We find in Eckhart a considerable number of references to this divine element in the soul, which he calls sometimes the ‘fortress’ (burgelin), the ‘ground’ (grunt) or the ‘spark’ (funkelin) of the soul. Sometimes he refers to it in terms very much like those of St Thomas Aquinas, as an innate and inextinguishable inclination to the good, and sometimes he goes beyond them in stressing the affinity with God which this part of the human soul possesses:

https://archive.org/details/godwithinmystica00davi/page/48/mode/2up?q=funkelin