  For Eckhart, this means that whoever is justice is always justice, because the I that would stand out from justice would no longer be an I. The I always already knows that it is justice, however, because in knowing itself as just, it knows itself as justice; for the just man is justice. The I knows that it is just, however, because otherwise it does not know at all and is not even an I at all. The I is what it is only as rationality, as a knowing which knows that it is and knows what it is. This I is not only cause of itself (causa sui; Eckhart, deepening the tradition of this concept, says sache mîn selbes: “cause of myself”; cf. Summerell, 2002). It is moreover the cause for God, insofar as God stands in relation to his creatures. For only the uncreated and uncreateable ground of the soul stands not in relation to creatures, but instead only in relation to itself (cf. Echardus, Predigt 52). The I that knows itself, wills itself, and is its own abode, and therewith the I that is, in univocal causality, cause of itself and yet, in this unity, the one rationality, is, according to Eckhart, what man ought to become and what man can become in taking on the true poverty of spirit. This is so since man has always been this I, is now this I, and always will be this I, even if he knows nothing of himself as this I.