Sunday, December 15, 2013

The Rational Search for That Which Transcends the Rational

I was reading Kelly Besecke's You Can't Put God in a Box, a study of intellectuals seeking a transcendent religion they can believe in beyond the narrow fundamentalisms of existing religions.  They start from a belief that there is a transcendent beyond what any language can adequately say.

I believe this is true.  Thinking about this search for the transcendent clarified something for me.

You can't explain rationally what the transcendent is. However, you can explain rationally why you can't explain rationally what the transcendent is.

The limits of language are rationally discernable.  This helps us be both open minded and humble in describing what is beyond language.