Unanswerable Questions

Transcendence is commonly taken to be about another world, one that transcends this one. Instead, I would say that transcendence is about unanswerable questions, and unanswerable questions arise naturally in human life. We deal with them without answering them (or answer them only with irony), for example, in the comic strips, but philosophers are usually loath to admit that there even are any unanswerable questions. Philosophy of religion usually starts with familiar questions such as ''Is there a God?'' and the like. (That's kind of like ''Do neutrinos exist?'' or ''Is there a luminiferous ether?'') Begin instead with more basic questions: What is your idea of ultimate reality? What does it mean to ''succeed'' in life? Where does your ultimate reality show itself in life and the world? Unanswerable Questions is the sequel to The Accountant's Tale.

Andrew P. Porter is a retired physicist and adjunct instructor in philosophy and theology in the Graduate Theological Union and other schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among his earlier books are Living in Spin, Basic Concepts of Biblical Religion, Unwelcome Good News, and others.