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Numinous (Otto + apprehension of the wholly other) - Coggle Diagram
Numinous (Otto + apprehension of the wholly other)
Moses + the burning bush (Ex 3): ‘...And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.’
The idea of the Holy
Otto: REs are encounters with the Holy
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory’ (Isaiah 6:3)
God’s essence is holiness + Isaiah feels impure in the face of it
Otto focuses on ‘Holy’ in the sense of God being ‘numinous’ + ‘transcendent’
The numinous
‘relating to the power (or presence) of a deity’
E.g. C.S.Lewis - atheist at 15 ‘angry at God for not existing’, 16 years later due to God’s ‘compelling embrace’ during ongoing RE became a theist, two years later became a Christian due to influence of J.R.R.Tolkien
‘You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking - a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of prostration before it - and emotion which might be expressed in Shakespeare’s words ‘Under it my genius is rebuked’. This feeling may be described as awe, and the object which excites it as the Numinous’ - The Problem of Pain
Our feelings are ‘sui generis’ (of their own kind)
RE itself is of God as the wholly other, he is inherently different from everything, beyond the natural world - wholly other = beyond apprehension/comprehension
Numinous feelings ≠ more intense versions of normal feelings, they’re sui generis, they’re unique. A special faculty in our minds which recognises the holy + responds
Numinous feelings = non-rational
Can’t use reason to understand feelings, they’re beyond the rational + can’t really be explained
Left with ‘mysterium tremendum et fascinans’
‘mysterium tremendum et fascinans’ (a tremendous and fascinating mystery)
Power can chill + numb, feelings of awe + majesty, dread + fear
Stupor, blank wonder, dumb astonishment, inadequacy, humility + ‘creatureliness’
Numinous as ‘mysterium tremendum et fascinans’ focuses on God as transcendent - above + beyond space + time. He is so far removed from humanity that we have no option but to be in awe + feel fear/dread. We are overwhelmed by our own nothingness in comparison with God. Excludes Christian idea of God’s immanence