Authentic Transcendence

During his imprisonment Dietrich Bonhoeffer was trying to write a book. In his letters and papers from prison we only get a fragmentary and incomplete sense of what that book was about. But in some of his last letters Bonhoeffer had begun to sketch out the chapters for the book.

And in his notes for what would have been Chapter Two Bonhoeffer sketched out some thoughts about the nature of "authentic transcendence":

Our relation to God is not a "religious" relationship to the highest, most powerful, and best Being imaginable--that is not authentic transcendence--but our relation to God is a new life in "existence for others," through participation in the being of Jesus. The transcendental is not infinite and unattainable tasks, but the neighbor who is within reach in any given situation...

Authentic transcendence is existence for others.

Authentic transcendence is the neighbor who is within reach in any given situation.