Speculation and Theosis in Vladimir Lossky and Meister Eckhart

Even though recent scholarship has done much to extricate the writings of Meister Eckhart from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century view of mystical theology as something bifurcated between “speculative” and “affective” varieties, this essay argues that the misunderstanding of Eckhart is more than merely an overemphasis on the speculative aspects to the obfuscation of the affective ones. Rather, it is rooted in the thrusting of the German philosophical notion of speculation upon the medieval notion of speculation operating in Eckhart. Using the unfinished work by Vladimir Lossky on Eckhart, this essay demonstrates that Eckhart is deeply affective precisely because he is so deeply speculative. The speculation of Eckhart is predicated upon a notion of the union of the divine and human that relies heavily upon the analogy of mirroring and the use of the doctrine of the image and likeness of God to argue for something more than a mere exemplary union.