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The Concept of Divine Transcendence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

W. Donald Hudson
W. Donald Hudson
Affiliation:
Reader in Moral Philosophy, University of Exeter
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Extract

The thought of God as transcendent is central to theism. Although the expression ‘divine transcendence’ does not appear to have been used by theologians (as distinct from philosophers) before the nineteenth century,1 the idea itself is very deep-rooted. If we ask where it is ultimately grounded, I think the answer may well be: in the idea of the holy.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 1979 , pp. 197 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 197 note 1 Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, VII, 167.Google Scholar

page 197 note 2 The Idea of the Holy (Pelican, ed. London, 1959), p. 20.Google Scholar

page 197 note 3 See inter alia Kittel, G., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, I, 88 ff.Google Scholar

page 197 note 4 Op. cit. p. 19.

page 197 note 5 Op. cit. p. 21.

page 198 note 1 Op. cit. p. 19.

page 198 note 2 I use ‘coherent’ and ‘incoherent’ throughout this paper in senses like those defined by Swinburne, Richard, in his The Coherence of Theism (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar, as follows: ‘a coherent statement…is a statement such that we can conceive of it and any other statement entailed by it being true in the sense that we can understand what it would be like for them to be true’; and 'an incoherent state-ment by contrast is one which it makes no sense to suppose true; in that either it or some statement entailed by it is such that we cannot conceive of it being true (op. cit. pp. 12–14).

page 198 note 3 Op. cit. p. 42.

page 200 note 1 Op. cit. p. 21.

page 200 note 2 Cf.Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations (second ed.Oxford, 1958) I, 28Google Scholar; Philosophical Grammar(Oxford, 1974) pp. 60–61, etc.Google Scholar

page 200 note 3 I say what I have to say about these two theories in my Wittgenstein and Religious Belief (London, 1975), chapters 2, 3 and 4.Google Scholar

page 201 note 1 Lectures and Conversations (Oxford, 1966), p. 62.Google Scholar

page 201 note 2 See Berlin, I., ‘Verifiability in Principle’, Proc. Arist. Soc. (1938–1939)Google Scholar; Church's, A. review of Ayer's, A. J.Language, Truth and Logic in Journal of Symbolic Logic (1949), pp. 52–3Google Scholar; and Ayer, A. J., The Central Problems in Philosophy (London, 1973) p. 27.Google Scholar

page 201 note 3 Tertullian, , De Carne Christi, V.Google Scholar

page 202 note 1 Theological Science(London, 1969), pp. 279–80Google Scholar

page 202 note 2 I think this would havebeen Wisdom's, J . view: cf. his Paradox and Discovery (Oxford, 1967), chapter xiGoogle Scholar

page 203 note 1 Englemann, P., Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir (Oxford, 1967), p. 7.Google Scholar

page 203 note 2 Op. cit. p. 143

page 203 note 3 Waismann,, F.Ludwig Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis (Oxford, 1967),Google Scholar

page 203 note 4 Op. cit. p. 6.4–7

page 203 note 5 See Op. cit., especially p.97 (Comparison with Logical Positivist) and chapter viii on ‘Wordless Faith.’

page 205 note 1 See e.g. Palmer, H., Analog (London 1973), chapter XIX (affirmations of intent)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Phillips, D. Z., Death and Immortality (London, 1970) passim (expressions of attitude).CrossRefGoogle Scholar I do not intend to equate their views.

page 205 note 2 Cf. Wittgenstein, L., On Certainty (Oxford, 1969) passim.Google Scholar

page 206 note 1 The latest of them is Richard Swinburne, op. cit. chapter 6.

page 208 note 1 See Summa Theologica Ia. 4.

page 208 note 2 See The Logical Status of ‘God’ (London, 1973), p. 27 etc.Google Scholar