Volume 12. December 2011 Transcendent Philosophy

individualism of absurdism that rejects the renaissance and the 
enlightenment ones. We can draw a general comparison stressing the 
points of similarity and difference between the two. Similarities: Both 
are man-centred. Man is the measure of everything. Both reject all that 
is not human and suprahuman. Reason or Human mind is the only 
mode through which knowledge is possible and all knowledge is 
essentially dual, divided into subject and object. Differences: the 
renaissance humanism was optimistic, theistic, objective, logical, 
reason and goal oriented while as the latter is pessimistic, atheistic, 
subjective, disjointed and nihilistic. As a reaction the modern 
humanism challenges and problamatizes the central doctrines of the 
renaissance in that it, in its quest for the absolute ground of man, finds 
the promising renaissance man as a myth dubbed to conceal the 
inherent loneliness with which men, in their essential selves, are born, 
live and finally die. The modern humanist is not at home in this world 
to enjoy the beauty and reason out new adventures rather is in 
alienation from the centre. He has witnessed the horrors of two world 
wars and inexpressible pain. All values and beliefs that hold man 
together are now shattered to dust. Disintegration and fragmentation 
have crept into the collective unconscious. Power, not beauty, is the 
object of modern culture. Loneliness of every individual is what 
characterises human consciousness as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and 
Beckett show. Communication is now impossible as the logo of 
language is fallen apart. The plot of human history and life is no more 
progressive with a beginning, middle and a heroic end but aimless 

Foundations and Development of Absurdism in Western Thought: Reflections… 275 
repetition of sounds and meaningless dialogues where nobody comes, 
nobody goes and everything is awful. Thus the modern man 
degenerated from man to his hidden animality, the libidinal drive of 
ruthless power and passion. The renaissance humanism placed 
progressive man in the position of stagnant God of the Christianity 
while as the modern one found the history of progress as a goalless 
journey from nowhere to nowhere. Where does historical notion of time 
finally takes man? Absurdists provide various responses: Nietzsche and 
Camus are driven towards the crushing burden of nihilism which they 
accept as the only worthy posture of human dignity. Nietzsche’s 
Superman’s ‘will to power’ and ‘innocence of becoming’ are two 
existential responses to the fundamental metaphysical question ‘what is 
God’ and ‘ what is our response towards history’ respectively. Camus 
prefers ‘metaphysical rebellion’, suicide, ‘will to life’ and human 
solidarity combined with a deep nostalgia and resentment for, like all 
other major absurdists, the lost home. Heidegger seeks refuge in 
‘being’ which is in time and not in impersonal metaphysical realization. 
Sartre develops good faith and takes full responsibility of choices and 
decisions. Beckett finds nothing more real than anything. To him 
‘nothing happens ever’ and the human condition remains irredeemable. 
Man, according to absurdists, is in eternal exile, damned to suffer 
forever without ever knowing why. What can be known is the limited 
knowledge that one gets through the senses and reflects in the time and 
space bound mind. And what an individual has experienced and known 
since centuries, regarding his final destiny in the universe, is the 
monotonous repetition and recycling of human life and pain and the 
hollow and abstract promises of various narratives ranging from the 
Christian salvation of soul, man as an enlightenment project in himself 
to Marxist emancipation of body and all  slavery. However, man in 
flesh and blood has always found himself imprisoned in the mud of 
which he is made to witness the never ending drama of life, decay and 
ultimately death. He is damned to taste the tragedy of unfulfilled 
ambitions alone without any saviour. All the grand-narratives of human 
history fail to explain to him the ultimate purpose of living and useless 
suffering. All that an individual can do is that he can suffer with nausea, 
live in anxiety, play mind games to pass time, commit suicide as an act 
of man’s true freedom or he can indulge in masturbation, violent sexual 

