Absolute Transcendence Research Articles

Apophatic and Anthropomorphic Visions of God in Philo of Alexandria

Despite his core theological convictions that God is incorporeal, formless, invisible, and unchangeable, in some of his most carefully crafted visio Dei texts Philo portrays God “changing shape” and temporarily adopting a human form. However, these are only “seeming appearances” and actually involve God projecting a human-shaped “impression,” or “appearance” (φαντασία) from his shapeless, immaterial being. By accommodating the overwhelming reality of God’s being to the perceptual and conceptual limitations of the human percipient, these docetic theophanies allow humans to more confidently relate to the deity, while at the same time preserving God’s absolute transcendence and apophatic otherness.

The Phenomenological and the Symbolical in Richir’s “Quasi-Theology”

If a new generation of phenomenologists (Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Jean-François Courtine) in France sought to overcome the “methodic atheism” imposed on the phenomenological method by the fathers of phenomenology, it was at the price of going beyond experience immanent to existence which targeted the invisible, and therefore of lacking a discourse on the critical restriction of the phenomenological method and on the points of contact between phenomenology and theology. The task of this paper is to show how this lack is overcome by Marc Richir’s “quasi theology” viewed from his articulation of the relationship between the phenomenological and the symbolical. This paper argues that whereas for the new French phenomenologists it is usually a question of a subreptitious crossing from one discipline to another, in Richir, what we have is an enigmatic relationship of the overlap between phenomenology and the symbolical. While Richir was only interested in the articulation of the relationship between the phenomenological, the symbolical and the absolute transcendence, his thoughts motivate us to explore, following Emmanuel Falque’s approach, the reciprocal transformation between phenomenology and theology. The paper concludes, on the one hand, that experience remains the immanent ground for phenomenology and theological science and, on the other, that Richir’s approach could be understood as a “metaphysical phenomenology”.

О критериях оценки поступков человека в исмаилизме

The article is devoted to the problem of evaluating an act in the light of Ismaili teaching. In the first part of the article, a pair of meta-categories of the Arab-Muslim reflective tradition “explicit-hidden” is considered, which is reflected in all theoretical disciplines of Islamic culture. An act is understood as an action (external) connected with an intention (internal). A person can perform actions on two levels: at the level of relationship with God and at the level of relationship with society. Due to the absolute transcendence of God, the relationship with God is transformed into reverence and worship, but at the same time there is an active development and sacralization of relationships at the level of man and society. The second part of the article begins with an analysis of the role of the imam, compensating for the “lack” of divine providence and participation in the Ismaili view of the world. The Imam is endowed with divine knowledge, he knows the “hidden” meanings of Revelation. At the same time, Ismaili philosophers emphasized the need to observe the “explicit” meanings expressed in the laws of Sharia. The third part of the article is devoted to the consideration of the Ismaili society as a place of connection of the “explicit” and “hidden”. The full realization of the “explicit” and “hidden” generates “truth”. To take his place in the Ismaili society is the goal and obligation of a person within the framework of human – andhuman relationships: only by taking his place can he reveal his own dichotomy as much as possible – to become both a “benefit taker” and a “benefit giver”. Moreover, the Ismaili philosophers endowed the correct behavior and relationships of a person in the Ismaili society with a global meaning: a person became a co-creator of the universe, since the development of higher spiritual entities depended on the knowledge he received from the Ismaili imam of the time. The readers are offered a fragment of a treatise of the 11th century Ismaili philosopher Nasir Khusraw “Six Chapters” (Shish fasl), dedicated to the need for the guidance of the imam and explaining the meaning of the Ismaili hierarchy.

Dio come ἀκαλλής. Conseguenze e implicazioni concettuali dell’apofatismo nel Corpus Areopagiticum

Abstract Within the Neoplatonic tradition, the absolute transcendence of the First Principle—the One-Good, from which the whole reality in its various articulations derives—plays a crucial role. This philosophical perspective implies, particularly in Plotinus and Proclus, some fundamental philosophical consequences, above all the transcendence of the Principle with respect to being and thought as well. This necessarily implies that the One-Good must be conceived of as beyond the intelligible Beauty itself. In this paper I aim to examine the theoretical implications and consequences of this perspective with specific reference to the conception of God’s absolute transcendence outlined within two texts of the Corpus Areopagiticum, overall characterized by the reworking of some fundamental Neoplatonic concepts in the context of Christian theology: the De divinis nominibus and the De mystica theologia. Indeed, in the De divinis nominibus it is shown that the names/predicates attributed to God in the Sacred Scriptures must be understood only in an allegorical-symbolic meaning, because God is above any possible definition. Not even the character of Beauty can be attributed to him, since he radically transcends it: in fact, God constitutes the absolute foundation and the very first source of Beauty itself. Therefore, God must be understood as ἀκαλλής, that is, “devoid of the connotation of Beauty”, precisely because he completely transcends it. In line with this theological and theoretical perspective, in the De mystica theologia a form of radical and absolute apophatism is developed, which in turn must ultimately lead to its own overcoming for the sake of the henosis, the mystical union with God.

