Being born outside the world. Two phenomenologies of birth: Master Eckhart and Michel Henry

Master Eckhart and Michel Henry are both thinkers who consider birth in a new and original way. They both dismiss birth as a coming to appear in the exteriority of the world; real birth happens internally. Eckhart describes it as the process by which God conceives himself in the depths of the soul, Henry sees it as the movement of Life which, in embracing itself brings about the immanent origin of the self For both, the phenomenality of the world must be bracketed out in order for the inner revelation of Life (Henry) or of God (Eckhart) to occur. However, whereas the French philosopher generates a sort of phenomenological dualism between the world and life, the Rhenish mystic carves out a way of passing from one sphere to the other: divine life is capable of emitting its light in the world.