Transcendentalists believed in knowing God on a personal level, watering down the idea that there was no need for an intermediary in understanding God and the spiritual world. To cement their beliefs, transcendentalists embraced idealism, where they focused on nature and opposed materialism. Transcendentalists were inspired by many sources, including Platonism, Neo-Platonism, and Persian scriptures. The transcendentalist movement refused to acknowledge any supreme power beyond their abilities. Instead, they took a strong stand that each person had the right to make their own decisions and draw their lines between the world, fellow human beings, and God.
Among the leading proponents of the movement, Ralph Emerson once banished the biblical teaching and records of Jesus’s great miracles. He claimed that Jesus was a great man in his days, but despite performing great miracles, he claimed that Jesus was not God (Francis, 2018). Transcendentalists believe that God is not a strict judge as the bible depicts him; neither does he distanced himself from transcendentalists, but his authority and existence can be manifested through nature. God can be well understood as a supernatural spirit through observing natural processes like breathing free air and the unending power of divinity filled on earth. According to their understanding, people are better and more at liberty when they are self-reliant and free from authority. In their view on God, societies and institutions like Christianity and other religions were created to corrupt the purity of individuals and deny them their independence.
In conclusion, transcendentalists do not dismiss the existence of God. Instead, they view God as a supreme being who does not focus on a single person but views God as a being manifested in nature. They value all of God’s creation, man, animals, and nature in general and believe that man should be self-reliant since that was how God intended when he created man. Due to the free will given to man, there should not be a medium to connect man to God.
References
Francis, R. (2018). Nature versus history. In Transcendental Utopias (pp. 1-34). Cornell University Press.