Interfacticité transcendantale, utopie et politique chez Marc Richir

The concept of “utopia” appears in Marc Richir’s first article in 1968. Although Richir does not ever explicitly claim it, it nevertheless plays a very fundamental role in his thought, particularly in the political field. By analyzing the different layers of meaning that characterize the human community, from the most established to the most archaic, we would like to defend the idea that what he calls in Du sublime en politique “utopian sociality” or even “the utopian community” is in truth the register of transcendental interfacticity. To do this, we will have to explain in what and how the socio-political link differs from the links of transcendental intersubjectivity and interfacticity. We will argue that, for Richir, it is phantasia and affectivity that hold the political community together. We will then explore what role transcendental interfacticity plays in the field of politics, more particularly in its articulation with the declination of absolute transcendence into political transcendence.

Mystical Emulations, Inverted Echoes

Mystical Emulations, Inverted Echoes

Platonism in Service to the Ism???l? Im?m: The Case of Ab? Ya‘q?b al-Sijist?n? (d. 971 CE)

This short essay examines the Platonic thought of the Shī'ī Ismā'īlī scholar Abū Ya'qūb al-Sijistānī (d. 971 CE). By presenting his own teachings as the inner understanding of Islam, al-Sijistānī was able to challenge prominent scholarly claims to normative interpretation within the greater Islamic milieu. As students of Ismā'īlī thought know well, the intentions of the early Ismā'īlī thinkers cannot be simplistically reduced to an adaptation of Platonic metaphysics or a subversive reading of scripture. Rather, al-Sijistānī created a uniquely Ismā'īlī philosophical theology with its own soteriological aims and religious worldview, while working closely to demonstrate the leadership of the Ismā'īlī imam. When approached in this way, al-Sijistānī's project of constructing a synthesis between Platonism and religious traditions foregrounds the breadth of interpretive diversity within the classical Islamic intellectual traditions. By examining short excerpts on the nature of the soul and religion from al-Sijistānī's Ithbāt al-Nubūwwa (Prophecy's Proof), this essay demonstrates the text's instrumental use of Platonism in explaining the emergence of religion as understood by the early Ismā'īlī movement. Al-Sijistānī's own thoughts on the absolute transcendence of God and the Platonic principles of Intellect and Soul led him to new speculative conclusions that sharply contrasted with other major and competing interpretations of Islam. Chief among these was his belief that scripture had an inner meaning apart from its literal content, which could only be revealed by the imam and his representatives, who were thus the legitimate religious authorities for the Islamic community.

On Understanding of Tawhid in Isma‘ilism

The article raises the question of understanding the principle of tawhid in the Isma‘ili philosophical discourse. Isma‘ili philosophers defended the absolute transcendence of God and His indescribability. The article describes the understanding of the one and only God in Isma‘ilism, analyzes the problem of the relationship between the One and the multiple within the paradigmatic pairs of Arab-Muslim philosophy ‒ “explicit‒hidden” and “basic‒branch”. It is impossible to call God the Original, otherwise it will be necessary to recognize that He is dependent and conditioned by His consequence, and this detracts from Him. God, according to the ideas of Ismailism, has only one “true” attribute — huwiyya, which forms the required nominal multiplicity and “transition” from the transcendent God to the cognizable plural world. It is the huwiyya of God that gives the impetus for the appearance of the First Cause — the command of God “Be!”, which is also its own consequence. Combining cause and eff ect, the command of God has absolute completeness. The reader is also off ered for the fi rst time in Russian a commented translation of an excerpt from the treatise of the Ismaili philosopher of the 11th century Nasir Khusraw “Six chapters” (Shish fasl) — Chapter “On the knowledge of tawhid”.

