with that same will I could do as much as God. And why? Because God and God's will are one, while I and my will are two, for I am a man and not God, and if I mean to do real work entirely without or free of will, then I must be like the stone that lies in the water: the water flows over it but does not enter into the stone. Even so, if I were a poor man, I should do my works in such a way that they did not enter into my will any more than the water enters into the stone. I should do them simply at the will of God. And if God asked me again whether I was poor, and if I replied, 'I have given up my own will, and whatever I knew to be the will of God, that I would do,' I might be claiming something that was not my own, for no one knows who we are, even though we are not the truth, for God can change our knowledge, not his own knowledge, because he is the truth and we are not.

Perhaps someone will say, 'How can I do my work this way, free of will?' The answer is: I ought to do my work as though no one existed, no one lived, no one had ever come upon the earth. Then if God asked me once more, 'Are you a poor man?' and I replied, 'I am unworthy of that knowledge,' that would be the barest poverty I have ever heard of or gone through, the deepest, most direct poverty. Yet all the while I have within enough room for God to do his work in me, to give his gift to me. All that while I am not a poor man, for all that while I am expecting God. What more can I do? You shall do this: you shall leave all willing and knowing and receiving of things, and at the very point where you have left all things, there God has given you all things. He dares not give you more, nor give you any more work to do with him, nor can you take in any more; you shall simply leave yourself. That is the nearest poverty of spirit there is, for no one is truly poor except the one who wills nothing, knows nothing, has nothing, whether within or without. To the eternal truth, God help us. Amen.