Potentiality in God: Jacob Boehme Keenker, Ernest B Philosophy Today;

Spring 1971; 15, 1; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 44

Grund and Ungrund

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Jacob Boehme (1575•1624) conveys

ing," in the meontic freedom of Ber-his novel and daring insights

through dyaev, and in the primordial Nichts of a profusion of symbols
and metaphors, Heidegger.

The reader is repulscd when he sets lt is a strange development which

()Ut to integrate theories from alchemy, finds a simple, self-im;tructed

trades-Jigures from Scripture, and the play of man, an heir of Luther's
reform pro-poetic fantasy when exploring the im•-

viding a philosophical explication for plications of words. But the

impossibil•• those very mysteries which Luther had ity of framing a
congruent usystem" reserved to faith. Much as Luther from bis
impassioned intuitions of the stands in the history of Christian
contradictory aspects of reality should thought as a preeminent example
of not blind one to insiJ hts which are pistic theology, accentuating
faith's un-themselves congruous, trenchant, and questionlng trust
against the claims of highly influential. Schelling was to turn reason, so
Boehme the shoemaker

to Boehme for his poslting of "first stands as an example of gnostic theol-

potency" as dialectical nonbeing in God. ogy, a..c;serting oompr-
ehension of the 1 n bis Lectures on the Philosophy of data of faith on the
part of reason.1

f-listory Regel was to acknowledge his Where Luther was content simply
to own deep indebtedness to the teutonicus accept 1he presence in God of
both vhïl.osophus. Schopenhauer's appeal to wrath and love, Boehme
gave a meta-the creative force of the will owes much physlcal basis and
interpretation of to Boehme. English literature alone these "realities of
faith," read now as would furnish an impressive catalogue contradiction-
; rather than as contrasts.

of Boehme students: William Law,

And whereas Luther resolved bis agon-Coleridge, and William Blake. In

our izing in the face of God by directing own day his influcnce is
traceable as himself to "der Mann Christus/'

well in the panpsychism of Charles Boehme was preoccupied with the

gnos-Hartshorne, in Tillich's "Ground of Be-tic quest, "Whence the
birth of God?"

i111111111m1n111111111111111111111111111111111111111111n1111111111111111

roots for contempory philosophers

45

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A J'HILOSOJ>JIJ<:l AMONG TUF. SIMPJ.F.

ment and change of this world;

Boehme was scnsitivc to the stum-

the mystery of the Resurrection

bling blocl{ whîch his "sîmplicity as an of the dead; and of eternal life.

author" would constitute for his read-This shall arise in the depth,

ers.2 Luther had reminded himself that in utter simplicity. Why not in

the heighth, in art? In order that such qucstions are rcserve<l for the holy
no man might dare to boast that

angels or the divine intelligence alone.

he himself had done it, and that Boehmr> Mat.es that originally it had
thereby the devil's pride might be never entcred his mind that one so
disclosed and brought to nothing, 7

simple should be writing for anyone He invites his reader to read his
book but himself. 3 He wrote to provide him-with care, that he may
share in the se1f a "memorial" of God's rnarvelous dawning of the new
day and be ready workings. Only contrary to his will for the eternal,
heavenly wedding. God's wcre copies made and circulated." He love
would have men walk in the pure, labored undcr the incongntity that he
luminous, and <leep knowledge of God. 8

was "a philosopher among the simple."

He was treating divine and sublirne DIAl,J<:CJTIC WITIIJN GOD

topics, and he appeared to Jack any Boehme's dialectic penetrates all

qualifications: but in His eeonomy had that is: God, the world, a.nd man.
Al-God not often uscd unlettcrE worlcmen ready in his earliest work, the
Aurora, to correct the falsifying lit-erati1 The which was bcgun on New
Year's Day, mean people of the carth had oftcn 1612, but recording a
mystic sunrise confounded the wise - suraunt indocti which had been
gcstating for twelve et raph1.,nt cadum.

years, his attention spans the nature of Boehme was conscious of

standing God and the totality of beings. He in the tradition of Luther's
re-forming.

could not comprehend "the deep births Luther had, indeed, purged lust
for of God in their essence-. "0 He was money, idolatry, bribery, and
deceit thrown into a deep agony of pcrplex-from the churches in
Germany. As "a ity.10 Why do contradictions pervade poor, despised
friar" he had withstood everything? Wh , do the godless enjoy learned
scribcs and powerful ecclcsîas-prosperity as great as that of the godly?

tics.

