Phenomenology and Religion: New Frontiers

beyond? horizon, immanence, and transcendence
Horizon thus has a peculiar double nature. It is both limiting and
opening. These are not two distinct features. Rather, the distinctive
feature of our horizon of finitude is precisely how the two go together:
a horizon opens in limiting. The fact that there is something more to
come (limiting what we now see) opens up experience. Furthermore,
the horizon itself is open in the sense that it is not simply a horizon of
expectations that turns the unknown into something known. Rather,
our expectations themselves might be changed. Horizon is open in the
strong sense that it is itself at stake in our history.
What we encounter then is not simply within our horizon. When
we try to make sense of what happens to us, we do not simply move
within our own interpretations. Rather, there is a slip between en-
counter and interpretation that can open up or even question our ways
of interpreting. Not that we have two distinct phases: encounter and
interpretation. Rather, interpretation itself is an open process in the
sense that we not only come to understand, but also can come to ask
whether we actually understand what we encounter — or what we
thought we understood. Thus, experience is not simply interpreted,
but a matter of interpretation. When something happens to us or
maybe even within us, we might have a hard time trying to come to
terms with it. Again, horizon is not simply a sphere of familiarity — rather
it is a question of familiarity. If we will maintain the idea that we see
and understand within a horizon, something happens or takes place
“within” our horizon. Horizon implies a history in which it, itself, can
change.
This also means that we do not simply move within a horizon. As
we move, our horizon follows us. If we come to see the world differ-
ently, not just in the sense that we come to hold different views or
opinions about the world, but in the sense of our being transformed,
ourselves, in our ways of relating to the world, our horizon is changed.
This does not mean that we change our horizon. Rather, our horizon
being changed reflects that we have changed.
If our horizon reflects our ways of understanding the world, it seems
to be not only horizon in the sense of where something can come up,
but also how we take that which comes up. I will return to this
distinction in a moment. In order to understand the character of our
horizon of understanding, it is important to see that what we encounter