The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto

First published:Das Heilige: Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen, 1917 (English translation, 1923)

Edition(s) used:The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Nonrational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational. Translated by John W. Harvey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Critical analysis

Core issue(s): The Deity; the divine; fear; mysticism; psychology

Overview

After Rudolf Otto was rejected from the German Lutheran ministry because of his liberal views, he pursued an academic career, teaching systematic theology at several German universities. In his first book, Naturalistische und religiöse Weltansicht (1904; Naturalism and Religion, 1907), he insisted that modern science does not directly negate religious beliefs in a benevolent providence or cosmic order, although he conceded that intuitions and feelings are ultimately the only real justifications for such beliefs. In his second work, Kantisch-Friessche Religionsphilosophie und ihre Anwendung auf die Theologie (1909; The Philosophy of Religion Based on Kant and Fries, 1931), he utilized Jakob F. Fries’s Neo-Kantian distinctions among knowledge, belief, and a priori intuition or presentiment. In his interpretation of the third category, Otto suggested that perceptions of a numinous world (one that contains a sense of reverence, awe, wonder, and admiration) might be based on an ineffable reality, even though no empirical means exist for proving that such perceptions are based on more than subjective hope and illusion.

In contrast to his earlier books, which dealt primarily with the rational or cognitive analysis of religion, The Idea of the Holy is devoted to the “non-rational” or “supra-rational” aspects. Although Otto denies that religion is a form of “irrationalism,” he argues that the numinous state of mind constitutes the core of all religious beliefs and practices. This is because the religions of human beings are mysterious phenomena that cannot be reduced to systems of cognitive doctrines or ethical principles. Like the mystical thinkers of many religious traditions, he views the experience of “the Beyond” and “the Holy” as involving a sense of wonderment that cannot be satisfactorily expressed in human language or defended on the basis of rational theories. He readily admits that such a noncognitive view of religions necessarily means that any truth claims of religion cannot be assessed by way of logic or empirical methods.

Otto’s term numinous is an adaptation of the Latin numen (deity or religious power), and the term closely resembles the Kantian term, noumenon, which is used to describe an unknowable reality that presumably underlies all things. Otto makes a distinction between numinous feelings about the Holy and other emotional experiences, such as aesthetic feelings about the sublime. Numinous feelings have two aspects: first, emotions of fear and trembling that result from beliefs about a terrifying Other (mysterium tremendum) and second, emotions of positive attraction that result from perceptions of benevolence and holiness (mysterium fascinosum). Because numinous feelings are both unexplainable and unique, they cannot be considered analogous to non-numinous feelings elicited by secular experiences.

According to Otto, examples of the numinous experiences are particularly prominent in the Bible. Accepting an evolutionary development of the deity in the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible), he suggests that the earliest books presented an animistic conception. In these earlier books, he finds a lower stage of numinous consciousness, or “demonic dread,” as in the strange story of the austere and stern deity, Yahweh, attempting to kill Moses before his son’s circumcision (Exodus 4:24-26). In contrast, the patriarchal deity of the Israelites, Elohim, is the subject in the numinous story of Moses encountering the deity in the burning bush, when Moses took off his shoes and hid his face because of his great fear. Subsequent to the story of Moses, Otto finds that the concept of the holy is rationalized and moralized, even though later biblical writers continued to describe the Israelite’s tribal deity in terms of his “fury,” his “jealousy,” his “wrath,” his “awfulness,” and his “majesty.”

In the New Testament, especially in the teachings of Jesus, Otto sees the continuation of the process that tended to rationalize, moralize, and humanize the Israelite’s tribal deity, culminating in the concept of “the fatherhood of God.” This process, however, did not entirely eliminate or supersede earlier numinous views. Jesus, for example, forecast a heavenly kingdom that was “mysterious” and “wholly other,” and he declared, “Fear the one (God) who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The numinous atmosphere also pervaded the writings of Saint Paul, as in his account of his frightful vision while on the road to Damascus, as well as his many references to final judgment, in which an angry God will enact terrible punishment for disbelief and sinful conduct.