Bccause of such Gr1.1.,ndprobleme he was 0 But the dawning of the new

day, even the morning 1'èdncss before the

"altogether melancholy and deeply full dawn, should never be identifie<l

troubled, so that no Scr.ipture could with Luther':s T·wrnerlebni,'is; it
was re-comfort tne."11 He peur, over uthe served for thut "triumphing
in the spir-great deep of this world, also the sun it" which gave rise to
Boehme's Aurora.

and the stars, the cloud8, as well as He asks;

rain and snow" and in everything he found good and evil, love and
wrath, What is still concealed? The

true teaching

possessing a priority of being

of Christ? No, but

and meta-
the "philosophin" and the deep physical ultimacy. 12 Should the re be
ground of God; the heavenly pleas-any qucstion regarding the gnostic
ure; the rcvelation of the creation character of Boehme's speculation -

of the angels; the revelation of the speculari in its original, positive sense
horrible fall of the devil; from

of philosophical seeing - - one must whence evil proceeds; the creation of

this world; the deep ground and examine the breakthrough of his spirit,
mystery of man and of all crea-at the conclusion of an immense as-turcs
in this world; the Last Judg-sault 14upon God and all the gates of
PHILOSOPHY TODAV

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he.Il, u lnto "the most irltlmate blrth For just as Hls wrath Is a!-

of the Godhead. " 11 I t was ucomparable mlghty for destructlon, , . , is

Hls to nothinit so much as that in which love also almighty for
preservation; life is born in the midst of death; it if this "Contrarlwn"
dicl not exist, is comparable to the resurrectlon of the trum there would
be no life and

no good, and no evil elther. Now, dead. nu I t was something most ex

however, the essence of all essences

traordinary that was lm!]<lrted to hlm is revealed, so that what is good

at that moment, for Boehme says:

or evil is made vislble. Thus the essence of all essences is a continu-In this
light my spirit suddenly

a! actlnff, desirlng, and fulfllling: saw through everytbing and in

flre desires light, in order that it all creatures, even b1 the herbs

may have humility and the nature

and gras$ it recognized God, who

for lts burning or llfe, and light he is, and how he is, and what

desires flre, otherwlse there would hls wlll Is, And suddunly in that he no
light, and lt would have

light my wlll was sei2:ed by a great uelther strength or llfe • . . There-

impulse to descrl be the essence of fore I say to you: God's love Is as God.
But since I could not at once great as His wrath, Hls fire is as
comprehend the deep births of God great as Hls light . . . everythlng in
their essence, and grasp them

is equally eternal, without be-

in my rea.son, at least twelve years ginning.1e

transpired before the proper under standing was given me. 11

Boehme was quite capable of reoog.

nizing the logical contradictton inher-

. Boehme flnds "two qualities, one ent in "two almighties" in the Delty .

good and one bad, whkh are in one But he wished to point to the
dynamlc another as one thing in thls world, actlvity in the divine life
itself.

in all powers, in the stars and the ele ments, and no creature in the flesh,
DIALEOTIO WITHIN THE SELF

in the natural life, can substst without This gigantlc conflict wlthln the

having both qualities In it,"" He pro-Godhead has lts counterpart in the

self, ceeds to stipulate the meaning of this where Boehme flnds one's own
will key tenn "Qualität" as "the mobllity, (eigener Wille), whlch Is the
self-as-surging, or drlving of a thing." 11 I t Is sertlve wlll directed
towanl multipliclty, the characteristic feature of a thlng, and the reslgned
wil! (gelassener Wille) I t operates as a "Quell/' a spring or directed
inwanl towanl unlty. The cre-source, in everything. Only the pres-ative
character of the opposltion be-sure of a counter-quality or counter•Will
tween these two wills becomes evident can - to the accompaniment of
"Qual/' by the fact that each is necessary for birth pains and trlbulation -
allow for the existence of the other. Only in the the emergence of
somethlng's uQuali-face of oppositlon, by overooming opR