Transgression of art forms in modern Ukrainian plastic theater

The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of the phenomenon of transgressive art in the Ukrainian plastic theater of the 21st century. Methodology. The phenomenological method is applied (to identify and comprehend the semantic level of the phenomenon of transgressive art in the modern Ukrainian plastic theater); methods of art history, figurative-stylistic and art-compositional analysis (for the theoretical justification of the trends of the theater of plastic art, determining the specifics of the director-production activities of A. Belsky, identifying the components of the stage image of plastic performances and analyzing their rhythmic structure) and other scientific novelty. Scientific novelty. The philosophical concept of transgression to the field of plastic directing has been extrapolated; the problems of the transgression of art forms in the modern domestic plastic theater are considered on the example of the performances of the Academy of Motion by the Kryvyi Rih Theater of Musical Plastic Arts; it was revealed that the theater of plastic arts is one of the transgressive practices of contemporary art, which is characterized by the dominance of strategies expressed in the transformation of the figurative structure of physicality. Conclusions. The study of the stylistic characteristics of the Ukrainian plastic theater revealed the intensification of the experimental search for new ways and forms of expression, the focus of the directors on the transition of the process of meaning and formation to a new level of understanding of life. The performances of the theater of plastic arts are always encoded messages that require thoughts and feelings in the process of decoding the tension, since seeing and comprehending the directors' search for a new “world dimension” is not always easy for the viewer. Transgression symbolizes the desire of the modern plastic theater to move away from classical attitudes towards absolute transcendence, to overcome the boundaries of consciousness, and to find possibilities for new positions of corporeality. The position of the director of the plastic theater, in our opinion, is primarily aimed at rethinking a certain concept or image fixed in theatrical practice, in the context of the search for innovative ways and methods of plastic directing that are adequate to the modern sense of worldview.

O conceito de paciência em Kierkegaard

Our aim in this article is to analyze the concept of patience in Kierkegaard as presented in the Upbuilding_Discourses Acquire your soul in patience (1843) and Preserve your soul in patience (1844). We show how the concept of patience involves a peculiar understanding of the Self (Selv) and how a relationship between patience and the eternal is articulated there. In this way, we open a broader reading perspective that inserts the specific debate about patience in a more general discussion about the concept of transcendence. We show the link that exists between patience, as a human experience of self-transcendence, and the eternal, as absolute transcendence. The self that is acquired and preserved in patience is placed in a situation of self-transcendence, that is, it is removed from its self-centered position and freed from its attachment to itself and the world. In other words, what patience reveals to us is that the conformity of the self to its own measure depends, above all, on a displacement that surpasses the self-fixed worldview of the Ego.

O teološko-filozofskim učenjima mutazilitske škole

The paper discusses several issues that were in the centre of interest of the most important representatives of the Mu'tazilite school. It is a concept of God's absolute transcendence presented through rational arguments. The transcendence of God also becomes a central theological-philosophical question in Abu Hudayl, Vasil Ibn Ata, Jubai, Nazzam, Abu Hashim and others. The whole theory of Mu'tazilites about divine properties, modes, or states functions as proof of divine transcendence and the idea of creation clothed in philosophical form. These theories cannot be validly formed unless the notion of the oneness of God (tawhid) is abstracted. Mu'tazilites add another category to this notion, which has a metaphysical meaning, and that is divine justice, which they relate to ethical concepts, that is, to man's freedom and responsibility.

Is Levinas a Platonist?

Levinas’ relationship to Platonism is ambiguous. In Totality and Infinity, indeed, references to Plato’s writings are multiple and Levinas depicts Plato as following two diverging paths. On the one hand, Levinas considers Plato’s writings to be works that consecrate the primacy of identity over difference, of the Same over the Other. On the other hand, Platonism is presented as a philosophy of absolute transcendence due to its refusal to make the Good a simple ontological principle and to its attempt to free the Good from all forms of totality. The present study aims to show that, although Levinas criticizes the first path taken by Plato, he conceives of himself as partially in line with Plato’s philosophy of absolute transcendence, albeit in a paradoxical form. In this way, Levinas understands the meaning of the Platonic approach in an original way.

Editorial: God's Nature and Attributes

In Western theism, different attributes have classically been ascribed to God, such as omnipotence, omniscience, wisdom, goodness, freedom and so on. But these ascriptions have also raised many conceptual difficulties: are these attributes internally coherent? Are they really compossible? Are they compatible with what we know about the world (e.g. the existence of evil, human freedom, the laws of nature etc.). These traditional questions are part of the inquiry on God’s nature as it is carried out in contemporary philosophy of religion. Another part of this inquiry is constituted by theological and philosophical questions raised by more precise or particular religious conceptions of God – e.g. the doctrine of Trinity in Christianity, or other specific credentials about the right way to understand God’s perfection and absolute transcendence in Judaism, Christianity or Islam.
 In this issue, we propose to follow these two directions of the inquiry about God’s nature and attributes through historical and systematic studies, in the perspective of contemporary philosophy of religion and analytical theology. While the three papers specifically dedicated to the problem of the Trinity pertain mainly to the second part of the examination (the conceptual analysis of specific credentials and theological doctrines), the three others offer new perspectives and arguments on traditional questions about God, like the problem of evil, perfect goodness, or the problem of divine perfection and God’s freedom.