When analyzing later Christianity, Otto writes that the feelings of the numinous were inextricably woven into the fabric of Catholicism’s forms of worship and sacramental symbolism. Viewing the Platonic strand as a prominent expression of the numinous, he views the medieval struggle between Platonism and Aristotelianism as a conflict between the nonrational and rational aspects of the Christian religion. Likewise, Otto views Martin Luther’s protest against Aristotle and Scholasticism as reflecting a desire to return to a more numinous perspective.

While emphasizing Judeo-Christian traditions, Otto includes a large number of references to concepts of the holy in other traditions. In “primitive” religions, he finds that “daemonic dread” is often prominent, even including a “fear of ghosts.” As religions evolve and develop, the holy becomes a combination of frightening and benevolent attributes, as in the Bhagavadgītā (c. 200 b.c.e.-200 c.e.; The Bhagavad Gita, 1785), in which the warrior Arjuna trembled and fell before the deity Vishnu (Viṣṇu), appearing in the form of Krishna (Kṛṣṇa), who was terrifying, majestic, compassionate, and a dispenser of wisdom. Otto is clearly fascinated by the comparative study of numinous experiences in Eastern Asian religions and Christianity, a theme that he would further develop in two of his subsequent books.

Christian Themes

In addition to its psychological (or phenomenological) analysis of numinous experiences, The Idea of the Holy also contains an apologetics, attempting to justify a subjectivist commitment to the Christian faith. In the tradition of German idealism, Otto assumes the dualism between the spiritual realm and the material realm. He frequently emphasizes that perceptions of the holy are a priori cognitions that are not based on experiences. For him, the spiritual realm includes emotional experiences that can be justified only on the basis of nonrational beliefs and intuitions. Although he writes that the capacity to perceive the holy is not innate, he asserts that every person has the potential to develop this capacity to some degree. Particular persons, moreover, like the Hebrew prophets and Jesus, are especially receptive to numinous revelations.

Otto uses the term divination to describe the psychological faculty for recognizing and cognizing the appearances of the holy. Profoundly influenced by Friedrich Schleiermacher’s theories of religious faith, which were based on “intuitions and feelings,” Otto assumes the existence of such a faculty, which presumably puts individuals in contact with a spiritual reality beyond themselves. Declaring that divination is comparable to aesthetic judgment, he writes that they are known by a “predisposing inner witness of the Spirit.” He acknowledges that his argument for intuitive religious experiences will not be convincing to “a person who is not prepared to take the religious consciousness itself for granted.”

Although respectful of other religious traditions, Otto writes that the “Christian religious feeling has given birth to a religious intuition profounder and more vital than any to be found in the whole history of religion.” He shows little interest in assessing the truth claims of cognitive beliefs, and his version of Christianity emphasizes morality as exemplified in the life and teachings of Jesus. The miracles of Jesus, whether or not they literally occurred, were primarily metaphors and signs of his “exalted spiritual powers over nature.” Otto reveals little about his personal beliefs about particular Christian doctrines, but he appears to be somewhat skeptical about the literal truthfulness of traditional doctrines such as the atonement, the Trinity, and individual consciousness in an otherworldly afterlife.

Sources for Further Study

Almond, Philip C. Rudolf Otto: An Introduction to His Philosophical Theology. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. A well-respected interpretation of Otto’s philosophical and theological ideas.

Gooch, Todd A. The Numinous and Modernity: An Interpretation of Rudolf Otto’s Philosophy of Religion. New York: W. de Gruyter, 2000. A scholarly work with two parts: the philosophical background of The Idea of the Holy and an analysis of the reasons for the great success of the book.

Otto, Rudolf. Autobiographical and Social Essays. Edited and translated by Gregory D. Alles. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996. In addition to providing a valuable collection of his essays, Alles summarizes Otto’s ideas and their later influences.

Raphael, Melissa. Rudolf Otto and the Concept of Holiness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. An examination of Otto’s contribution to religious studies, arguing that his theories of religious experience are relevant to theology as well as to the psychological study of religion.