I. INTRODUCTION

It is neither our intention to probe into the Transcendental Ego of Kant and parallel doctrines of various idealists and phenomenologists; nor to discuss the validity of the transcendental method of Marechal, Lonergan, etc. Rather, we look into that quest for transcendence as subject of contemporary theologians in their attempt to clarify the faith of Judaism and Christianity.

Philosophy, not as the "ancilla theologiae", can offer help in the clarification. Transcendence is a legitimate philosophical issue for ultimately it is man's quest for a deeper and more profound meaning of life itself and for sensitizing and intensification of human experience. The movement from the ordinary dimensions of life to the extraordinary (from less to more) is not an invention of theologians. It rather springs from the deepest level of human consciousness.

Modern man recognizes the superficiality and routineness of ordinary and everyday life. This invites him to a profound reevaluation of life. We do not mean then that man seeks for metaphysical answers to personal problems. We simply observe that man recognizes the need for some resolution or amelioration or fulfillment of the deficiencies of his present situation. It is evident that the more man masters the complex world about him, the more necessary it is for him to search for human meaning within the depths of his own being.

There is a search for "wholeness" of the known and the unknown, of conscious and unconscious. The need for transcendence is necessary in order for society to be capable of any creative and healthy activity. Transcendence offers unity amid diversity and divisions of life; it offers courage in the face of uncertainty and unpredictability; it provides hope where all the learned prognoses warrant only despair.

The search for transcendence then is not really an academic matter. It is an address to life itself. The staleness and shallowness of life prompt the search. Everyone wants to participate in the search. The irritating and disjunctive divisions among the classes break down; the academician and the housewife seek for the same thing: some extra quality to life that gives meaning and hope, unity and inspiration.

Transcendence is usually defined by the presence of "something above" or "something beyond" or "something more" than ordinary human experience. Whether transcendence is conceived of in a technical philosophical sense (as that metaphysical realm above the natural) or in an ordinary sense (as that phenomenon or experience found within the natural world but which appears to point beyond that world), the meaning is about the same.

Many traditional theologians and philosophers have conceived of the "something above" in spatial terms, and relegated the almighty, sovereign God to a place "up there". But the reaction of anti-metaphysical theologians like A. T. Robinson (Honest to God) and company led to contemporary practitioners of Jewish and Christian religions to seriously talk about God "down here". God is described in terms of "the depth of being", symbolically referring to the way by which man orders his life about his relationship to the ultimate source of reality. In spite of this, majority of practicing Jews and Christians, those pious folks who continue to frequent the holy places, affirm their faith literally in the God who, from high up there, directs the affairs and destinies of men and nations.

The notion of transcendence does not always necessitate the being of a transcendent God to establish its veracity. Transcendence can also be related to a description of the humanistic objective of becoming something other than one at present. As human beings we are never quite there, we are always on the verge of being there. Existentialists and theologians of hope join in the chorus of ontologies of the "not yet completely being" or the "already and the not-yet".

For an introduction, we clarify two current approaches to secular meaning of transcendence, that is, non-theological quests for transcendence: humanism and sociology.

HUMANISM. We distinguish immanence (this-worldly transcendence and ontological transcendence (other-worldly transcendence). Immanence considers ontological transcendence superfluous, finding inherent within human experience all of the conditions for total life fulfillment. Immanence seeks for nothing more. It is the best mode of life possible to man in this world. Life contains no inherent deficiencies. Ontological transcendence is precluded as a possible experience because man has achieved the ends for which his life was created. This-worldly transcendence is sought within the confines of reality as it is usually envisioned. Specific human experiences or acts are characterized by their inherent human character. As such these human experiences or acts cannot be delegated to supernatural or trans-human reality. Love, hope, and commitment to a cause are illustrative of this kind of transcendence.

Love brings together diverse human beings and unites them in a sense of that which is eternal. At least the continuity engendered by two people in love gives the sense of an eternal relationship. Unity and eternalness are therefore the human attributes which fulfill the conditions of transcendence. Hope unburdens the present, fills it with significance and relates it to fulfillment and completion in the future. Hope thereby takes on a redemptive character. Commitment to a cause, too, fulfills the conditions of this-worldly transcendence because it allows the immediacy of one's ambitions to become subservient to longer range objectives. It subjects the narrowly conceived interests of an individual to the broader and more visionary goals of a community.

