Literary notes about Transcendence (AI summary)
In literature, the term transcendence is employed to denote a state or quality that exceeds ordinary limits, whether in the realm of the divine or human experience. It is often used in theological contexts to illustrate God’s nature as both immanent and yet fundamentally other, elevated beyond the confines of the mundane ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]). At the same time, it serves as a metaphor for human aspiration—the yearning to break free from conventional boundaries and attain a higher state of insight or aesthetic realization, as seen when it signifies a departure from common experience or even the blossoming of inner life ([6], [7], [8]). Moreover, authors sometimes invoke transcendence in discussions of knowledge and creativity, suggesting that a meaningful understanding or artistic breakthrough involves moving beyond the immediately given to capture an elusive, powerful essence ([9], [10]).
- Western theology recognized the immanence of God as well as his transcendence.
— from Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) by Augustus Hopkins Strong - Immanence alone is God imprisoned, as transcendence alone is God banished.
— from Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3) by Augustus Hopkins Strong - Christianity holds to a free, as well as to an essential, omnipresence—qualified and supplemented, however, by God's transcendence.
— from Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) by Augustus Hopkins Strong - God is immanent in the universe, not by compulsion, but by the free act of his own will, and this immanence is qualified by his transcendence.
— from Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) by Augustus Hopkins Strong - The Moslem, on the other hand, believes in God's unity and transcendence, but denies his immanence.
— from A Tour of the Missions: Observations and Conclusions by Augustus Hopkins Strong - She needed the brink of some abyss, some bitter fume, some transcendence of common boundaries.
— from The World's Illusion, Volume 2 (of 2): Ruth by Jakob Wassermann - And from it all he lifted his head with the transcendence of the knowledge was to come the flowering of his life.
— from The Lead of Honour by Norval Richardson - They consist in the aspiration after, and the attainment and transcendence of the Ideal as the true Idea of beauty.
— from The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine ArtsTranslated from the German with Notes and Prefatory Essay by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - This transcendence is what gives knowledge its cognitive and useful essence, its transitive function and validity.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Reflection must accordingly separate them, if knowledge (that is, ideas with eventual application and practical transcendence) is to exist at all.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana