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The biblical authors of course never use these particular words. The Old Testament usage of two expressions, 'Elohim' and 'Yahweh' reflects something of this polarity as do the terms 'Son of God' and 'Son of man' in the New Testament. However the clearest incidence of the concept is in the two narrative cycles which concern us. The concept of transcendence and immanence is fundamental to the two narrative cycles which form the basis of this study: the creation story - Genesis 1.1-2.4a and the series of messianic miracles from the gospels. Each of these cycles espouses one aspect of the polarity: thus the general outlook of the theology of 'beginning' is that of transcendence, whereas Mark's overall perspective is that of immanence. It is important to note that this does not prevent the inclusion of the alternative polarity within the general view of either author.

The creation theology announces the binary form of the narrative in the opening inclusio '... the heavens and the earth', whereas Mark uses the term '... to the other side' in a thoroughly systematic way to indicate the analogous dichotomy in the messianic series. The first step in analysing the form of these texts must involve the recognition of their division according to this simple binary pattern. Inasmuch as both the Day series and the miracle series formally juxtapose three distinct pairs of events, transcendence : immanence is inextricably part of the concept of deity, 'God'. That is, Trinity and the notion of transcendence : immanence require each other. Thus the basic morphology of the six Days, just as of the six messianic miracles, is that of two triads, 3 times 2. If we include the Sabbath : Eucharist complex as part of both series then immanence is immediately formally distinguishable from transcendence, for there are just three transcendent episodes as opposed to four immanent events. The actual division in either case however, remains quite pliable, so that we can speak of either ratio 3:3 acts of creation proper and miracles proper, as well as 3:4 total number of Days and of messianic 'events'.

Transcendence remains a provocative concept. Some individual theologians and some contemporary schools, if they have not completely sacrificed it, have substituted for it less polemical expressions, 'the Unconditioned' for example. Transcendence asserts as its primary idea the independence of God from the world - or at least the external relatedness of God to the world - whereas immanence insists on the relatedness of the world and God, meaning that the world and God mutually influence one another. The mention of the ratio 3:4 encapsulates one of the three main exemplifications of transcendence, the space of space : time. Accordingly we find that many explanations of the concept of transcendence in particular rely on spatial metaphors, conceptualising it in terms of 'the beyond'. This is in keeping with its presentation in the Genesis narrative. The other equally important instance of transcendence is mind, the identity to whom the gospel of John refers as 'the word'. The third instantiation of transcendence is perhaps the most problematic of all for contemporary thought at least, that is the (symbolically) masculine polarity of the anthropic category male : female. In all three exemplifications, the concept of the independence of the transcendent term must be complemented by the notion of immanence which sees the same term participating in its specific form of unity: the spatiotemporal, the psychophysical and the anthropic.

This conceptual dichotomy, the notion of transcendence : immanence, is essential to any discussion of religion along comparative lines. Judaism and Islam are examples of religions with strong if not extreme theologies of transcendence. Certainly, Judaism presents a uncompromisingly transcendent perspective in its outlook. Islam is a somewhat difficult case as its angelology and doctrine concerning the prophets demonstrate.

Hinduism, at various times described as polytheism and at others as henotheism, is at some remove from this, as are certain schools of Buddhist thought and Chinese worship of ancestors. With the postulate of many Gods, or many successive incarnations of deity (avatar) and the subsequent devaluation of the idea, certain forms of Hinduism and some theistic Buddhisms adopt the outlook of immanence virtually exclusively so as to stand in direct opposition to the Semitic religions. Christianity for its part, with its doctrine of the 'only begotten Son of the Father' occupies a position literally midway between both extremes. That is, it remains paradoxically committed to both perspectives, that of transcendence and that of immanence. It teaches the unique incarnation of God in Christ. In having an event of incarnation, but only one, it mediates the extreme difference between the exclusively transcendent perspective of Judaism, and the extreme immanentism of the varieties of Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

The arrangement of the three forms of unity accords with the categoreal paradigm, transcendence : immanence such that the anthropic form of unity, male : female, represents the eschatological form of unity; that is, it accords with the various terms such as 'end', 'last', 'omega', et al in the Christological formulae which are congruent with the categoreal paradigm itself. Thus the anthropic form of unity is the last to appear in evolutionary-historical time, as opposed to space, the primordial ('first') entity brought into being. The P creation narrative, in depicting the male : female category as 'last' (teleological/eschatological), is in agreement with contemporary science. We refer to it variously as 'eschatological', 'teleological' 'final' and so on for this reason. This means that eschatologies in general are subsumed under this category. In other words, eschatologies conform to two basic types which are nevertheless in close affinity (unity) with one another as is given by the anthropic form of unity itself. These types are reflective of the two relata male and female.