276 Bilal Ahmad Dar 
endeavours and drug addiction so that he can become unconscious of 
his imprisoned decaying self.  
 
Conclusion 
 
From its beginnings in pre-Socratic thinkers to modern times the 
history of development of Absurdism presents no consistent pattern of 
evolution. It appears that it has never been formulated into a coherent 
position – and perhaps it could not by definition be expressed as a 
system or consistent viewpoint for it denies order, consistency and 
meaning. The Greeks largely contained it and we find only fragmentary 
statements here and there and no such thing as absurdist school though 
ancient scepticism has some affinities with modern formulation of the 
problem and one can say anticipates it. The medieval Christianity 
absolutized ultimate meaning to the subordination of individuality and 
freedom.  The renaissance humanism absolutized reason, freedom and 
individualism by inventing the ideal of ‘progresses’ by displacing the 
ultimate meaning by the immediate ones. Finally absurdism affirmed in 
absolute terms the notion of nothingness and irrationality. These 
developments echo Hegel’s dialectics of thesis, antithesis and synthesis; 
although after absurd ‘logic’ or ‘illogic’ synthesis seems impossible. 
Friedman notices this problem precisely: 
 
For modern man meaning is not accessible either through the ancient 
Prometheanism that extends man’s realm in an ordered cosmos or 
through the Renaissance Prometheanism that makes man a little world 
that reflects the great. Still less is it accessible through the modern 
Prometheanism that defies what is over against man while striving at 
the same time to control, subdue, or destroy it…Today, meaning can 
be found, f at all, only through the attitude of the man who is willing 
to live with the absurd, to remain open to he mystery which he can 
never hope to pin down.
31
  
 
Thus we see the absurdism has been always with man as an attitude but 
very few subscribed to it. It has been formulated as a comprehensive 
philosophical viewpoint only recently in Western history. 
Enlightenment and Christian reaction against it both seem inadequate to 

Foundations and Development of Absurdism in Western Thought: Reflections… 277 
contain this ultimately pessimistic attitude. Modernity has been 
decisively coloured by absurdist theses formulated across disciplines in 
different forms. The question is: can we fully comprehend its historical 
genesis, attempt to rewrite history from a more life affirming 
melioristic if not optimistic viewpoint that religious/mystical traditions 
have advocated. Theologies need to be understood at metaphysical 
plane in order to make sense of their central claims against 
fundamentally unwarranted excesses and slanders of absurdists against 
life and its potential to be a fount of joy and beauty. 
 
References 
 
1
 Nasr, Syed Hossein,  Islam and the Plight of Modern Man, London: Luzac, 1979, 
p.39. 
2
 Cited in Qaiser,Shahzad, Metaphysics and Tradition, Lahore: Gora Publishers Pvt. 
Ltd., 1998, p. 95. 
3
 Cited in Roochnick, David, The Tragedy of Reason: Towards a Platonic 
Conception of Logos, New York: Routledge, 1990, p. 46. 
4
 Quoted by Burckhardt, Jacob. 1951. The Civilization of the Renaissance in 
Itlay.London: George Allen and Unwin. P.185. 
5
 Hughes, Glenn, Transcendence and History: The Search for Ultimacy from Ancient 
Societies to Postmodernity, Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press, 
2003. p. 4. 
6
 Rene Guenon. 1975. Crisis of the Modern World, London: Luzac, 1975. P.7.  
7
 Camus, Albert, The Rebel, trans., Anthony Bower. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 
1953, p. 20. 
8
 Bush, David, “The Renaissance and English Humanism,” Twentieth Century 
Interpretations of the Book of Job: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed., Paul 
Sanders, New York: Prentice Hall Inc., 1957, p. 30. 
9
 Al-Naquib Al-Attas, S M, Islam and Secularism, Delhi: Ruby Printing Press, 1984. 
Pp. 33-34 
10
 Geering, Lloyd, Faith’s New Age: A Perspective on Contemporary Religious 
Change, London: William Collins Sons & Co., 1980, p. 52. 
11
 Haas,William S, The Destiny of the Mind: East and West. London: Faber and 
Faber, 1953. p. 142. 
12
 Ctd. in Paul Davies, “Three novels and four nouvelles: giving up the ghost be born 
at last”, The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, ed., John Pilling, London: 
Cambridge University Press, 1994,  p.45.  
13
 Geering.1980. p. 68. 
14
 Macquarrie, John, Existentialism, London: Penguin Books, 1987, pp. 51-52. 
 

