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RUDOLPH OTTO'S IDEA OF THE HOLY: A REAPPRAISAL
Author(s) -
WARE OWEN
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the heythrop journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.127
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1468-2265
pISSN - 0018-1196
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2265.2007.00305.x
Subject(s) - theism , numinous , dualism , philosophy , epistemology , subject (documents) , faith , philosophy of religion , alterity , order (exchange) , object (grammar) , argument (complex analysis) , ambiguity , theology , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , finance , library science , computer science , economics
This paper explores the ambiguity in Rudolph Otto's discussion of the mysterium tremendum in order to address a broader set of difficulties in The Idea of the Holy (1917). In doing so, I outline two common criticisms of Otto's position. The first attacks Otto for not providing a secure transition from the numinous experience of terror to the holy experience of faith. The second attacks Otto for upholding a kind of theistic dualism, which seemingly puts his thought at odds with mysticism. Rather than reconstruct Otto's argument in favour of theism, I maintain that numinous experience, while still a form of otherness or alterity, is best characterized as the breakdown of subject‐object dualism. I further suggest that this breakdown is best understood in non‐theistic terms. For examples of the latter, I briefly turn to Jean‐Luc Marion's notion of saturated phenomena.