Terminology Tuesday: Transcendence
Transcendence: That which is higher than or surpasses other things. What is transcendent is thus relative to what is transcended. God is conceived by traditional theologians as being transcendent with respect to the created universe, meaning that he is outside the universe and that no part of the universe is identical to him or part of him. To think of God as transcendent with respect to time is to conceive of him as timeless. Immanuel Kant believed that God was transcendent in the sense of being beyond the possibility of any human experience. Theologians have usually balanced an emphasis on God’s transcendence with and emphasis on God’s immanence within the created world as embodied in his knowledge of and action within the world.1
1. C.Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p. 117.