Kenosis — Divine Self-Emptying

Kenosis (from Philippians 2:7, ekenosen heauton — 'he emptied himself') describes Christ's self-emptying in taking the form of a servant, and in mystical theology extends to the soul's own radical self-dispossession as the precondition for divine indwelling. Meister Eckhart radicalized this in his German sermons: the soul must achieve Gelassenheit (releasement), becoming so empty that even the concept of God is surrendered — 'I pray God to rid me of God.' This is not nihilism but the apophatic logic of the Godhead (Gottheit) beyond God: the vessel must be emptied of everything, including its own emptiness, before it can receive the birth of the Word (Geburt des Wortes) in the ground of the soul (Seelengrund).

Cross-Tradition Resonances