278 Bilal Ahmad Dar 
 
15
 Albert Camus, The Rebel, trans., Anthony Bower. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 
1953. Pp.59-60. 
16
  Ctd. in Macquarrie, Existentialism, 1987, p. 55. 
17
 Ctd. in Geering, 1980, pp.309-310. 
18
 Ctn in Geering, 1980, p.316. 
19
 Roochnik, 1990, p. x.  
20
 Camus, 1953, pp.157-158. 
21
 Ctd. in Flynn,Thomas R, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction, New York: 
Oxford University Press, p. 9. 
22
 Gaur, Dr Ved Prakash, Indian Thought and Existentialism, Delhi: Eastern 
Books Linkers, 1985, p. 7. 
23
 Flyn, 2006, p.37. 
24
 Camus, 1953, pp.61-62. 
25
 Ibid., p.19. 
26
 Ibid., p. 20. 
27
 Ibid., p. 34. 
28
 Ibid., p. 38. 
29
 Ibid., p. 55. 
30
 Ibid., p. 34. 
31
 Friedman, Maurice, Problematic Rebel, Chicago & London:  Chicago 
Press, 1970, p.490. 
 

Transcendent Philosophy © London Academy of Iranian Studies 
 
 
 
Religious Studies and the Question of Transcendence 
 
Muhammad Maroof Shah 
Rajbag Colony, Nagbal, Ganderbal, Kashmir  
 
 
Abstract 
 
Modern discipline of religious studies is facing a series of problems 
on both conceptual and methodological grounds due to lack of rigour 
in defining and conceptualizing some fundamental notions. Due to 
ignorance or partial oblivion of metaphysics as averred by 
perennialists modern scholarly understanding of transcendence is 
problematic. Lacking solid empirical grounding that is the prerogative 
of a saint and predisposed to question the received understanding of 
the sacred modern scholar of religion is not adequately trained to 
appreciate subtleties of traditional metaphysics and science informed 
by transcendentalist viewpoint. I propose to provide a brief glimpse of 
these notions in world traditions as understood by the perennialists. It 
questions some key formulations in the discipline of religious studies 
globally. It seeks to clarify the terms for interfaith dialogue, a subject 
that suffers from a lot of conceptual confusions and operational 
anomalies. 
 
Keywords: Religious Studies, Transcendence, interfaith dialogue, 
reality, metaphysics, realization 
 
Introduction 
 
Despite the huge proliferation of religious studies many questions about 
the more fundamental issues continue to generate debate and heat. 
What is God or Transcendence? What is the world and what is its 
ontological status? What is the status of thought and its demand to be 
provided answers to theological/metaphysical questions? Here I 

280 Muhammad Maroof Shah 
propose to provide a brief glimpse of these notions in world traditions 
as understood by the perennialists. It questions the terms and pleads for 
rewriting of much of what is being marketed in religious studies 
globally. It sets the terms for interfaith dialogue, a subject that suffers 
from a lot of conceptual confusions and operational anomalies. We 
need to be clear about the fundamental notions in theology and what is 
called as philosophy of religion. According to the perennialists nothing 
is more misunderstood than religion and metaphysics of which it is a 
symbolic expression. No age has been more misinformed about the 
meaning of fundamental claims of religion than the present one that 
prides itself on its secularism and humanism, that outlaws religion from 
its public life, that believes that religion is a problem or merely a matter 
of academic interest or phenomenology. 
 
