TRANSCENDENCE, Akhil Abraham

Transcendence, Transcendent, and Transcendental are words that refer to an object or a property of an object, as being comparatively beyond that of other objects. Such objects tensed other objects or properties in some way. The first meaning as part of the concept pair transcendence/immanence is used primarily with reference to God's relation to the world and is particularly important in theology. Here Transcendental means that God is completely outside of and beyond the world, as contrasted with the notion that God is manifested in the world. This meaning originates both in the Aristotelian view of God as the prime mover, a non-material self-consciousness that is outside of the world. Philosophies of immanence such as stoicism, Spinoza, Deleuze or pantheism maintain that God is manifested in and fully present in the world and the things in the world.  In the second meaning, which originated in medieval philosophy, concepts are transcendental if they are broader than what falls within the Aristotelian categories that were used to organize reality conceptually. The prevailing notion of transcendental is that of a quality of being which can be predicated on any actually existing thing insofar as it exists. Primary examples of the transcendental are the existent and the characteristics, designated transcendental, of unity, truth, and goodness. In religion, transcendence is a trance-like condition or state of being that surpasses physical existence and in one form is also independent of it. It is typically manifested in prayer, seance, meditation and paranormal "visions". It is affirmed in the concept of the divine in the major religious traditions, and contrasts with the notion of God, or the Absolute, existing exclusively in the physical order (immanentism), or indistinguishable from it (pantheism). Transcendence can be attributed to the divine not only in its being, but also in its knowledge. Thus, God transcends the universe, but also transcends 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 an metaphysicians of the great religious traditions affirm that God, or Brahman, is both within and beyond the universe (pantheism); in it, but not of it; simultaneously pervading it and surpassing it.

In everyday language, "transcendence" means "going beyond", and "self-transcendence" means going beyond a prior form or state of oneself. Mystical experience is thought of as a particularly advanced state of self-transcendence, in which the sense of a separate self is abandoned. "Self transcendence" is believed to be psychometrically measurable, and (at least partially) inherited.