<\/p>
There\u2019s a slight false step, in the midst of a very helpful point, in Bruce Ellis Benson\u2019s superb Graven Ideologies <\/em> : He has been explaining the \u201cdouble transcendence\u201d of Platonism \u2013 metaphysical (Truth\u2019s being is beyong the sensible world) and epistemological (human beings can get beyond the sensible world to have contact with truth and the world of ideas). He argues, rightly, that the epistemological transcendence cancels the metaphysical: \u201cIf I am able to transcend the boundaries of my world and my time, then that which I seek to understand is itself <\/em> no longer transcendent . . . . If I can transcend my finitude to understand God in his fullness, then God is \u2013 at least to me \u2013 no longer transcendent . . . . Either God <\/em> is transcendent and so my knowledge of him never fully transcends the limits of my time and place, or I <\/em> become transcendent and God thereby becomes fully immanent to me.\u201d As David Hart has put it, Platonism does not arrive at any true transcendence. <\/p>\n But Benson goes on to suggest that Christianity offers a \u201cmiddle ground\u201d in that it affirms that God is both immanent and transcendent. And he adds, \u201cto whatever extend God becomes immanent, to that extent he loses transcendence.\u201d This is the false step, and suggests that Benson is still to some degree working in a Platonic setting. God\u2019s immanence is in no way at the cost of His transcendence; on the contrary, God is immanent only and precisely because He is transcendent of all created limitations. Besides, how is this picture of transcendence and immanence \u2013 that they trade off \u2013 consistent with the incarnation? <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a slight false step, in the midst of a very helpful point, in Bruce Ellis Benson\u2019s superb Graven Ideologies : He has been explaining the \u201cdouble transcendence\u201d of Platonism \u2013 metaphysical (Truth\u2019s being is beyong the sensible world) and epistemological (human beings can get beyond the sensible world to have contact with truth and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy"],"yoast_head":"\n