Böhme

Jakob Böhme lived between 1575 and 1624, and was a modest shoemaker. After experiencing visions, he started talking and writing about them, and despite opposition from the local clergy his works circulated well beyond his original Bohemia (now Poland), being translated into English as early as 1645. He was judged by Hegel to be the first German philosopher. His emphasis on unity, and specifically the unity of God and in God, is nothing new by now, if not for his pointing out that one and the same God is worshipped in all religions, and hence worshippers of all religions can equally be saved. His original contribution is primarily in his treatment of evil, which we know to be a major mystical theme from the first chapter on Russell. The problem Christians have with evil is that, if God is the creator of everything, he seems to be responsible for creating evil as well. Plotinus would deny that there is evil: evil is nothing, a limit to being, hence for him there would be nothing for God to create. But the Church could not accept that, since then, when a sinner sins, he would be doing nothing and should not be punished for it (which is where Scotus Eriugena was going, but did not fully admit to it). Böhme has an original resolution of this hard problem. God, being ineffable and incomprehensible, does not know himself. In order to do so, he must manifest himself in creatures, which are (nothing other than) him in a divided form. Division is evil, as much as unity is good; but the division brought about here is only superficial, and so is the struggle among the different manifestations that end up being inimical to one another, because one and the same God undergirds it all. From God’s (that is, from the only proper) point of view, the awareness allowed by manifestation harmonizes perfectly with the peacefulness allowed by the underlying unity.