Transcendent – Belief that God is outside space and time. God is up and beyond normal limits

(Pronounced tran-sen-duhnt)

To remember the meaning of the term Transcendent, use the following mnemonic:

She made a bank transfer to send money to her dependants (transcendent) but God knows where it went – it seemed to disappear outside space and time.

Some religions teach that God is transcendent, which is to say that God exists in a state entirely independent of the material universe and beyond all physical constraints.

The opposite of transcendence is immanence, which means existence within our world, constrained just as we are by time and space.

However, despite transcendence being defined as the opposite of immanence, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some theologians (people who study the nature of God) claim that God is both within and beyond the universe, a condition known as panentheism.

But what is really important to remember here is that transcend means “to exist above and independent from; to rise above, surpass, succeed”. By this definition, according to some religions, God is the only truly transcendent Being.