Transcendence

Transcendence can mean either going beyond a thing in time and space, or it can mean going beyond all comprehension, naming, and categorization. Its opposite is immanence. Iran marks a border between two broad ways of conceiving God. The religions spawned in the Levant, the Middle East, worship a transcendent God who is utterly "other" than his creatures. In Asia, God is experienced in creation. The difference is seen in an open-minded Hindu, who author Joseph Campbell meets at the U.N., who wonders at being unable to find any religion in the Bible. When Campbell objects to Jewish philosopher Martin Buber's talking about God hiding his face from human beings, saying that in India people experience God all the time, Buber cannot see how the two systems can be compared. Jung sees religion as defending against the spectacular mystical experience of meeting God directly. Campbell believes that...