Our Transcendence Occurs In Time

Our transcendence occurs in time. What does this mean and why is it essential to human happiness? By transcendence I mean the fulfillment of the human search for meaning. In the terms of Christian theology, transcendence would mean our salvation—the total living surrender of the whole human person to the grace of God which is lived by the human person’s being totally loving. What is the relevance of love? Our transcendence is completed in love for in love we go beyond ourselves: we reach out and are grasped by divine love and are drawn into a fuller self. This occurs inside the world, inside of time. It is not an escape from a sinful world.

How is it that transcendence occurs in time? Doesn’t our salvation consist of the human soul escaping from a sinful world and going “to heaven”? In a word, no. If transcendence were to merely mean escaping from a sinful world and going to heaven, no Christian would ever feel in his or her heart the need to speak out against unjust human structures. Martin Luther King never would have led the civil rights movement. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops never would have published The Challenge of Peace which utilized the just war theory and concluded that use of a nuclear weapon can never be justified or Economic Justice For All which utilized Catholic social teaching to evaluate American policies concerning poverty and unemployment . Christians would never try to help pregnant women carry their babies to term. If transcendence were to merely mean escaping from a sinful world and going to heaven, our savior never would have taught us that whatsoever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters we do to him. There would be no call to service for service is lived in the graced, yet sinful, world. Moreover, there would be no spiritual movement for transforming unjust social systems. The People Power Revolution of the Philippines would have been devoid of the very heart that led it-- Catholic Christian social teaching. The Catholic Church never would have successfully helped to overthrow the communist tyrannies of Eastern Europe. The Arab revolutions that are underway this year would be irrelevant. Christian liberals and Christian conservatives would never debate any policies because these policies would just be passing features of this corrupt, temporary world.

Now that we have considered the political ramifications of misunderstanding transcendence, let’s consider a sacramental possibility: we would never marry. We would basically live the way the ancient Gnostics lived, eschewing the material world and the space-time continuum as inherently corrupt. We would not raise children—one of the material/incarnational/spiritual blessings of marriage. The sacrament of matrimony is lived in time, as we love, and the husband and wife are the ministers of the sacrament.

If our transcendence/salvation occurred outside of time, Christianity would not be a way of living; it would be an ahistorical mind trip. There would be no point to St. Paul telling us that love (agape) is patient and kind, that it bears all things (1 Cor 13). Love bears all things in time. This is why Jesus himself taught us that the “kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21).

Having repudiated a misunderstanding of transcendence, let us analyze the nature of transcendence so that we might live it more fully. I must first point out that all of the great religions provide teachings about human transcendence. The language is not the same and the path is not the same, but the goal is the same—the transcendence of the human person. At this point, we must ask what does it mean to transcend? I am borrowing much of this analysis from Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, the two greatest transcendental Thomists (both of whom owe a debt of gratitude to Pierre Rousselot, Joseph Marechal and a host of other philosophers and theologians). I will also add a dose of insight from Rene Girard.

To understand human transcendence, one must have some understanding of the human person. For Karl Rahner and his students, the human person reaches out into the world through acts of the will and acts of the intellect. What we learn from reaching out into the world are finite truths, time bound social constructions of math, science, finance, history, philosophy, theology, etc, but we are never satisfied with what we know or what we have. We always want more. That is because our longing, our reaching out, is infinite. We know this from experience. In the words of St. Augustine, “our hearts are restless until they rest in [God].”

People will doubt this, living from self will, thinking that reading more and more, or just having more and more will satisfy their hearts. As I understand it, this is the heart of addiction, filling our hearts with more and more stuff. Eventually, living this way, a person bottoms out, and what we know from recovery programs is that the person will continue to get drawn back into addiction, whatever kind of addiction it is, until that person undergoes some kind of conversion in which that person recognizes his or her need for God—for the infinite. That is, the person will continue to get drawn back into addiction, until that person realizes that his reaching out into the world is never satisfied by collecting more and more theorems or possessions or money or alcohol. Rather, through conversion, the person comes to realize that his reaching out never grasps the ultimate. His reaching out in fact is never fully satisfied. The person lets go of the powerful urge for addiction when he realizes that his desires are for the infinite mystery of love—that is, the infinite mystery of God. He or she may also come to realize that God can be known but never fully understood and that although he reaches out for God, he cannot grasp God. Rather, in prayer and meditation, he allows God to grasp him.

