Touring Transcendence
In The Shape of Joy I use the research of positive psychology to bring the reader into a conversation about transcendence. Many lines of research converge upon the insight that psychological well-being is associated with living in relationship with transcendence. This is the "outward turn" I describe in The Shape of Joy.
But what is transcendence? In talking about transcendence with my students I don't specify the metaphysical content of transcendence. Rather, I take them on a psychological tour, noting locations where we bump into transcendence. The etymology of the word transcendence means "to go beyond." So here are five locations where we experience "going beyond" the merely physical, factual, and material:
Wonder and awe
Reverence
Value
Cosmic gratitude
Source of moral obligations
The Shape of Joy walks through many of these. Concerning wonder and awe, in the words of Jane Goodall, we are "amazed at things outside of ourselves." Reverence is different from awe, and concerns our experience of the sacred and holy. Of course, the sacred and holy can trigger awe, but I make a contrast between the hallowed and the wondrous, though the two can overlap.
We also encounter transcendence in our experiences of value, like the value of human persons. We encounter value in how we navigate within an ecosystem of significances that push, pull, and shape our lives. These significances address us more profoundly than the factual. This is, for Jordan Peterson fans, a point he often makes, how our goal-directed behavior, and even perception itself, operates against a background of value.
Gratitude is a relational emotion, our response to having received a favor or gift. Whenever we experience gratefulness for a moment of beauty or life itself we step into cosmic gratitude, a gratitude toward the source and origin of existence itself. Cosmic gratitude creates the I-Thou relationship with the world described by Martin Buber, what Hartmut Rosa calls "resonance."
Lastly, the grounding and source of our moral obligations place us in relationship with transcendence. Whenever we stand within an obligating moral framework we are standing sub specie aeternitatis, under the gaze of eternity.
Notice, again, that this tour of transcendence doesn't specify any metaphysical content. There is no object of "faith" in this list. Nothing to believe in or not believe in. This is one of reasons why I don't think atheism is a real thing. Oh sure, there might be a few dogmatic and fundamentalist atheists out there, but such types border on the delusional and deranged. Most people, even confessed atheists, experience transcendence as I've described it above. They experience wonder. They hallow. They act in light of value. They experience cosmic gratitude. They espouse a moral code. And while an atheist might not "believe" anything, they live their lives in relation to transcendence, "going beyond" the merely factual and scientific.
I love the idea that transcendence includes self-proclaimed atheists – that one does not have to "believe" or belong to a religion or church in order to access the fundamental neurology of the human spirit. We are hardwired for wonder, for reference, for faith in something beyond us that makes it all have meaning.
J. L. Schellenberg has written a lot about God's hiddenness, and is often called an atheist. And it's true he doesn't believe in a God resembling the traditional or classical Christian God. But he does believe that a "nonpersonal ultimate" exists that transcends any of our current conceptions of the divine in any and all of the world's religions. He imagines we will be trying to plumb the depths of this nonpersonal ultimate for many millennia or even eons. He has spiritual experiences, "encounters with transcendence" as you put it, Richard, that convince him something important is going on that transcends our everyday conceptions. Schellenberg's books are beautifully written - very logical - and fun to read.