In religious traditions, the Sacred is perceived as The Holy. And in some religions, the Holy is personal – GOD. Rudolf Otto explores the perception and experience of the Holy.
The HOLY is at the same time (1) Numinous, (2) Mysterium Tremendum, et (3) Fascinans
The Holy as numinous:
•‘Numinous’ = numen (latin) = something that is perceived by the mind beyond the senses (beyond appearances). Something that is known a priori (Kant).
•Hebrew: qadosh, Greek: hagios, Latin: sanctus/sacer = the absolute good – the wholly other!
•The experience of it is “ineffable – in the sense that it completely eludes apprehension in terms of concepts” (Otto, 1950 p.5). The experience is of its own kind (sui generis).
•Creature-consciousness: what Schleiermacher called, ‘feeling of absolute dependence’. It not just a feeling but openly expressed, and experienced as the present, a numen praesens:
§Abraham pleading with God (Gen 18:27): “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.”
•“It is the emotion of a creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures” (Otto, 1950 p.10).
The Holy as Mysterium:
The ‘Wholly Other’: Evokes stuper = blank wonder! “an astonishment that strikes us dumb, amazement absolute”; Mystery also means secret, alien to us, uncomprehended and unexplained … incapable of exhaustively rendering, a real meaning. Therefore, one way of expressing the mysterium is by means of paradox: It is this (positive) and it is not this (negative). Ex. It is transcendent and immanent; It is omnipresent yet is here and now. Language of analogy: Fire by night and cloud by night!
The Holy as Tremendum:
1. Evokes an element of awefulness: tremor = fear! Religious dread = awe! In Hebrew: Hiqdish (hallow) is to keep a thing holy in the heart – with “fear of the Lord”
2. an element of ‘Overpoweringness’ (Majestas): Tremenda majestas = tremendous majesty; Related to the feeling of creatureliness!
3. an element of ‘Energy’ or Urgency: The holy is clothed in vitality, passion, emotional temper, will, force, movement, excitement, activity, impetus = Living God! Far from being a deist god – the god of the philosophers.
The Holy as fascinans:
•“The qualitative content of the numinous experience, to which ‘the mysterious’ stands as form, is in one of its aspects the element of daunting ‘awfulness’ and ‘majesty’…; but it is clear that it has at the same time another aspect in which it shows itself as something uniquely attractive and fascinating” (Otto, 1950 p.31).
•The Holy has a dual characteristic: it is wrathful/daunting, and at the same time it is attractive and fascinating.
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