transcendence
God’s existence above and outside his creation, independent and distinct from it.
- In scripture:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV)
- From Salvation Belongs to the Lord by John Frame:
When Scripture uses the “up there” language, theologians call it transcendence….
…[S]ome theologians have misunderstood God’s transcendence. They think it means that God is so far away from us that we cannot really know him, so far that human language can’t describe him accurately, so far that to us he’s just a great heavenly blur without any definite characteristics. This concept of transcendence is unbiblical. If God is transcendent in that way, how can he also be near to us/ Furthermore, according to the Bible we can know definite things about God. Despite the limitations of human language, God is able to use human language to tell us clearly and accurately who he is and what he has done.
Learn more:
- Got Questions: What does it mean that God is transcendent?
- Compelling Truth: What does transcendence mean? How is God transcendent?
- J. I. Packer: Transcendence
- John Frame: Divine Transcendence and Immanence
Related terms:
- aseity
- holiness
- immanence
- immutability
- impassibility
- incommunicable attributes
- infinitude
- omnipotence
- omnipresence
- omniscience
- sovereignty of God
Filed under God’s Nature and His Work
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