Transcendence (religion)

In religion, transcendence is the aspect of existence that is completely independent of the material universe, beyond all known physical laws. This is related to the nature and power of deities as well as other spiritual or supernatural beings and forces. This is contrasted with immanence, where a god is said to be fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways. In religious experience, transcendence is a state of being that has overcome the limitations of physical existence, and by some definitions, has also become independent of it. This is typically manifested in prayer, rituals, meditation, psychedelics and paranormal "visions". It is affirmed in various religious traditions' concept of the divine, which contrasts with the notion of a god (or, the Absolute) that exists exclusively in the physical order (immanentism), or is indistinguishable from it (pantheism). Transcendence can be attributed in knowledge as well as or instead of its being. Thus, an entity may transcend both the universe and knowledge (is beyond the grasp of the human mind). Although transcendence is defined as the opposite of immanence, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some theologians and metaphysicians of various religious traditions affirm that a god is both within and beyond the universe (panentheism); in it, but not of it; simultaneously pervading it and surpassing it. God in Abrahamic religions Jewish theologians, especially since the Middle Ages, have described the transcendence of God in terms of divine simplicity, explaining the traditional characteristics of God as omniscient and omnipotent. Interventions of divine transcendence occur in the form of events outside the realm of natural occurrence such as miracles and the revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses at Mount Sinai. In Jewish Kabbalistic cosmology, God is described as the "Ein Sof" (literally, without end) as reference to God's divine simplicity and essential unknowability.