The Question of Transcendence 
 
I start first by remarks on the First Principle and its transcendence. The 
Supreme Principle, whether we call it as One or Godhead or Absolute 
is transcendent. This is the unanimous proposition of all traditional 
mystical philosophies. The Platonists as well as the Semitic mystics in 
lieu with the orthodox Eastern approach place the One, the Absolute 
beyond existence. Existence can’t be predicated of the Absolute. The 
notion that God is evolving with His universe, realizing Himself or 
emerging is an offshoot of modern evolutionist heresy. Certain 
panentheists have supported this idea. There can be no process of the 
Absolute, no progress, no change, no temporal manifestation. The 
Absolute stands outside history. It is a fatal error, according to 
perennialists, to subordinate the Eternal or divinize the temporal (time) 
in metaphysics and we can see it in process theologians and many 
modern philosophers. It is another fatal error to confound transpersonal 
Absolute with personal God or even lower hypostases of the Divine 
exemplifying the lack of rigour in ontological reflections. In fact we 
need to transcend ontology altogether when speaking about the 
Absolute. It was Aristotle’s error, aver the perennialists, to reduce pure 
metaphysics to ontology, to define metaphysics as the science of Being. 
The Ultimate Reality is Beyond-Being. 

Religious Studies and the Question of Transcendence 281 
In Islamic mysticism the Supreme Principle or Absolute is designated 
as a hidden treasure in an oft quoted prophetic tradition which even if 
not authentic for scholars of hadees (prophetic traditions) expresses 
something which plainly follows from the Quranic emphasis on divine 
transcendence. And hidden He remains even now. Absolute in itself has 
really never manifested and can't manifest. It remains unknowable. The 
Absolute in its absoluteness is Nameless and It has no signs by which It 
can be approached. 
It is beyond all perception, conception and 
imagination. No qualification or relation (even such a category as 
existence) can be attributed to It for It even transcends 
transcendence. 
No linguistic category can describe It. 
It lives in 
permanent abysmal darkness and is ‘‘the most unknown of all the 
unknowns” (Qaisar, 1998:132). It is Gayyibul-gayyib. None  can 
have, in principle, access to It. The Pure Absolute or Essence (Dhat) in 
its fundamental aspect is beyond the insatiable human quest and all 
attempts to reach It, track it, pinpoint it, catch It in the net of language 
or realm of the finite or time, to conceptualize It, to imagine It, to speak 
about It, to affirm anything of It are doomed. Before the Ipseity or Dhat 
one can only be bewildered as Khaja Gulam Farid says. To quote him:  
 
Where to seek! Where to find You Friend? All the fiery creatures, 
human beings, forces of Nature and the entire world is amazingly 
drowned in the sea of bewilderment. The Sufis, devotees, men of 
wisdom and learning have ultimately lost. Arshi and Bistami while 
embracing each other cry in vain…saints, prophets, mystics, poles 
and even messengers and deities incarnate proclaim weepingly that 
He is beyond the reach of vision. Scientists, erudites, gnostics and 
professionals in all humility have admittedly resigned. Ask Farid 
naive and simple: where do you find” (Qtd. in Qaisar, 1998:133). 
 
Rumi encountering the Absolute and dissolving in It makes the same 
point in the his Diwan-i- Shamsi Tabrez. 
 
When God is spoken as the Mystery, the Mystery of existence, it is a 
reference to this Essence as Stace has pointed out. The Spirit that 
transcends phenomena and yet does everything and makes possible 
manifestation is a mystery. The secret of things has never been, and 

282 Muhammad Maroof Shah 
never will be revealed at the rational plane. The demand for rational 
comprehension of everything, the demand to reduce everything in terms 
of thought necessarily results in the discovery of absurdity. Essence 
isn’t absurd to reason but reason can’t appropriate the Essence. The 
sacred is something set apart, something that defies human 
categorizations, something mysterious that refuses to give its secret to 
ratiocinating faculty. Nothing can be done to do away with the 
mysterious ground of all existence. Rationalism can’t but be ever 
inadequate and in fact it is clearly refuted in its attempt to comprehend 
Reality at all planes. Absurdists such as Camus and Beckett are 
rationalists who find reason finally impotent to solve the problem, the 
mystery of life or existence but as they acknowledge no other faculty of 
knowing than reason and senses they are lead to declare that reality is 
absurd. 
 