How do we know that we have been grasped by God? In the discernment following the prayer, we reflect on what has happened. We notice which images, thoughts and feelings freely moved us to insights, joy, charity, and justice. It is helpful to write them down. And then, by writing about our prayer experiences over a period of time, we can then review them and notice patterns—which recurring images, thoughts and feelings give us a sense of consolation (insights, joy, charity and a desire for justice). We can also think of consolation as positive energy for creative work. This process of prayer and discernment is expressed by the poetry of the great Buddhist Maha Ghosananda:

The thought manifests as the word.
The word manifests as the deed.
The deed develops into the habit.
The habit hardens into the character.
The character gives birth to the destiny.
So, watch your thoughts with care
And let them spring from love
Born out of respect for all beings.

Thoughts that spring from love are moments of transcendence. They are moments in which the infinite beyond—God—grasps us. Such moments are fundamentally ineffable. We do not exactly understand why they occur to us, but they lead us to freedom. Let’s be more specific: thoughts that spring from love may be the plans for the expansion of your business. Recognizing that you have a product that contributes to the well-being of your customers and of society, you hire new people, develop new delivery systems, improve the communication in your work places, and other relevant improvements. Praying over your work, these thoughts have bubbled up mysteriously in your heart. You have noticed certain patterns to your prayer and you authentically sense that there is a lot of positive energy around your plan to expand. The consolation of the thoughts gives you energy for other, more difficult aspects of your life. The expansion itself gives jobs to many people and delivers the product to more people who need it.

Thoughts that spring from love may be your desire to marry a particular person. You have dated for a while and have quietly considered marriage. Perhaps you have even asked your partner about his or her feelings about having children. In prayer, perhaps over scripture, there is a particular image that you associate with your love. Perhaps it is an image of your love. Whatever it may be, the thought of committing yourself to this person gives you authentic joy. You notice other thoughts: fears that the marriage might not work, worry about how your joint financial life is going to work in this difficult economy, fears about raising children. These fears are what St. Ignatius called desolation. They are real feelings, but they run contrary to the God given joy that flows from the consolation of loving your partner for the rest of your life. We transcend our current selves by following the consolation, by following, relishing and nurturing the thoughts that flow from love born out of respect for all beings. The wonder of it all is that our transcendence, our reaching out beyond ourselves, consists of our becoming joyful and we become joyful by surrendering to the feelings of true love, true compassion, true genius, and true justice. All of this can begin now, and it is lived in time. It consists of our very real decisions to pay attention to what we truly want, the authentic desires of our hearts. What we truly want gives us joy. What we truly want is delightful. What we truly want is infused into our hearts by our loving God, who creates us through these authentic desires. God creates us/saves us by moving us to authentic acts of transcendence which occur in time.

On the other hand, desolation flows from the evil spirit who wants to confuse us so that we give up on what we truly want. He attempts to lead us away from the joy that our authentic desires give us by telling us that our plans will never work, that we will get hurt, that there is no good, or that we don’t deserve what is good. There are many other ways that the dynamic of the dark attempts to lead us away from joy.
My point is that our transcendence, expressed in our concrete acts of surrender to what is good, occurs in time as we meditate upon the direction of our feelings. It is not superimposed upon us by a God who does not involve himself in our lives. Transcendence/creation/salvation happens when we act in response to God’s initiative in this world, in this space-time continuum.

