Boehme's bold and far-ranging vision has woven itself into culture through poets, writers, philosophers, theologians, and even revolutionaries. Thus is the meek little German shoemaker known as one of the founders of modern thought.
Background
Two themes dominate Boehme's thought: the traditional inwardness characteristic of Germanic mysticism and the nature philosophy of the Renaissance. Three basic problems pressed upon him: 1) a theogonic problem--how out of the groundless the trinitarian God emerged; 2) a metaphysical problem--how out of a unitary source the world of myriad forms arose; and 3) a cosmological problem--how out of chaos the formed world arose. His treatment of these problems sought to explain how his world of "Yes" and "No" came to be. After creating a theoretical explanation of how a divided world came to be, Boehme's focus changed, and he sought to relieve this tension. Under the impact of Renaissance nature philosophies, the traditional inner light mentioned above became the signature within all things--the divine particle which lies at the heart of all formed reality. Regeneration of man and his world follows a change in the direction of the will from self to God.
Education
He was raised in the Lutheran faith, and received only the most elementary education.
Career
He worked as a herdboy, was later apprenticed to a shoemaker at Seidenberg, and in 1599, opened shop as a shoemaker at Görlitz. In 1600, stimulated by his devout pastor, Martin Moller, Boehme had a profound mystical experience in which he gained the insight that in "Yes" and "No" all things consist. This experience deepened as he matured, and he was led to expound his insight in a remarkable series of theological and philosophical works of speculative and devotional character.
His first book, the Aurora; or, Morning Redness created a stir and resulted in his being prohibited from further writing by the Görlitz Council. Boehme's pen was silent for seven years, but, urged by the coterie of friends and admirers which the secret reading of his works was making, he resumed writing, now a maturer mind. From 1619 to his death, he produced 30 books and tracts, some of which remained unfinished--in modern times a remarkable period of philosophical productivity. These works stamp Boehme as one of the great speculative minds of Western culture, whose influence on men like Friedrich von Schelling, Georg F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Eduard von Hartmann, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, and Paul Tillich is significant.
Boehme's chief works fall into several groups. His devotional tracts, which contain some of his finest writing, are usually gathered into a work entitled The Way to Christ. His apologetic works include two against the harebrained sectarianism of Stiefel and Meth, two against the crypto-Calvinist Balthasar Tilke, and one against the persecutions of the pastor of Görlitz,Gorlitz, Gregory Richter. These last works mark Boehme as an able participant in robust theological controversy.