The Real as Infinite 
 
Absoluteness in its absoluteness, the highest metaphysical stage of 
Reality, is undifferentiated. It is Infinite. So nothing from the world of 
relativity, no categorization, no definition, no conceptualization is 
relevant. Wahdatul wajud (Oneness of Being), as a nondualistic 
metaphysical doctrine that is to be found at the heart of all revelations 
and traditions according to perennialists, envisages the idea, that the 
Supreme Reality is both absolute and infinite. The absolute allows of 
no augmentation or diminution or of reality or division. As Qaisar, a 
Pakistani perennialist, explicates: 
 
The infinite as another fundamental aspect of the Real is limitless for 
it isn’t determined by any limiting factor. It has no boundary. The true 
infinite is the metaphysical “Whole” which can in no way be 
limited. There is nothing outside it for then it would not longer be the 
whole. The metaphysical “Whole” is “without parts” for these parts of 
necessity being relative and relative have no existence from its point 
of view. This true Infinite or the metaphysical “Whole” under a 
certain aspect is understood as universal possibility. “There are no 
‘distinctive’ or ‘multiple’ aspect existing really in the Infinite, it is our 
limited determinate and individual conception which makes us 
conceive like that. That limitation comes from the human side to 

Religious Studies and the Question of Transcendence 283 
make the Infinite expressible. The imperfection of a definite and 
conditioned existence mustn’t be transferred to the unlimited domain 
of universal Possibility itself” (Qaisar, 1998:134). 
 
Many modern philosophers and postmodernists are right in 
emphasizing these limitations and denying rational knowledge of the 
whole. In fact the whole can't be spoken at all. The doctrines of Infinite 
and universal possibility in Sufi metaphysics appropriate all 
postmodern critique. 
 
He explains why the Ultimate cannot be discussed about, 
conceptualized and thus why reason can have no jurisdiction in the 
realm of religion.  
 
The idea of the infinite can be neither discussed nor 
contradicted. Since it can contain no contradiction, since there is 
nothing negative
 about it. This is all the more necessarily so, 
logically speaking, since it is negation that would be contradictory. If, 
in fact, one envisages the “whole” in an absolute and universal sense, 
it is evident that it can in no way be limited. It could only be limited 
by virtue of something outside itself, and if there were anything 
outside, it would no longer be the Whole. It is important to observe, 
moreover, that the Whole in this sense must not be assimilated to a 
particular or determined whole which has a definite relationship with 
the parts of which it consists. It is properly speaking “without parts”, 
for these parts would be of necessity relative and finite, and could 
thus have no common measure with it, and consequently no 
relationship with it, which amounts to saying that they have no 
existence from its point of view. This suffices to show that one should 
not try to form any particular conception of it” (Guenon, 1988: 31). 
 
In this context how problematic is the rationalist’s attempt to scan God, 
to drag Him to the human court of reason, to question God and seek an 
explanation from Him. Nasr has remarked that there would be no 
atheists around if metaphysics were correctly understood or were 
accessible to all. I wish to add that there would be no such thing as the 
problem of evil if metaphysics were correctly understood. In fact this is 
the underlying assumption of Pallis’ essay “Is there a Problem of Evil?” 

284 Muhammad Maroof Shah 
in his Buddhist Spectrum. Much of modern criticisms against religion 
are directed against a certain construction of the latter that supposes it is 
something emotional (“piety with emotion”) and has something to do 
with individual and his needs/prejudices. However, the perennialists 
make it clear, that metaphysics (of which religion is a reflection or 
translation though not an exact one) transcends individuality. In the act 
of metaphysical realization individual domain is altogether left out. 
There is no room for feeling and sentimentalism. The mind or 
everything that contributes to a separative distinctive selfhood or 
subjecthood has to be transcended completely in order to experience the 
divine in the fullest sense of the term in the Eastern context and thus