School
Transcendence (religion)
Overview
In religion, transcendence is the aspect of existence that is completely independent of the material universe, beyond all known physical laws. This is related to the nature and power of deities as well as other spiritual or supernatural beings and forces. This is contrasted with immanence, where a god is said to be fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways. In religious experience, transcendence is a state of being that has overcome the limitations of physical existence, and by some definitions, has also become independent of it. This is typically manifested in prayer, rituals, meditation, psychedelics and paranormal visions.
It is affirmed in various religious traditions' concept of the divine, which contrasts with the notion of a god (or, the Absolute) that exists exclusively in the physical order (immanentism), or is indistinguishable from it (pantheism). Transcendence can be attributed in knowledge as well as or instead of its being. Thus, an entity may transcend both the universe and knowledge (is beyond the grasp of the human mind).
Although transcendence is defined as the opposite of immanence, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some theologians and metaphysicians of various religious traditions affirm that a god is both within and beyond the universe (panentheism); in it, but not of it; simultaneously pervading it and surpassing it.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Transcendence (religion) is discussed.
_Teacher: Reply._ Your objection combines and confuses two things. To disentangle them is to answer the objection. (1) The notion of transcendence has a double meaning; first, it denotes that which lies inherently and essentially beyond experience. It is interesting to note that the opponents of pragmatism have been forced by the exigencies of their hostility to resuscitate a doctrine supposedly dead: the doctrine…
John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other essays in contemporary thought
states what it is; names the idea
For such cannot come under the divine omnipotence, not because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has not the nature of a feasible or possible thing. Therefore, everything that does not imply a contradiction in terms, is numbered amongst those possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent: whereas whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
states what it is; author linked in the graph
The stone which reacts only to stimuli of the present, not of the future, cannot make the mistakes which a being reacting to a future taken to be connected with the present is sure to make. But it is important to note just what this transcendence consists in. It has nothing to do with transcending mental states to arrive at an external object.
John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic
states what it is; names the idea
While these, then, neither confine in any place, nor limit, nor distribute the divine substance, but, as is worthy of God, own it to be wholly though spiritually present everywhere, will they perchance say that this substance is absent from such immense spaces outside the world, and is occupied in one only, (and that a very little one compared with the infinity beyond,) the one, namely, in which is the world? I…
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
author linked in the graph
Many psychologists and philosophers have denied the existence of special laws for our psychical life, if we understand this to mean specific laws, differing from the universal physical ones. Some say that everything that is called a psychical law is nothing but a psychological reflex of physical combinations, which is made up of sensations joined to certain central cerebral processes. Others maintain that there are…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
states what it is; author linked in the graph
Philosophers who discussed Transcendence (religion)
- Gershom Scholem
- Giordano Bruno
- Philo
- Julius Evola
- Karl Jaspers
- Walt Whitman
- Baruch Spinoza
- Wilhelm Wundt
- Rudolf Otto
- Islam
Related ideas
- Ritual
- Ishvara
- Hinduism
- Heaven
- Hasidic Judaism
- Soteriology
- Para Brahman
- Saṃsāra
- Cosmology
- Middle Ages
- Metaphysics
- Monism
- Vishnu
- Monotheism
- Moses
- Manifestation of God (Baháʼí Faith)
- Meditation
- Augustine of Hippo
- Nirvana
- Absolute (philosophy)
- Thomas Aquinas
- Omnipotence
- Omniscience
- Bhagavad Gita
Place in the tradition
Part of Atheism.