From Oxford –
Transcendent:
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beyond or above the range of normal or physical human experience:the search for a transcendent level of knowledge
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surpassing the ordinary; exceptional:her transcendent beauty
- (of God) existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe. Often contrasted with immanent
Immanent:
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existing or operating within; inherent:the protection of liberties is immanent in constitutional arrangements
- (of God) permanently pervading and sustaining the universe. Often contrasted with transcendent
Sometimes it feels as though the immanence of God is made up to comfort us and protect us from the truth of the transcendent God. In the midst of our deepest darknesses we are told that God is there, with us, or that just beyond the clouds is the sun or that just over the eastern horizon the sun is preparing to rise, etc, etc. While this is all well and good and perhaps true it feels as though the benefit is not for us but the ones to the far east who already see the sun, or the ones soaring above the clouds basking in its heat etc.
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For those of us in the pit it feels as if we are alone no matter how present the intangible, transcendent God may be. One wonders if the platitudes given to us by well meaning people are perhaps more to comfort them than us. God seems more transcendent than immanent. God seems distant and apart from things. No doubt it is a matter of perspective. Imagine being in New Orleans the week before Hurricane Katrina. Now imagine that you are leaving Bourbon Street after a night of intense revelry when you are acosted by a gun-wielding man who demands your wallet, cell phone, watch, etc. etc. In that moment you have crossed over from the immanence of God, which you measure by the sense of your own joy, to a deep feeling of anger, isolation and, no doubt, a solid belief that if God is around it is certainly not here.
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Fast-forward one week and now Hurricane Katrina is devastating the region. The city is destroyed, many are dead, thousands have left their homes to thieves with no idea how their lives will go on. Suddenly in the midst of this moment God was immanent while you were being robbed a week ago. He was there with you keeping you alive. Now though in comparison it feels as though you are abandoned. Alone. God has departed and left you to the wild ways of the world.
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Suddenly you are transported to the city of Mogadishu in Somalia. You witness the final moments of two children’s lives as rogue gunmen on old jeeps race through the streets proudly displaying their might in the form of automatic heavy machine guns mounted to the vehicle’s back. They pay no attention to the brother and sister playing in the street, nor do they stop after running them down leaving a horrified mother in shock and despair. Suddenly God was immanent for you when you were in the midst of the hurricane and now transcendent and away from this place of sorrow.
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Again and again the sense of God’s presence or seeming abandonment is somehow dependent on our own situation and the relative situation of others. How is this, in any way satisfying or even correct? How can the eternal and loving God, the one who is outside of the control of anything in existence, suddenly be so easy to control and manipulate with our own emotions? We are sad – God is gone. We are happy – God is there. We sorrow – God is transcendent. We fee l joy – God is immanent. We know, in the end, this is wrong. That God, by God’s own nature, is both transcendent and immanent. We is both apart and near. The creator who is far from us and the one who was humiliated by putting on human flesh and becoming one of us and with us in Christ.
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If we trust God we know that God’s presence is available to us. The problem is really somehow in accessing it. How do we connect with the living God in a meaningful and trans-formative way, while in the midst of our deepest despairs? Sometimes our efforts to feel God’s presence are about as satisfying as giving our own sore backs a massage when we know we need the hands of others. When their hands are not there it becomes easy to deceive ourselves into thinking we have been abandoned to our own methods and these, compared to God’s are poor at best. When we try to help ourselves and fail we begin to define ourselves as failures. We begin to believe that not only are we failures, but that God has abandoned us because we feel like failures.
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Back to perspective, I suppose in the end, when we are being crushed, we have two options – believe God cares and gain some comfort from that or do not believe and live alone in the crushing. Neither seems like a wonderful option but surely the one is better than the other. Sometimes in those moments, if we open our eyes we may even see that there are, in fact, others who would seek to be the very immanent hands of Christ in our lives…should we let them.
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I would go so far as to suggest that sometimes a drowning man needs to call to the ship for help if he expects a life preserver to be thrown, otherwise they may as well be alone in the stormy sea.
Harnessing Chaos 
Yes, amen! I hope God reads this.
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Powerful and contemplative.
We need more honesty like this from our Christian leaders. The biggest let down that existed in my “walk with God” is the ultimate realization that I do not feel God. In the end I accept that God is in and is part of everything… that God makes ceaseless options open to me… and that it is mine to man up when I’m pushed down and choose the next door. Unfortunately that seems to be the extent of my relationship with God.
Thoughts anyone?
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Hi, Pat. I did have a thought to add to your post along the lines of our understanding of God and whether or not he can be ‘felt.’
I like the definition of ‘God’ in “The Westminster Larger Catechism” (Q/A 7). It defines God in terms of his transcendent and immanent attributes:
Question 7: What is God?
Answer: God is a Spirit; in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection…
[His Transcendence]: … all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things
[His Immanence]: … most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.
His transcendence is beyond our experience but we participate in his immanence when we pursue wisdom, holiness, justice and mercy, etc.. And when we line ourselves up in this manner, we experience ‘the peace of God that surpasses understanding’ (aka ‘transcends understanding’).
A verse that can point us in the right direction about our experience of God is Romans 14:17 “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” That is when we pursue God’s righteousness, we experience in community: ‘peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.’ Thus, he can be felt in communion with others who recognize his transcendent attributes: That he is ultmately beyond understanding, etc..
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I believe You can experience as much of God as you want!!! We are not taught this, but taught that experience is bad. I totally disagree. I have experienced God in supernatural ways and will continue to need these experiences to make it through tough circumstances. There is also an element of faith…you have to believe that God is there and loves you unconditionally even though you can’t “feel” Him. As you continue seeking God with all your heart, He’ll make sure you find Him!!! An incredibly awesome book to read when going through difficult circumstances is “The Shack” – it will give you a wonderfully refreshing new perspective of God. Also, set aside all “theology” (man’s perspective of God) and go straight to the source!!! We can’t truly understand God with our minds…we have to seek Him spirit to spirit!!! God speaks to us every day, but do we listen?
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I have been thinking, as well, about the immanence of God from a slightly different angle: The ‘kingdom is among you’ and how that kingdom becomes visible in terms of the fruit of the kingdom as per the Parable of the Sower.
Habakkuk queries along the line that you are moving and receives the answer that amidst the confusion of life, the knowledge of God fills the earth. The ‘just live by faith’ or draw from the kingdom that is within and among and amidst the confusion. It is the fruit of the kingdom that God is interested in primarily. The story of Joseph speaks to the escape from Katrina scenario in that God preserves his people far in advance of the drought because of his on going desire to fulfill his promise to Abraham: ‘in you shall all nations of the earth acquire a blessing.’
If you think about ‘The Rise of Christianity’ by Rodney Stark, the kingdom that Jesus said was ‘among’ endured through tremendous clamities and because of the love that the disciples had for one another. It rose to become the most dominant force in the Roman Empire. It was like the stone coming out of nowhere that Daniel saw in his vision. Again, if this historical incident sheds light on the ‘why’ of difficulties in terms of the mission of the church, God is interested in fruit: What the just do in terms of their endurance through difficult times as opposed to what the unjust will do and which becomes their undoing.
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