between subject and object. The relation is between conditioned beings in general, to which belong subjects and all possible objects, and the unconditioned. In this case, contrariwise, the concept of transcendence is defined essentially by the formulation and notion of that to which transcendence transcends, by what lies beyond the contingent. Being-beyond, in this case, expresses at the same time a difference in the degree of being, or better, the infinite difference of the created from the creator, were we to substitute God, as understood by Christians, for the transcendent, which we need not do. Insofar as the transcendent, in this second concept, always means the unconditioned, the Absolute in some form or other, and the latter means predominantly the divine, we can speak here of a theological conception of transcendence.
Now both conceptions of transcendence, the epistemological and the theological, can be conjoined-something that has always happened and always recurs. For once the epistemological conception of transcendence is granted, whether expressly or implicitly, then a being is posited outside the subject, and it stands over against the latter. Among the beings posited opposite, however, is something which towers above everything, the cause of all. It is thus both something over against [the subject] and something which transcends all conditioned beings over against [the subject]. The transcendent, in this double sense, is the Eminent, the being that surpasses and exceeds all experience. So, inquiry into the possible constitution of the transcendent in the epistemological sense is bound up with inquiry into the possibility of knowing the transcendent object in the theological sense. The latter inquiry, in fact, is, in a certain sense, the impulse for the former. Therefore, the problem of the existence of the external world and whether it can be known is implicated in the problem of the knowledge of God and the possibility of proving God's existence.
All theological metaphysics, but also all systematic theology, operates through the entanglement of both problems of transcendence. Were we additionally to assign the distinction between the rational and the irrational to that between the transcendent and the contingent, then the confusion would be complete. This tangle of partially and falsely posed problems is continually confused in ontological philosophy and systematic theology; the tangle gets passed along from hand to hand and the state of entanglements gets further confused by receiving a new name.
It is not worth the effort for philosophy to pursue the thread of this confusion or even to disentangle it. I am referring to it for