The Dialogue between Reason and Faith: Master Eckhart'S Mystical Philosophy(1/3)

This study tries to examine the relation between Christianity and reason by exploring Eckhart's reasoned discourses on mysticism. The attitude toward mystical experience is a touchstone for inspecting the relation between faith and reason. If a theist merely insists on the logical and scrutinizing function of reason, emphasizing that only what meets the reason's test could be acceptable, denying any supernatural and unintelligible phenomenon, then faith would become a merely moral demand or a knowledge system, being no longer an amazing strength to soothe soul, to heal life, and even to exorcise and to cure diseases. However, if we discard or neglect reasons' work, then faith would become a weird chaos which is out of control and become something surpasses man, distorting or harming human life. The tension between faith and reason did not exist in the Christianity of the Middle Age in the West, but also in all religions. Of course, there is still a matter of competition or conflict between human reason and God's revelation in Christianity. Which one should have the priority, when God's revelation collides with man's reason? What would it bring by their encounter with one another? This dilemma of the Western religion and theology is still a difficulty we should face with. This study attempts to seek for inspiration from Eckhart's philosophical discourses upon mysticism, examining his use of reason and its possible limit, to get a way out for Christian's life nowadays.