ABSTRACT
We begin with the common and veritably well-accepted view of religion as housing the transcendent. Without attending to comparative studies of religion (where pundits may be able to point to religions that deny any transcendent being) and without a seemingly mandatory analysis of the concept of transcendence, we take the risk of claiming straightforwardly that, by and large, religion recognizes a transcendent being or reality which is characterized as such by its independence of physical, material, ordinary existence and, indeed, its surpassing of this type of existence. This is not to say, however, that religious transcendence belies existence (of God, or a transcendent reality); that would implicate one immediately in a certain atheism. It is to say, rather, that religion recognizes a different reality holding a distinct stratum of existence-the transcendent. It is also to say, finally, something metaphysical; i.e., to hold a metaphysical position.2
