The Nature of Transcendence in Religion - What would a transcendent being be like?

[Iwasamwillbe]

Transcendence: existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(religion)

In religion, transcendence is the aspect of a deity's nature and power that is wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all known physical laws.

What would be the attributes of an entity that exists beyond spacetime and mass-energy? What could it do? What would or could it perceive? How powerful would such a being be, or would normal conceptions of power even apply to it?

 

[Black Waltz]

this guy

 

[ProgKing of the North]

I prefer being euphoric, m’self

 

[2 litre soda]

If there's an all powerful, omnipotent deity, one that defies all logic and rule, that cannot be held back by any force or law, etc. etc. then it follows that such a being could do whatever the hell it wanted.

This is where I see a lot of religious philosophy get tripped up, because they assume that God must be "This" or "That", God has to be "Something" or must do "Whatever".

No, God doesn't have to be anything God doesn't want to be. God isn't bound by any logic or comprehensibility. God can add 2 + 2 and get 5. God can microwave a burrito so hot that he can't eat it, and eat it anyways, and the paradox doesn't matter because he's God and fuck you, why would he be bound by something petty like a binary logical state or rationality? All Powerful means All Powerful, not "All powerful but still limited by some things".

That said, this doesn't prove that God exists, nor that he is worth worshipping.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

By the very definition, a transcendent being stops being transcendent the moment it exists, because if it can do something then it's not doing something that cannot be done.

It's like "supernatural animal". Well, if its an animal that exists, it's not supernatural.

It's just old timey linguistic trickery. The being who does that which cannot be done. It's an illogical concept, of course it's unimaginable.

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

By the very definition, a transcendent being stops being transcendent the moment it exists, because if it can do something then it's not doing something that cannot be done.

It's like "supernatural animal". Well, if its an animal that exists, it's not supernatural.

It's just old timey linguistic trickery. The being who does that which cannot be done. It's an illogical concept, of course it's unimaginable.

It seems that you define both "transcendent" and "supernatural" in a metaphysically naturalistic context, wherein nothing exists that is not physical.

Otherwise your argument would be arbitrary and dumb.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

It seems that you define both "transcendent" and "supernatural" in a metaphysically naturalistic context, wherein nothing exists that is not physical.

Otherwise your argument would be arbitrary and dumb.

The very phrase "trancendence" represents an arbitrary and dumb concept. Our understanding of the universe is that nothing does exist that isn't physical.

It's like saying "a mountain that is taller than its own peak". It's not a valid concept, and it's banking on that to sound super deep, rather than sounding like nonsense.

 

[ES 148]

The very phrase "trancendence" represents an arbitrary and dumb concept. Our understanding of the universe is that nothing does exist that isn't physical.

It's like saying "a mountain that is taller than its own peak". It's not a valid concept, and it's banking on that to sound super deep, rather than sounding like nonsense.

not understanding metaphors and allegory is a sign of autism

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

The very phrase "trancendence" represents an arbitrary and dumb concept. Our understanding of the universe is that nothing does exist that isn't physical.

It's like saying "a mountain that is taller than its own peak". It's not a valid concept, and it's banking on that to sound super deep, rather than sounding like nonsense.

Who is this "our" though? There are many objects and concepts that men generally agree possess reality and existence, such as logic, mathematics, color, and information, yet are quasi-physical, nonphysical, or even abstract and/or metaphysical.

 

[2 litre soda]

Our understanding of the universe is that nothing does exist that isn't physical.

Do numbers exist?

 

[Godless9]

By the very definition, a transcendent being stops being transcendent the moment it exists, because if it can do something then it's not doing something that cannot be done.

It's like "supernatural animal". Well, if its an animal that exists, it's not supernatural.

It's just old timey linguistic trickery. The being who does that which cannot be done. It's an illogical concept, of course it's unimaginable.

You are confusing "transcendence" with "omnipotence"
I dont know why you think a transcendent being cannot exist. Plus theists don't even claim the god begins to exist.
And I think you are just repeating something you have heard about the omnipotence paradox when you say "a being that can do what cannot be done"

This is all a strawman to the theists view.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

It would be irrelevant to us. We are material beings with senses, and if it cannot be sensed via being felt or observed in some manner it for all intents and purposes does not exist. I cannot detect Bigfoot, the invisible pink unicorn or a furry who isn't a sexual deviant; should I assume they are trancendent?

Leave the word salad at the door, To be transendent one has to not be in the material world, and as soon as this being starts to be able to it ceases to be transendent.

The Greeks had a concept called the "Unknown God" (You'd have spotted this in the New Testament book of acts in Paul's visit to Athens and speech to the Aeropagus) of a deity of deities beyond space and time that they could only describe in negatives, that is what it defiently wasn't and it was trancendent.

The Greeks were a bit smarter than the religious who came after them, because they realised this deity couldn't do anything to affect their world and didn't bother to worship it, sticking to the Hellenic pantheon who were thought to be material beings.

 

[feedtheoctopus]

Read up on Buddhism and Hinduism, they both present probably the clearest descriptions of non-dual/transcendent consciousness I've come across. Basically, the ultimate nature of reality (brahman, nirvana, godhead, whatever) is incomprehensible to us intellectually. It can only be directly experienced. It isn't "this" or "that" so much as complete and total awareness and potentiality. Christian mysticism and the Kabbalah come to similar conclusions. God is fundamentally unknowable through the intellect. Personal spiritual growth revolves around learning to make peace with that aspect of life, to accept that god is universal and therefore a type of consciousness we cannot formulate into words. The nature of divinity cannot be comprehended by the material-obsessed human being

If something contains everything within itself then to an outside observer it would appear to contain nothing of substance. Imagine a fish in a bowl. Its got one of those little corny plastic castle deals. The fish can swim up to the castle, look at it, observe every mark and line on it. It can take it apart and analyze it. But it will never know where it came from, who designed it. It would be just a dead object. The factory worker in china toiling away making little fish bowl castles is something the fish cannot begin to picture

We are all little fish in little bowls looking at our castles and trying to find something that's outside the bowl entirely.

tl;dr tripping balls over here, man