Christian metaphysics as a Christian theology of religion thus identifies two broad groups which correspond to the categoreal paradigm. For eschatological doctrines conform to either principle, the eschatological feminine (immanent) or the eschatological masculine (transcendent). All three Semitic religions hold in common - albeit in varying degrees - the doctrine of resurrection, whereas the Eastern expressions of religious consciousness consistently propose variant doctrines of samsara. The relationship between these two families of religion recapitulates that of the eschatological relata - female : male. Thus the Christian, or at least the Markan, perspective, divides the entire evolutionary-historical process of life on earth into two epochs, locating the incarnation at their centre, as at the confluence of the same. A perfect example of this is Whitehead's claim of Christianity that 'It has the decisiveness of a supreme ideal, and that is why the history of the world divides at this point of time.' (Religion In The Making, page 47.) The B.C-A.D. calendrical system, which understood the incarnation as the axis of (evolutionary-)historical time, was the work of the monk Dyonysius Exiguus in the mid- sixth century. One of its earliest uses is in one of The Jesus Sutras, The Sutra of the Teaching of the World-Honoured One, which refers to its own compilation in 641, (Martin Palmer, The Jesus Sutras, 2001).

The use of the eschatological doctrines of world religions as the primary criterion for determining their relationships and as an overall taxonomic principle is tantamount to the recognition of a fundamental difference in their understandings of time. These are usually referred to as cyclical and linear, though of course it is possible to combine the two. The significance of time - and so too of course death - generally for religious consciousness is paramount, and the role of the same in Christianity is first indicated in the creation story. The significance of time vis-à-vis death, to Christological doctrine is established in the introductions to both The Transfiguration and The Transformation Of Water Into Wine At Cana. Thus their interpretations necessarily concern the hermeneutic of the P creation narrative.

If the female : male anthropic form of unity is the last of the three such entities to appear in the created world, and if therefore, we describe it as the eschatological category of the conceptual pole, how does it reflect the two differing conceptions of temporality - cyclic and linear, as the rudiments of eschatological doctrine and finally as the primary criterion for advancing a theology of religion? It doesn't. The dichotomy of so-called cyclical and linear temporalities cannot be mapped onto the eschatological category. Nor shall I pursue the frequent distinction to which biblical scholars so often resort; that of kairos and chonos. I do not believe that this is of any ultimate avail.

For all that, this fundamental tenet remains; the disparity between symbolic masculine and symbolic feminine is representative of a reality that pertains to the primordial or archaeological. The various Christological formulae bring into juncture the juxtaposed relata: 'beginning and end', 'first and last', 'the Alpha and the Omega'. This tenet of Markan metaphysics pertains to the categoreal analogy - the fact that there is a proportion of analogy between space-time and male-female as between 'first and last'. However, this is not reducible to the dichotomy linear-cyclical. It concerns the soma, the body as a manifold of sentience or sense-percipience, and the two temporal vectors according to which sentience functions: past-to-present and present-to-future. The first of these, which is the analogue to the symbolic feminine, comprises continuous inheritance and conformity to past actual occasions; the second, the analogue to the symbolic masculine, is the guarantee of freedom and novelty in the given universe and involves a relationality between present and future which is discrete rather than continuous. This binary disposition of soma as the explication of the two eschatological epochs, is discussed at the conclusion of the second essay.

A far more significant distinction regarding the understanding of time for religious consciousness in general, must be that of actual, successive temporality and eternity, that is, atemporality, as befitting the paradigmatic difference sustained by immanence and transcendence respectively. The disclosure of which belongs to the remit of the theology of acoustic semiotic forms. This differential is readily evinced in the acoustic semiosis, not without cogency, given the intimacy of the mutual referencing between the acoustic and the spatiotemporal, their analogous relationality. It is announced immediately and with total clarity as the difference between acoustic (musical) intervals of two kinds; the one, melodic, the other harmonic. Melodic intervals occur within the bounds of an actual temporal chain, one tone being succeeded or having been preceded by another. Harmonic intervals on the other hand, are announced simultaneously. These two fundamentally disparate occasions of acoustic intervals suggest themselves as congruous with the basic alterity manifest between samsaric eschatologies and theistic eschatologies. The matter will be taken up in the discussion of the acoustic semiosis. The evidently interactive capacity of time and the 'timeless', or eternity, is already portended in the incarnation of the logos.

Transcendence and immanence relate immediately to the Christian doctrine of Trinity. Transcendence is an appropriate synonym for the word 'Father'. In varying ways, both words express the fact of the same identity in the Godhead. Some theologians have seen in the expression "Father", concessions to Judaic paternalism and sexism too unjustifiable to warrant its continued unqualified usage. We can and ought to speak of the same identity by means of the term 'the Transcendent', even while the term transcendence denotes equally the identities of the Son and the Holy Spirit. So also, while the term immanence is applicable to the Trinity, it is particularly appropriate to the Holy Spirit. That is to say, that the necessary tension implicit in the relation transcendence : immanence (and analogously beginning : end), is expressed in the relation to these identities in God, 'Father' and Holy Spirit respectively, and that it devolves upon the Son, who is designated by the sign : (logos) in the co-inherence of these polarities. This ensures the discussion of analogy as the procedure of rational thought at the heart of Christian metaphysics. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is indeed well placed to explicate the shift from forms of religious consciousness which accept the principle of immanence to those which rely on the principle of transcendence.

In this context, we must acknowledge three very different occurrences in scripture of the sevenfold series, all of which posit basic, theological doctrines of Trinity and transcendence : immanence. These are the P creation story in Genesis; the messianic series of the gospels; and again at the virtual close of the New Testament The Apocalypse. In a clear sense these three texts embody the various Christological formulae 'first and last', 'beginning and end', 'the Alpha and the Omega', as well as their formal precedent, the inclusio, 'the heavens and the earth'. Indeed among the last words of the latter we find: