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1 Introduction For Orientation The story is told of a theologian who thought that Methodists had no theology. But he was invited to join the faculty of a Methodist divinity school, and after he had been there a while, he acknowledged that he had been mistaken. ‘‘Methodists do have a theology,’’ he said, ‘‘and it comes down to this: God is nice. Moreover,’’ he added, ‘‘there is an ethical corollary: we should be nice too.’’ Now some of my best friends are Methodists, but not many, so I have no opinion about the degree to which this story captures the spirit of contemporary Methodists. But I have two opinions about the theology attributed to them, whether fairly or not. Negatively speaking, it is very thin soup. On such a theological diet one’s soul could become malnourished quite quickly, or, more likely, turn to constant snacking on spiritual junk food from other sources. More important, in the present context, is the positive opinion. Because of the essential link between theology and ethics, or, if you prefer, metaphysics and spirituality, this theology has the proper form. God’s niceness (indicative) and our niceness (imperative) are intimately intertwined conceptually. The practi- Transcendence and Self-Transcendence 2 cal implications of theory are so immediate that it would be misleading to speak of the application of theory to practice. I have spoken of spirituality to leave open the possibility that the practice in question might involve loving God, and I have spoken of ethics to leave open the possibility that it might involve loving one’s neighbor. In either case, the basic idea is that what we say about God should have a direct bearing on our own self-transformation. Descriptions of divine being and prescriptions for human becoming are flip sides of the same coin. Within this paradigm, I propose to explore the transcendence of God in strict correlation with human self-transcendence. I write as a Christian theist engaged in a personal journey of faith seeking understanding and growth in faithfulness. My hope is that my shared reflections will help both believers and unbelievers avoid misunderstandings that theism is heir to and thus to think more clearly about the God they affirm or deny. Thus the same analysis has an apologetic intention for readers who do not believe and a pastoral intention for readers who do. Kant has argued that in philosophy ‘‘we must not imitate mathematics by beginning with definitions.’’ Rather, ‘‘the definition in all its precision and clarity ought, in philosophy, to come rather at the end than at the beginning of our enquiries.’’1 Because I believe him to be right, I do not begin by offering definitions of divine transcendence and human self-transcendence. Rather than assuming that we know at the outset what these terms mean, my hope is that in the course of the reflections that follow we will learn new and surprising things about them. This leaves us vulnerable, of course, to the question with which Meno once responded to Socrates’ intention to inquire into virtue without already knowing what it is: ‘‘But how will you look for something when you don’t in the least know what it is?’’2 In our case the question is how we will know what conversations to listen in on to learn about transcendence and selftranscendence by exploring their interrelation. Most of us would be in big trouble if asked to go out and study sphlinks and bring back a report on their breeding habits. What are we looking for? How will we know when we find one? This is where it is important to have at least a preliminary, heuristic idea of what it is we wish to examine. So let our pre-judice (in the Gadamerian sense of pre-judgment) about transcendence be that a transcendent God is one that is to be found ‘‘beyond’’ or ‘‘outside’’ the world (as well as within it); and let us preunderstand self-transcendence to be the movement that draws us away from our natural preoccupation with ourselves.3 1. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A730–31 = B758–59. 2. Plato, Meno, 80d. 3. In other words, the hermeneutical circle as developed by Heidegger and Gadamer replaces Platonic recollection, granting the force of Meno’s question but invoking a weaker sense of the a priori than Plato’s (or even Kant’s, since this preliminary understanding is revisable). [18.188.168.28] Project MUSE...

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