Quine’s Ontology and the Islamic Tradition

Analytic theologians seem to unreservedly prioritise a realist view in the way they approach theological dogmas. I have previously argued that this particular type of realist methodological approach that is adopted by most analytic theologians is inconsistent with the Islamic tradition. I demonstrated that this inconsistency lies between two primary theses which constitute realism and an absolutely transcendent and ineffable God of the Islamic tradition. I had established how each of these theses proved responsible, in different ways, for divesting the Islamic God of His absolute transcendence. In this paper I determine why this is the case. I primarily seek to explicate the underlying reason for why metaphysical (theological) realism proves to be responsible for stripping the Islamic God of His absolute transcendence. This would involve being able to stipulate, somewhat accurately, the precise source of the accentuated inconsistency between metaphysical (theological) realism and the Islamic understanding of an absolutely transcendent and ineffable God. The exact source of this inconsistency, I shall argue, is grounded in Quine’s ontological theses which underlie much of what metaphysical realism imports into the domain of analytic theology.

Quine’s Ontology and the Islamic Tradition

Analytic theologians seem to unreservedly prioritise a realist view in the way they approach theological dogmas. I have previously argued that this particular type of realist methodological approach that is adopted by most analytic theologians is inconsistent with the Islamic tradition. I demonstrated that this inconsistency lies between two primary theses which constitute realism and an absolutely transcendent and ineffable God of the Islamic tradition. I had established how each of these theses proved responsible, in different ways, for divesting the Islamic God of His absolute transcendence. In this paper I determine why this is the case. I primarily seek to explicate the underlying reason for why metaphysical (theological) realism proves to be responsible for stripping the Islamic God of His absolute transcendence. This would involve being able to stipulate, somewhat accurately, the precise source of the accentuated inconsistency between metaphysical (theological) realism and the Islamic understanding of an absolutely transcendent and ineffable God. The exact source of this inconsistency, I shall argue, is grounded in Quine’s ontological theses which underlie much of what metaphysical realism imports into the domain of analytic theology.

How Does the Truth Appear?

Starting with Husserl’s phenomenology and advancing to Jean-Luc Marion’s and Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology and to the revealed theology, this paper aims to answer the question: “How does the Truth appear?” Husserl’s phenomenological reduction made the appearance of God, who remained in an absolute transcendence, impossible; but John’s Gospel states that Christ is the Truth. We accept both of these opinions and offer the following answers: the religious phenomena, which have to do with a religious life and knowledge, could appear after one ignores or weakens the Husserlian epoche; God could appear if the phenomenological reduction became a reduction to givenness; the religious phenomena could appear after a theological counter-reduction, which separated itself from phenomenological rigor and belonged to theology. Keywords: Christ, Truth, transcendental reduction, phenomenological reduction, eidetic reduction, reduction to givenness, theological counter-reduction, faith, grace, God, transcendence, Edmund Husserl, Jean-Luc Marion

Personalismo y trascendencia en el actuar moral y social. Estudio del tema a la luz de los documentos del Concilio Vaticano II.

The author’s intention is to draw attention to the biblical morality and personalism of Vatican II. Granted that there are other valid criteria on which to base the objectivity in morality, he wishes to highlight the importance of the dignity of the human person and council’s reference to Christ as the fundamental criteria in the teaching of Vatican II. Objectivity, immutability, and transcendence rest on Christ, the centre of history, and on the dignity of the human person. He points out that other valid perspectives are possible but Vatican II opted for this for several reasons. The reference to Christ expresses the necessary recourse to God and is in the line of the scholastic formula: a Deo, ad Deum, secundum Deum. Revelation brings with it mysteries, truths and norms which claim a response of faith and love, a homage of the intelligence and will that is in keeping with session VI of Trent. The Second Vatican Council considers historic nature in a unique divine vocation. It reaffirms the gratuity of the supernatural but does not use the hypothesis of natura pura. Recourse to the dignity of the human person allows the Council to address itself to all men, since this dignity is based on creation and on the one vocation to salvation. The centre of this dignity is the moral conscience which should act respecting the objective norms of morality. The ideal presented by the Council asks for a moral effort parting from the data provided by faith and from a personalist philosophy. It is not true that personalism necessarily leads to subjectivism. The council has shown it. The person is an objective reality and the path from personalism to the transcendence is consistent with the lines of the fourth way of St Thomas: the participated transcendence of the person is based on the absolute transcendence of God. The Church dialogues with the world conscious that in Christ it possesses the full truth about man, about all men since all are called to salvation. This is what makes it possible for the Church to cooperate with the world, to discover the positive side of progress and at the same time it allows and obliges both the Church and christians to have a critical function. Although granting that christians and non-christians should consider themselves invited to cooperate in common action, it is necessary to note the existence of serious conflicts, ever more frequent in a pluralist society. Human progress is not the same as the Kingdom of God. Sometimes one opposes the other and on this account the christian should adopt a critical attitude with respect to attempted developments contrary to human dignity in view of his commitment to the faith and to the dignity of the human person.

