German Theology

...prehensible; that is to say, "creatureliness," "createdness," "somethingness," "selfhood," and "mine-hood" original: "creatürlicheit, geschaffenheit, ichtheit, selbheit, meinheit." These terms describe the ego's tendency to view itself as a distinct, independent entity. are all despised and held as nothing. As long as one holds any of these as "something" and clings to them, the Perfect remains unknown.

¶ Now one might also say: you say that outside of this Perfect, or without it, there is nothing, and yet you say that something flows out of it; surely what has flowed out is then "outside" of it? Answer: That is why we say that outside of it, or without it, there is no true being. What has flowed out has no true being and has no being except in the Perfect; rather, it is an accident Zufall: in medieval philosophy, a quality or property that does not exist on its own but must exist within a substance (like the color of an apple). or a glow and a radiance that has no being—or has no being except in the fire from which the glow flows, such as in the sun or in a light.

Chapter Two

¶ Scripture, faith, and truth say: Sin is nothing else than that the creature turns away from the unchangeable Good and turns toward the changeable; that is, it turns from the Perfect to the divided and the imperfect, and most especially into itself.

☞ Now note: when the creature claims for itself something good—such as being, life, knowledge, power, and in short, everything that should be called good—as if the creature were those things, or as if they belonged to it, then it turns away. What else did the devil do, or what was his "turning away" or his fall, other than that he claimed that he was also "something," and wanted to be "something," and that "something" was his, and that "something" belonged to him? This claiming, and his "I," and his "me," and his "to me," and his "mine" The author emphasizes the first-person pronouns (ich, mich, mir, mein) as the root of spiritual fall.—that was his turning away and his fall, and so it remains today.

Chapter Three

¶ What did Adam do but that very same thing? It is said that because Adam ate the apple, he was lost or fallen...