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On the Different Senses of "Transcendence,." etc.1
There are at least four senses in which we may speak of "transcendence," or "the transcendent," in smnesome of which such other tennsterms as "the ultimate,." "the strictly ultimate," "the unconditioned," and so on might possibly be used more or less synonymously. I shall try simply to clarify these four senses, so as to bring out their differences as well as their similarities, without venturing any suggestions as to how we might wish to label them.
1.
"The transcendent" may mean simply a region of experience or a kind of discourse that is "beyond" the strictly and properly empirical, in the sense that the warrants necessary for making true statements about such experience or in this kind of discourse cannot be merely empirical warrants. In this first and broadest sense of the term, even positivism (or, more generally, what I distinguish as "secularism") would in the nature of the case have to do with "the transcendent." For, in denying that statements without empirical warrants can be cognitively meaningful, positiviSInpositivism (or secularism) is either totally arbitrary or else is itself involved, however self-contradictorily, in making just such a statement.
2.
''The transcendent" may be used in a somewhat stricter, and yet still broad, sense as it is in a certain kind of interpretation of the region of experience, or the kind of discourse, that is, in the first sense, "transcendent," or "beyond" the strictly and properly empirical. I refer to the kind of metaphysical interpretation that affirms or necessarily implies the reality or existence of transempirical, Inetaphysicalmetaphysical entities. Thus any interpretation that explicitly or ilnplicitlyimplicitly affirms the reality or existence of entities other than those that can be affinnedaffirmed or implied by the strictly and properly empirical warrants of the sciences may be said to have to do with "the transcendent" in this second sense of the term. And this Inaymay be said even of interpretations that hold that the only differences between actual entities or existents are merely specific differences \-\- that deny, in other words, the reality or existence of any generically different or extraordinary actual entity or existent. Some such denial, I take it, is characteristic of any atheistic
2
metaphysical interpretation-not only atheistic materialism, but also an atheistic idealislnidealism such as McTaggart's or an atheistic existentialislnexistentialism like Sartre's.
3.
A still stricter sense of "the transcendent" is that in which it is used in a significantly different kind of metaphysical interpretation of experience \-\- one that explicitly affinnsaffirms the reality or existence of an extraordinary or generically different actual entity or existent such as might otherwise be designated "God or Nature" (in the sense of Spinoza's _Deus sive natura_), "the Universe," "the Whole," "the Absolute," or "the Encompassing.If Thus any interpretation that explicitly affinnsaffirms the existence of an extraordinary, generically different actual entity or existent may be said to affirlnaffirm "the transcendent" in this third sense of the tennterm. And this may be said even if the interpretation denies that what it means by "God" or "Nature," "the Absolute" or "the Whole," is in all respects independent of the world of ordinary actual entities or existents. In this third sense, some forms of absolute idealism, and even of so-called neoclassical, or "process," theism explicitly affirm "the transcendent."
4.
Finally, and most strictly, "the transcendent" Inaymay be used as it is in a metaphysical interpretation of the extraordinary actual entity, or existent, God that explicitly affirms God t?to be in all respects independent of the world of ordinary actual entities and existents. It is perhaps doubtful whether, in this strictest sense of the term, any interpretation could be said to affinnaffirm "the transcendent" except what Inaymay be properly called the classical theism of Jewish and Christian philosophy and theology originating with Philo Judceus. At any rate, this clearly is the sense of "the transcendent" that this kind of metaphysical theism is concerned to affirm in affirming the reality or existence of God.2ICf.,
for the original of this formulation, the transcript of my lectures, "The
 Problem of God: A Discussion with Langdon Gilkey": 43 f.
2In 2 In the past I have characterized classical theism as "supernaturaI\[istic\] theism." What I've had in mind in doing so is the third kind of lnetaphysicalmetaphysical interpretation clarified above (C\[ 4), according to which the extraordinary reality or existent properly called "God" is related to the world only external1y, or logically, not internally, or really. At the same time, I have never been comfortable accepting "natural\[istic\] theism" as an
3
apt characterization of my own metaphysical interpretation, which I take to be of the second kind (<\]I 3), according to which "God" refers to an extraordinary, generically different reality or existent that, being literally "the universal individual," is as eminently related to the world internally, or really, as externally, or logically. In other words, God, on my position, is "dually transcendent" (Hartshorne), in that, in one respect, God is eminently related to all things externally, or logically, even while, in another respect, God is just as eminently related to a1l things internally, or really \-\- at once the unsurpassably concrete as well as the unsurpassably abstract.
n.d.; rev. 15 February 2009