According to Charles Taylor (2007), in our “A Secular Age”, exclusive humanism is the background understanding of modern society. Exclusive humanism perceives any reference to something transcendent beyond human life dangerous and against the freedom of humanity. According to exclusive humanism, religious views lead to violence and exclusion. In opposition to exclusive humanism, religious belief sees the denial of transcendence as the source of all evils and violence in the society, because exclusive humanism leads to seeing the world and our life meaningless. Taylor also argues that the main problem of modern society is its closedness to transcendence beyond human life. To recognize the aspiration to transcendence is presented as offering answers to the problems of modern society such as the persistence of violence and exclusion. Nevertheless, Taylor notes that religion involves violence and exclusion, as well. In this context, the question of why religious transcendence reproduces violence and exclusion comes up, given that transcendence is deemed to provide an answer to these problems. The main question of this paper is whether Taylor’s understanding of transcendence provides an answer to this question of the closure of religious belief and thus enables us to develop mutual understandings of diverse ways of living. I will argue that the fundamental ground for the closure of religious perspectives is their onto-theological conceptions of transcendence in Heideggerian sense. Following Heidegger, I will claim that religious transcendence is also an expression of Cartesian subject-object duality. I will argue that Taylor’s account of transcendence also remains within the confines of onto-theological understanding of transcendence. I will explicate my argument by elaborating on Taylor’s discussion of Nussbaum’s and Nietzsche’s critiques of religion. Then I will discuss Heidegger’s own conception of transcendence in order to enable us to be receptive to diverse ways of encountering the holy in our everyday world