tät.,, Thus must contradlctory qualities Position, can the will - which is,
inR

interact upon one another to produce deed, free in lts choice -

realize lts

one thing, "qualifi,Ciret unter einander own individuality. Only the man
who wie ein Ding." 18
has asserted himself in seeking his own Boehme builds the opposltlon be-
egotistlcal satlsfactions, then has been tween God's wrath and Hls love to
ex-reintegrated into the purposes of God treme limits1 or, rather, to the
point by being rebom through faith, can where no limit.ation or
proportion re-possess the harmonious wlll to effect main. Each opposes
the other as omni-God.'s inclusive plan under allen con-potent:

dltions. 00 The opposition between self-

POTENTIALITY IN GOD

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ish desire and resignation to the divine Even - and supremely - in God

will is nowheïe more complete than the experience of a contrary is

required in Boehme: the only solution to the if "something" is to be
consciously Babel of the soul's unrest is that one l•mown, for it is
axiomatic that "Noth-become "as a nothing," t..hat he abandon ing
without contradiction can become his personal will so that God's will
manifest to itself; for if it bas nothing may unify his self. 21

to resist it, it goes continually of itself outwards, and returns not again
into THE DIALECTlC OF DIVINE BIRTl[

itself." 26 The divine depth must be re-In his probing of the hidden mys-
flected in the mirror of the logos, so tery of being Boehme saw both being
that the divine can see it.self, become and the possibility of not being.
The an object standing over agai.nst itself affirmation of the presence of
being as subject, so that the divine might always has its counterpart in
aware-know itself - as lwmo /eiber comes to ness of its absence.
Description of the know who he is only by expending bis divine being
required, for Boehme, de-efforts on something outside him. So lineation
of the theogonie process by God can enjoy the richness and variety which
three persons derive from the of His own internal life only through One
and the natural world sterns from the three centers of the Trinity -

the Trinity. I t is not the Father who be-austere and angry as Father,
laving and gets the Son from all eternity, but the compassionate as Son,
fashioning, shap-One "begetteth himself in himself, from ing, completing
as Holy Spirit. 21 And eternity to etemity." 22 The origin of the
formation of the physical world the Supreme Spirit is characterized by is
not a creatio ere nih,i'!Jo, an act by Boehme as an "eternal stillness."
(e.ine which God posits something 1outside euJige StilW <ohne Wesen)
.23 Were it Himself, but rather creation from

not replete with desire it would be a Hims.elf, a manifestation from the N

othing - nothing would be stirring or No-thing of God. A s such the world
is drawing itself forth. But an inner r..eces-something ether than God,
the l"esult sity, a Will, impels it, so that this first of a free divine fiat,
though certain of Will "beholds itself," i.e., elicits a sec-Boehme's
formulations place hiin un-ond and contrary Will. 24 This process
comfortably close to the Neoplatonic does not take place in the tempora!

"generation." Separate and particular order, in some succession of

moments, modes of being are themselves not di-hut, as in Hegel, it
OCCUI'$ as a logical vine but are "figures," modes of rev-function in the
divine life. Our mind elation of the bidden life of God. The requires
pictoriaJ representation of emphasis on conttnuity, on continuous

"stages" in this movement, but the to-development, is greater than

orthodox tal simultaneity and organic unity of Christian teaching
regarding discon-the theogonie process should not be tinuity between
God and creatures

ignored. 25 Moreover, the terms Boehme would allow.

employs are not to be under,;;tood con-ceptually; they point symbolically

to UNGBUND AND GBUND

something beyond every particular

Boehme's dialectical oonception of

thing and beyond all tha:.t can be named.

