Self-transcendence and Eros : the human condition between desire and the infinite

Abstract

Ours is a post-transcendent era. Human dogma has unravelled God; metaphysics has unravelled existence; and science has unravelled the cosmos. People have become transparent to each other and no longer relate. The world around us has become explicable and we are left disillusioned in a disenchanted environment. The postmodern mind mourns the loss of mystery, the challenge of the unknown, the desirable and enticing, the loss of an enchanted world. When we speak of the death of God, the end of metaphysics, the end of subjectivity and the technological transformation of nature we are actually speaking of a loss of transcendent experience. We not merely mourn the loss but are continually looking for new experiences of transcendence. But does a statement like ‘the death of God’ not rule out any experience of radical transcendence?1