Transcendence does not occur when we think we need to escape from this world. Nor does it occur when we think we can control what is good in our lives. Attempts to control our lives and those around us result in spiritual regression, not progression. Why? Ultimately, we cannot grasp what is good. We cannot grasp God—agapic Love--but, as I mentioned above, God can and does grasp us. And when God grasps us, we express it using the cultural categories and language that we have inherited from childhood. And then time passes, we live more, and once again we are grasped. Discernment then consists in finding in our consciousness the thoughts and feelings that flow from love. For example, when my four year old daughter tells me, “Daddy, be a big puppy” and I respond and she then laughs and laughs, I am grasped by love. When my eleven year old has been attending dance class for two straight hours and then asks me, “Daddy, can we stop for ice cream,” something inside me says “She wants some quality time now.” I tell her “Yes, let’s get some ice cream.” Those thoughts flow from love.

I recall another experience. My children love our dog. I like the dog but mostly tolerate him at times. He is part dachshund and part terrier. He is hyperactive. He barks a lot and I have some sensory sensitivities. Literally, at times, the dog gives me a headache. The thing is, the dog loves me. He won’t leave me alone. I try to meditate and he comes and lays on top of me. I try to read and he barks until I walk him. If I were to neglect the dog, I would be harming one of God’s creatures and my children would suffer. So, I notice how gentle the dog is when he snuggles my kids at night. I notice the smile on my wife’s face when he welcomes her home. At those moments I am grasped by the beyond, by infinity. I am momentarily filled with compassion for and joy for others. Then I let this “grasping” by joy motivate me to act.

Now please don’t think that I consider myself to be the master of discernment. I am far too ungrateful and nervous to be considered that way, and like many other human beings, I have followed some uncharitable thoughts into action. Nonetheless, I know from experience that authentic desires are experienced by allowing ourselves to be grasped by the Holy Mystery. Inauthentic desires flow from desolation which is concurrent with our reaching out and clinging to an object or course of action. In short, it is a very human tendency to hold onto an object, an idea, a fear because it is familiar, or just because the dynamic of the dark has told us all sorts of lies about what happens when we let go. Rene Girard and his students have written very persuasively about how the mimetic tendencies of desire foster attachments to ideas, resentments, objects, and a host of other non-realities, but it is beyond the scope of this essay to analyze Girard’s theory at length. Let me just state that our tendency to copy others can draw us into conflict and harden our clinging to an object. Mimesis literally clogs up our heart with attachment and blocks our view of the ultimate. Thankfully, grace weakens our mimetic attachments and frees us to allow ourselves to be grasped by the ultimate.

We are creatures of desire and we are creatures who are constantly being freed for transcendence. In the end, yes it is true, we “go to heaven,” but what does that mean? When we go to heaven, we transcend material life by entering into the mystery of death and by giving ourselves over to the mystery of God who is present in death. Of course, we fulfill our time in the space-time continuum by dying in time and entering into eternity. Eternity, as Karl Rahner noted, is not the opposite of time. Rather, it is the fulfillment of time. My entering into eternity is the fulfillment of my personal history, a fulfillment which is coterminous with my being lifted up into the incomprehensibility of divine love.

Why then, did I write this essay? I wrote this because I have heard some Christians write and speak about their life as if it did not matter. I also wrote it because many Christians doubt the relevance of political action for the spiritual life. I think it is very easy to simply ignore the problems of our age by saying that “this world” does not matter, when in reality, heaven is experienced in “this world,” and we enter into heaven by loving and acting for justice in this world. Acting for justice means laboring to liberate the poor and the wealthy from systems of oppression and exploitation. What does liberation mean? Well, once again theologians have found that grasping and hanging onto a system—Marxism--left the world unfulfilled. We have a task at hand and that is allowing God to draw us into non-violent, non-Marxist theologies of liberation. That eludes the purposes of this present essay. I will leave it up to the master theologians to tackle that one (although I might give it a try some day). Finally, I think that the most a spiritual writer can do at times is just to point to the basic structure of human living: we need to reach out and let ourselves be grasped by love. Love will then enlighten our minds so that we may find creative solutions to our political troubles, our economic troubles, our military troubles, and whatever other troubles we face. May our thoughts and feelings flow from love and through love be happily completed!