Ungrund and Grund emerges here. The A n y predicate affirmed of such

terms Ungrund is the endless, undifferentiated, is inadequate by virtue of
their uni-unoriginated "source" of the divine life versa! relationships.

itself. I t is "grounded" in nothing what-

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soever, so that in relation to particular.

form and self-consciousness, so that it formed, dependent things it can

best may find and feel, love and know it-be termed a "No-thing." Yet the
uewi,ge self .00 I t seeks to slough off all limita-Nfchts'' is heavy with
desire. I t craves tions of form through a new birth. 31

the attainment of a Grund:

So i t must pass through "death" to newness of life; i t must overcome

the The unground is an eternal

limitations of form through the redemp-nothing, but makes an eternal

be-

tion of form.

ginning as a craving. For the noth-

thing is a craving after something.

WILL TO SELF-ACTUATION IN GOD

But as there is nothing that can give anything, according]y the crav-
Boehme's "No-thing," which is the ing itself is the giving of it, which
power of being, must be distinguished yet also is a nothing, or merely
from the nondialectical not11ing, the a desirous seeking. 28

pure non-being, which the Greek lan-guage denominated

The "No-thing" desires to become con-

ofiK öv. The ofiK óv is crete rather than potentially concrete, the idea of
not-existing. I t is 1 nothing"

to receive form rather than remain in the most complete sense of the
term fo1mless, to become something, an

in the sense of the creatio ex nihilo, uEt'W<ls," instead

since the Greek negative

of its bare "No-thing."

ofi is the par-

ticle which

Without the will for

summarily negates in con-

41 Some-thing" the

trast to

"No-thing"

the qualified denial of the

could not exist, nor could

"Some-thing"

weaker negative p:IJ. This

exist without the "No-

o K óv is a non-

thing." The craving, Boehme says, is being existing outside of God and
bears

"ALL, and yet as a Nothing."

no relationship to being. I t is the un-29

lts

qualified negation
gaunt emptiness yet embrace8 the rich-of being, complete

absence of being. What Boehme speaks ness of endless possibilities; so

from the perspective of formeel or limited be-of is the µ:I, iJv, the "No-
thing" which ing it is replete with limitless freedom; stands in a
dialectical relation to be-it is for Boehme, precisely this bound-ing. I t is
the divine nothingness which less freedom. Though enjoying such is not
privation of being but potentialit.y complete freedom, being still
undefined of being. This dark, primal, uncondi-and indeterminate and
void of passion, tioned abyss "sees" and "discovers it-i t nevertheless
craves the attainment self" as conditioned being:

of self-consciousness. I t covets a more Seeing then the first will is an

1:,ignificant awareness of its own iden-ungroundedness, to be regarded

as

tity. The mystery of tlüs juxtaposition an eternal nothing, we reoognize

of 0 freedom" and "need," of "passion-i t to be like a mirror, wherein

one less re pose" and "restless era ving," of

sees bis own image; like a life, and

"Ungrund" and "Grund," of "will" and yet i t is no life, but a figure of

life and of the image belonging to life.

''cow1ter-will" is never ''explained,"

Thus we recognize the etemal Un-

other than to point to the actualization ground out of Nature to be like

of the self, through opposition by an a mirror. For i t is Iike an eye

"other," into a greater fulness - which which sees, and yet conducts noth-
nevertheless adds nothing to what was ing in the seeing wherewlth it
sees;
for seeing is without essence . .

already present.

We are able tben to recognize that

the eternal Unground out of Na-

The dialectlc does not, however,

ture is a will, like an eye wherein cease when the formless has acquired
Nature is bidden; like a bidden fire

POTENTIALITY IN GOD

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that burns not, which exftsts and drive toward knowledge. For Boehme
also exists not. I t is not a spirit, God.'s perfection simply demands that
but a form of spirit, like the reflection in the mirror. For all the He be
not altogether simple. God can-form of a spirit is seen in the re-not stand
as the sovereign exception to flection or in the mirror, and yet all
negativities and potentialities: there there is nothing which the eye or is
process in the divine life. So dynamic mirror sees; hut its seeing is in is
this process that i t erupts in opposi-itself, for there is nothing before it
that were deeper there. 32

tions for which this divine life is not responsible; God is not tainted by
the God manifests himself to himself

