Date of Award

6-11-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Theology

First Advisor

Colby Dickinson

Abstract

This dissertation is a study on the epistemological theory of divine illumination in the works of Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 - 1329 CE). Illumination, first asserted by St. Augustine, is the theory that the human intellect is incapable of achieving epistemic certainty regarding what it sensorily receives. To gain this certainty, the mind is reliant upon illumination, wherein the sensed object is known by the mind through the light of that object's divine idea, which also serves as its ontological principle. Divine illumination was the dominant epistemology in Christian thought for centuries until it began to lose its influence in the 13th century to Aristotelian epistemology, which taught that the mind has no need of assistance for certainty. In the span of a few decades, illumination quickly lost its influence and was ultimately replaced. This dissertation examines the role of illumination throughout Eckhart's body of works, looking at the function of illumination first in the prelapsarian condition of the human intellect, followed by Eckhart's understanding of its role in the current postlapsarian state. Illumination, I argue, is a key facet in Eckhart's theological schema, and is present in key moments of Eckhart's understanding of salvation. I further argue that Eckhart transforms the doctrine of illumination from its original definition given by St. Augustine, in part to preserve the doctrine within the theological tradition. Whereas St. Augustine understood illumination as universal and necessary for human life, Eckhart argues that illumination is reserved for the Christian. Illumination, rather than being necessary for human life, now reveals the deeper, spiritual reality of things as they are in their divine ideas, by means of the very light of those ideas themselves.

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