Mar/090
God’s transcendence and immanence
In section 2 of What Catholic's Believe we look at God. The only part of this booklet that really stands out for me is the section on God's transcendence and immanence.
"Transcendent" means "more," it does not mean "absent."
As much as we can know about God, based on His revelation, He is still largely beyond the limits of our human experience and hence remains largely unknowable. That's transcendence. God is beyond our ordinary range of perception.
I think I like this section because, as much as we think we may know, we still know relatively little. I suspect some would say, "We know enough - we have revelation." But I feel like that doesn't do enough to acknowledge our limited ability to even understand what we think we know based on what's been reveled. Even simple precepts of the Church, have years of study and dialog behind them. It requires context, reflection, and debate to come to understanding. But even that, doesn't mean that we can still fully understand.
Take an arguably simple look at the human condition through something like "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions." While I suspect there are deeper and more academic looks at the human condition (psychology and human behavior) than Dan Ariely's, I think he does a fantastic job of illustrating how even given the same information, we behave differently based on a variety of factors that may or may not have anything to do with what decision we're being asked to make. We simply can't know.
So where does this leave us? We can't experience God through normal perception. And even if we could, we likely couldn't trust our conclusions because of our biases and prejudices. I think that's okay. Again, I think that's where faith comes in - that's part of the fear and trembling.