<lark principle within Himself. Self-in this procession from Ungrund to

manifestation, self-consciousness, self-Grund. The procession becomes
God's realization are all possible simply be-means of attaining
conscioumess of cause there is dialectic within the himself

through the Grund that

divine:

reveals God.'s pure potentiality to him-•

self. The presence of the unfathomable, The reader shou.J.d know that

tirneless will within this amysterium in Yes and No all things oonstst,
magnum" reveals Boehme's voluntar-whether it be divine, or demonie,

ism.

earthly, or whatever m a y be

God strives to actualize the vision nam ed. The One, as the Yes, is

of his splendor as reflected in the mir-pure power and life, and is the

r-0r. His will reacts upon the products truth of God, or God Himself. He
of his imagination and craves to ac-wculd be unknowable in Himself,

tualize them. For the divine psychology and the re would be no joy, or
exal-tation, or feeling, in Hirn without must conform in a supereninent
way the No. The No is the counter-to its image in man."' 8 Nature, which
stroke of the Yes, or the Truth,

had been excluded from God in the in order that the Truth might be
Hebrew encounter with the surround-manifest and a something, in
which

ing nature-gods, is brought into the there might be a contrarium, in

which the

Godhead once again. Potentiality is eternal love might be

active, feeling, willing, and somepresent within the Godhead, rather than
thing to be loved. And yet one

the pure actuality of St. Thomas' con-cannot say that the Yes is separat-

ception of God. For St. Thomas there ed from the No and that they are
can be no potentiality in God because two things distinct from one an-
God supremely and eternally is every-other for they are but One Thing,

but themselves divide into two Be-

thing he may become, hut for Boehme ginnings (Principia) and form two

the etemal will in God continually gives Centra, since each works and
wills rise to all that is: will is the source in itself. Without these two,
which of self-actuation in both God and in stand in perpetual conflict, all

man. St. Augustine had, indeed, rraised things would be a Nothing, and

would stand still without move-

the question of novelty in God. How, ment. s:;

he asks, is one to understand the strange genesis of creatures? In The
This defence of dialecti.c from

City of G-od he raised Boehme's problem, Boehme's last, unfinished

work, which

"this extremely difficult question of breaks off after the answer to the fif-
how, in view of bis etemity, God oould teenth in a series of 177 questions
into produce new things without any novelty the sources of revelation,
deserves ex-of wil]. "H He recognized tbe problem, tended quotation and
careful examina-hut feTI back upon faith rather than tion. Evidently in
the marvelous quar-

• PHILOSOPHY TODAY •

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ter-hour of illwninatlon a compreben-God, as H e r e a l l y Is, Is never w
r a t h f u l s i v e s y m b o l reconclling t h e contradic-nor does H e
punish.

tions w a s provided B o e h m e . T h e m l g h t y T h e Sil.esian s e e r s a

w H i m s e l f a s con1:ral."ies remain. There is efflux of one o f the
strings in the concert of v i t a l e:nergy, and contravention, and God's
joy.86 A s s o u r c e o f tb.at dialecti-t'etrogression i n t o t h e e n r i c h
e d c e n t e r cal method w h i c h becarne the instru-o n c e a g a i n , h u
t s o d e p e n d e n t a r e t h e s e m e n t o f Schelling, Novalls, a n d H e
g e l , forces o n o n e another t h a t a unifying h e inspired a c h o r u s o
f Dionysian process of development e m e r g e s . S u c h voices. B o e b
mesawhimselfasafaith-

reconciliation i s e v e n p r e s e n t i n t h e ful instrument o f Christ. H l

s weakness l i f e o f t h e Trlnity. A t r u e im.agination w a s the
weakness o f all g n o s t i c sys-recognizes tb.at t h e F a t h e r i s never t
e m s , i.e., t h e t e n t a t i v e s o f f a i t h a r e a p a r t f r o m t h e SOn.
Afalselmagina-

subverted; b i s s t r e n g t h w a s the strength tion thinks of the Father

as existing o f a supremely gnostic system, f o r his alone and as such He
can b e k n o w n m a n y f o l l o w e r s c o u l d n o t m a t c h h i s o n l y
a s wrathful, a n g r y , a n d jealous.

bold originality.