Ontological transcendence becomes necessary only when immanence does not function for the individual. This-worldly discontent is a requisite for other-worldly transcendence. Ontological transcendence in this sense can be defined as "that possibility that reality houses reservoirs of value qualitatively different from what we normally perceive or assume." Ontological transcendence is that reality which exists "behind the scenes". Man can encounter this ultimate reality, that reality with which his reason and imagination come into contact. Reality actually includes "surprising corridors of worth that elude ordinary eyes"; thus, the validity and viability of the search for ontological transcendence.

SOCIOLOGY: Peter Berger (Rumor of Angels) is in search for transcendence. He begins with an anthropological point of view because the framework of his search is within the empirically given human situation. There he discovers what he calls "signals of transcendence" or human experiences which point beyond the natural world of which the experiences are a part. Berger uses five arguments which satisfy his criteria for what he calls "prototypal human gestures". They point to the beyond in the midst of the ordinary and natural everyday awareness of man's orientation in time and space.

Berger's arguments are highly suggestive for the theologian searching for transcendence. This is especially so because Berger does not expound his arguments on the basis of metaphysical, supernatural world "up there". Rather, he insists that there are certain kinds of distinctly human experiences, available to all men, which point specifically to the presence of the transcendent.

1. Argument from ordering presumes that man possesses a propensity for order, which ultimately is grounded in the faith that reality is as it should be. Berger does not argue that an empirical test can be devised to verify this faith. The assertion that there is an order in the universe must finally be an act of faith. "At the very center of the process of becoming fully human, at the core of humanitas, we find an experience of trust in the order of reality."

2. Argument from play affirms that the individual, whether young or old, experiences transcendent qualities of liberation and joy through the act of playing. ". . . in joyful play the time structure of the playful universe takes on a very specific quality --- namely, it becomes eternity." The player steps out of time into the dimensions of eternity; he experiences joy as being and by so doing, suspends the chronological sequence of time.

3. Argument from hope satisfies Berger's criteria for "signals of transcendence", which he argues are derivative of inductive faith. Inductive faith is faith derived from human experience, not from supernatural revelation. Man cannot be adequately understood except in connection with his unquenchable capacity to hope for the future. And what Berger means specifically by man's capacity to hope is linked to particular acts which enhance rather than demean man's humanitas. These acts are "observable phenomena of the human situation whose intrinsic intention appears to be a deprecation or even denial of the reality of death." They are therefore "signals of transcendence" and as such, indicators of a religious interpretation of reality.

4. Argument from damnation assumes that certain acts and experiences are so fundamentally inhuman that the only adequate response is one of absolute condemnation of the offense as well as the offender. Failure to do so would be not only a challenge to the sovereign character of justice but even more a "fatal impairment of humanitas". Monstrously evil deeds (heinous crimes) are condemned prima facie by society. For example, the argument of the relative character of all human behavior becomes irrelevant when the deed is of the character of Hitler's persecution and slaughter of the Jews in W.W. II.

5. Argument from humor implies that humor is an essentially human phenomenon and is revelatory of the human situation. Humor identifies the comic element in all of life, and at the same time it relativizes the human condition. "At least for the duration of the comic perception, the tragedy of man is bracketed." But humor also is an intimation of redemption; it is an experience which points to the possibility of liberation from the bondage of body and soul.

Humanism and the sociological approach are illustrative of the contemporary search for transcendence. They both demonstrate that the earnest seeker after transcendence may be rewarded for his efforts. But a humanist and a sociologist (Berger) can themselves be committed personally and conceptually to the religious tradition of the Judaeo-Christian faith. They are in that sense apologists for religion. They labor in the periphery of the theologian's sphere of influence. They help to demonstrate the intellectual viability of the committed Jew's and Christian's religious stance.

What we intend to show is that transcendence is an objective sought by a number of thinkers whose primary field of activity is not the theological one. Further, that the non-theological approaches to secular transcendence are of significant value for theologians of the Jewish and Christian faith traditions.

The contemporary search for transcendence is an interdisciplinary enterprise and that an interesting and methodologically valuable quest also takes place within scope of secular theorists. We want to demonstrate that the secular definition of transcendence possesses the capacity to enrich and invigorate the theological one. Finally, we want to show that these secular definitions contain what is already present within the Jewish and Christian understanding of transcendence.