Abstract:
Within the context of religious experience, understood as testimony to
transcendence (Stoker), this article focus on a specific constitutive element thereof,
namely intentionality. It is discussed as concept in relation to three other concepts,
namely religious experience, experience and transcendence. To elaborate on the
importance of the qualification of the concept of intentionality, three conversation
partners are engaged. The French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator
Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) since his viewpoint on “The (O)other” makes the
concept of “transcendence” problematic in a very insightful manner. The Dutch
philosopher of religion Wessel Stoker and his proposal for “trans-intentionality” as a
constitutive element of religious experience, and the experience of Moses with God
as narrated in Ex 3. The contributions on transcendence by Levinas and Stoker are
finally critically evaluated in relation to the Moses experience.