REFERENCES

1. Cf. Jacob Taubes, "Philosophers Speak o f 20. Cf. Howard Brinton,

The My stic Will. New God: A Review Article," The Joumal of York:
Macmillan, 1930. P. 212ff.

Religion XXXIV (April, 1954), 120,-26.

21. Cf. De Signalura Rerum, 15, 24-35. Sämtliche 2. Aurora, oder

Morgenröth im Aufgang, 9, 1.
Schriften VI, p. 221-23.

Siimtliche Schriften I (Stuttgart: Fr. From-22. Mysterium Magnum, 1, 2.

Trans. John Spar-manns Verlag, 1955), p. 104.

row. Edit. C. J. B. London: John M. Wat-3. Ep. l, 2-3. Siimtliche

Schriflen IX; p. 1-2.

kins, 1924. I, p. 1.

Cf. atso Ep. XXI, 1-2; p. 84.

23. Vierzig F ra gen, 1, 6, Sämtliche Schriften III, 4. Ep. 8, 61. Unterricht

von den leuten. Zeilen p. 9.

an Paul Kaym. Sämtliche Schriften V, p. 415.

24. ll7id., 1, 13; p. 10.

5. Aurora, 18, 80. Sämtliche Schriften I, p. 2S6.

25. Cf. Von dev Gnadenwahl, 3, 10. Sämtliche 6. Ibid., 9, 7; p. 105.

Schn'ften VI, p. ZJ.

7. ll7id., 9, &-9; p. 105.

26. O f the Dwine lntuition, 1, 8. Six Theosophic 8. Ibid.,

Points, tl'ans. J. R. Earle with intro. by 9. Ibid., 19, 14; p. 266.

Nicolas Berdyaev. Ann Arbor: Univ. o f 10. Ibid., 19, 5: p. 265.

Michigan Press, 1958. p. 167.

l l . Ibid., 19, 9; p. 266.

27. Cf. Hans Lassen Martenson, Jacob Boehme: 12. Ibid., 19, 5 and 6; p.
265. Hans Grunsky His Life and Teaching, trans. T. Rhys Evans.
identifies "the great deep o f this world"

London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1885.

with the infinity of space which Boehme con-Pp. 93-4.

fronted in the Copemican world-view some 28. Concernin g the Earthly

anti Hecwenly Mys-time prior to 1600. Cf. bis Jacob Boehme tery, 1. S i r
Theosophic Points, p. 141.

(Stuttgart: Fr. Frommanns Verlag, 1956).

29. Mysterium Magnum, 29, 1; p. 254.

P. 19ft'.

30, De Signattwa Rerum, 2, 6, 8. Sämtliche 13. Ibid., 19, 11; p. 266.

Schriften VI, pp. 9-10.

14. lbià., 19, 12; p. 266.

31. Cf. John J. Stoudt, Sunrise to Eternity. Phila-15. Ibid., 19, 13-14; p.
266-67.

delphia: Univ. o f Pennsylvania Press, 1957.

16. The Aurora. Trans. John Sparrow. Edited P. 231.

by C. J. B. and D. S. H. (London: James 32. Six Theosophic Points, 1, 7-

9; pp, 6-7.

Cla.-ke & Co., 1960), pp. 39-40.

33. Cf. Martenson, op. cit., pp. 64-5.

17. Aurora, oder Morgenröthe im Anfang, I, 3.

34, Book xii, ch. 21.

Sämtliche Schriften I, p. 24.

35. Betrachiung Göttlicher Of/enbat"Un{J, 3, 2-3.

Sämtliche Schriften IX, pp. 6-7.

18. Ibid., 1, 15; p. 27.

36. The ConfessiPns of Jacob Boehme. Compiled 19. Gegen Tilke Il, 2,
142-43; Säm#lfrhe SdJriften and edited by W. Scott Palmer. New York:
IX, p. 132.

Harper & Brothers, 1954. P. 164.

POTENTIALITY IN GOD

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