I contend that the core of
religion is its quality of transcendence beyond the limits of human thought,
perception, and emotion. This is not to say that nothing may be said of the
divine, but that the stuff of our realm does not exhaust the mystery. We can’t
have God utterly figured out, for it would be impious of creatures of finite
knowledge to presume such knowledge that would fill up the dark hole of
absolute mystery. I turn to the Christian theologian, Karl Rahner, and to the
Hindu Rigveda to support this point, which is valid, I submit, for anything
that is (or can be counted as) a religion.
In chapter two of Foundations
of Christian Faith, Karl Rahner reflects on “that transcendental experience
in which a person comes into the presence of the absolute mystery which we call
‘God,’ an experience which is more primary than reflection and cannot be
recaptured completely by reflection.”[1]
In other words, the theologian reflects on a human experience that is more
primary than reflection. Similarly, he claims that the word, God, “is itself a
reality,” which, unlike the word itself, is presumably beyond reflection.[2]
Borrowing from Pseudo-Dionysius, we could say that both the transcendental
experience and the metaphysically real referent of the word God go beyond the
limits of human conception, perception, and sensibility (i.e., emotion). The
key here is go beyond, which is different than “is entirely beyond.” So
we can hang what Hume refers to as anthropomorphic ornaments on the experience
and reality, which thus need not be utterly ineffable. Both the experience and
the reality go beyond our reflections, and thus our words, and this should
situate our attempts to provide descriptors such that we do not take them as
absolute and exhaustive. Even divine revelation, Augustine writes, arrives in
our realm as through a darkened window. Hence, a person having a transcendental
experience comes into the presence of absolute mystery—a point that Hegel seems
to relegate under the presumed clarity of revelation. To the Christian,
according to Hegel, the proclamation “God is dead” means that “the truths of
faith are not in heaven but fully revealed in and for the finite world.”[3] That is, the content of Christianity “is that
God is revealed to human beings, that they know what God is.”[4]
Augustine’s darkened window is assumed to be transparent, as if the taint of
the fall had no impact on our reception of revelation. Dionysius’ “goes beyond”
is utterly ignored. In short, Hegel risks idealizing our realm and extirpating
the continuance of absolute mystery.
I submit that the inclusion of a
transcendent referent even though it inherently goes beyond the limits of our
cognitions, perceptions, and sensibilities is essential to the domain of
religion and renders it sui generis, and thus properly subject to its own
criteria, rather than those of history, ethics, or science. This is the thesis
of one of my research projects. I submit that transcendence as “going beyond” is
present not just in Christianity, but in Hinduism as well. For instance, “going
beyond” is depicted in X.90 of the Rigveda in the person of Purusa in the
following verses:[5]
“Having covered the earth on all
sides, he extended ten fingers’ breadth beyond.” (v. 1)
“he is master of immortality when
he climbs beyond (this world) through food.” (v. 2)
“So much is his greatness, but
the Man is more than this: a quarter of him is all living beings; three
quarters are the immortal in heaven.” (v. 3)
“Upon his birth, he reached
beyond the earth from behind and also from in front.” (v. 5)
“From his head the heaven
developed.” (v. 14)
According to Jamison and Brereton, the “ten fingers’ breadth” by which Purusa “exceeds the world measures from the Man’s hairline to his mouth” and is thus of “the imperceptible world of thought.”[6] Also beyond the world lie immortality (v. 2) and heaven (v. 3). Indeed, heaven developed from his head (v. 14). This ethereal beyondness lies beyond our realm, or world, and thus beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility. In the cosmological myth of the primordial Purusa, a transcendental experience can thus be associated with the nature of Man—in particular, with our mind—what Feuerbach would say is simply human nature. But as coming from the mind, the experience may be construed as being of thought, rather than going beyond the limits of cognition as Dionysius claims. If so, going beyond the world in the Rigveda (X.90) is not as transcendent. Thus it may be asked whether the absoluteness of mystery is eclipsed. If so, it would not necessarily be as compromised as in the case of Hegel’s view the human capacity for knowledge of God, for beyondness itself is salient in Rigveda X.90. That is to say, what is beyond the world is specified only to a limited extent (e.g., heaven, immortality). Yet it is presumably from thought—the area between the hairline and the mouth. Thought may begin us on the road to a transcendental experience (and notion of the divine), but the key lies in being willing to go beyond thought into the presence of absolute mystery.
1. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An
Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, William V. Dych, trans. (New
York: The Seabury Press, 1978), p. 44.
2. Ibid., p. 50.
3. Jeffrey Kosky, “The Birth of the Modern Philosophy of
Religion and the Death of Transcendence.” Pp. 13-29 in Transcendence: Philosophy, Literature, and Theology Approach the Beyond.
Regina Schwartz, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2004): 22.
4. Hegel, Lectures
on the Philosophy of Religion, p. 130.
5. The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of
India, Vol. 3, Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P Brereton, trans. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2014): 1549-550.
Bold added.
[6] Ibid., p. 1538.