On the transcendence and immanence of God

Transcendence and immanence are two terms used to differentiate two realities, one of transcending worldly experience and the other of an inner-worldly experience. In scholastic theology (kalām), a respective distinction is being made regarding the image of God, whereby transcendence (tanzīh) is set against anthropomorphism (tašbīh) to solve the problem of how to deal with Quranic expressions that attribute human – formal or essential – characteristics to God. Also, in mysticism, the notion of transcendence and immanence of God plays a central role, for instance, in the teachings of Ibn al-ʿArabī. He mainly discusses this distinction in the chapter of Noah in Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (“The Bezels of Wisdom”), regarding knowledge of God. He rejects a pure theology of transcendence as it describes only a part of the divine reality. However, he points out that even though His immanent reality can be experienced, it is not comprehensible, because it is unlimited. Both realities interlock through the idea of the Oneness of Being or Unity of Existence (waḥdat al-wuǧūd), because ‘in reality’ they are nothing else than God. Ibn al-ʿArabī illustrates this ontological dependency by the example of Noah’s legend, by showing that the prophet supported the belief of the absolute transcendence of God, which was unacceptable for his people, not because they negated God’s existence, but because they had an immanent image of God. Accordingly, Ibn al-ʿArabī interprets the divine punishment, instead of misfortune, as immersing in the sea of knowledge of God. In this way the soul becomes a place of manifestation or a mirror of the divine reality.

Über die Transzendenz und Immanenz Gottes

Transcendence and immanence are two terms used two differentiate two realities, one of transcending worldly experience and the other of an inner-worldly experience. In scholastic theology (kalām), a respective distinction is being made regarding the image of God, whereby transcendence (tanzīh) is set against anthropomorphism (tašbīh) to solve the problem of how to deal with Quranic expressions that attribute human - formal or essential - characteristics to God. Also, in mysticism, the notion of transcendence and immanence of God plays a central role, for instance, in the teachings of Ibn al-Arabi. He mainly discusses this distinction in the chapter of Noah in Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (»The Bezels of Wisdom«), regarding knowledge of God. He rejects a pure theology of transcendence as it describes only a part of the divine reality. However, he points out that even though His immanent reality can be experienced, it is not comprehensible, because it is unlimited. Both realities interlock through the idea of the Oneness of Being or Unity of Existence (waḥdat al-wuğūd), because ›in reality‹ they are nothing else than God. Ibn al-ʿArabī illustrates this ontological dependency by the example of Noah’s legend, by showing that the prophet supported the belief of the absolute transcendence of God, which was unacceptable for his people, not because they negated God’s existence, but because they had an immanent image of God. Accordingly, Ibn al-Arabi interprets the divine punishment, instead of misfortune, as immersing in the sea of knowledge of God. In this way the soul becomes a place of manifestation or a mirror of the divine reality.

Angels as Mirrors of the Human: The Anthropologies of Rilke and Bonaventure through the Lenses of Hans Urs von Balthasar

In this article we present a theological-anthropological exploration, interpreting the figure of the angel as a mirror of our human condition. The point of departure is an analysis of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s approach to two major sources for our imagination of the angel: Bonaventure (1221-1274) and Maria Rainer Rilke (1875-1926). A comparison of his accounts of the Franciscan theologian and the Modern poet, respectively, reveals remarkable parallels in discourse, clustered around the tensions between vulnerability and openness, immanence and transcendence, and love and loss. Both Rilke and Bonaventure reject the classical angel figure as a human ideal, as it cannot integrate the paradoxes of human existence. Their alternative visions of what it means to be human, have many terms in common: heart, vulnerability, mortality, openness, abyss, suspension, transparency, receptivity, descent (kenosis), humility, poverty, etc. However, their meaning is different because Rilke does not recognize an absolute transcendence as the source of love and the vis-a-vis of the human. This immanentism leaves him no other option than the vain attempt to exorcize the angel figure altogether, while Bonaventure’s vision preserves the angel as an anthropological mirror, be it an angel radically transfigured by God’s wounded love.