arne grønexample, that religion simply is human projection or social construc-
tion. The notions of transcendence and immanence have gone into our
ways of dealing with religion so that we tend to take them for granted.
Religion has come to be preconceived in terms of transcendence. We
may think we capture what religion is about when we use this notion
without asking the questions that the problematic character of this
approach invites us to ask. We do not actually see what religion is
about, but we think we know, because we all know that it is about
transcendence and what this means.
How then should we begin a philosophical inquiry? Precisely by
reflecting on how the difference between immanence and transcendence
is philosophically enigmatic.^3 This opens up questions of transcendence
and immanence in terms of horizon, experience, interpretation,
passivity, and selfhood. In following this line of argument it is my aim
to show how a philosophical approach to religion can be fruitful in
understanding religion as a human concern, and that in dealing with
religion we are challenged to rethink philosophical key notions and
insights.^4
Transcendence and Immanence
Talking about transcendence only seems to be another way of talking
about beyond. Transcendence is what is beyond, or transcendence is
the movement beyond. Immanence then is implied already in talking
about beyond. It is what makes it possible to talk about beyond.
Immanence is that which beyond is beyond.
Talking about immanence and transcendence, however, seems to
suggest that we have two spheres. This can be taken in terms of two
worlds: this world and a world beyond, an otherworldly world. But if
beyond is a world beyond this world in which we ask about what is
beyond, it reproduces that which it is beyond: it is this world made
- I have addressed this enigmatic character in, e.g., “Subjectivity and Transcend-
ence: Problems and Perspectives,” in Subjectivity and Transcendence, eds. Arne Grøn,
Iben Damgaard, and Søren Overgaard, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007, 9–36. - Cf. my “Religion as a Philosophical Challenge,” Svensk Teologisk Kvartalsskrift
2002, 134–139.