The works of love : towards a grammar of transcendence

Abstract

‘This article seeks to present the shifting senses and aspects of ‘Transcendence’ in the Western tradition, always indicating something 'other' or 'outside' but never cut off totally from ‘immanence’ or the ‘inside’, but rather involving it essentially. It shows how the human person has, in various aspects of life, been continuously presented with the decision on how to relate to this reality. Subsiding into immanence and rejecting any notion of the ‘transcendent’ appears to set one on a course towards bitterness, resentment, anger, and pessimism. The human person seeks transformation and, it seems that the most viable conduit through which the transcendent is introduced into the immanent is through loving personal encounters. Here, a temporal, rather than a spatial, metaphor is used: the model proposed is that of personal closeness rather than spatial juxtaposition. Kierkegaard especially indicates the route of this distinctive-but-difficult conversion if the human is to reach full potential and happiness.