religious experience - the numinous

Question 2

Otto’s background and ideas on religion

Answer 2

• perhaps believed in cultural relativism, pluralism and that all religions follow the same God
• concerned with natural sciences, comparative religion and non christian religious traditions to analyse religion
• believes faith is irrational like soren K
• Schleiermacher: essence of religion = personal experience
• ritual of religion limits religious belief and understanding God
• experiencing God is the beating heart of religion

Question 3

otto on the types of fear

Answer 3

• fear of tiger, ghost and numinous (awe, wonder, feeling small, experienced by Ezekiel, saul/paul)
• otto believes this type of fear of God is evident across all civilisation (pluralism)

Question 4

otto and finding the numinous using religion

Answer 4

• otto believes u cannot find the numinous in religion, but knowledge God can only come from experience of God
• he is critical of Lutherian Christianity, which has distorted the meaning of holiness
• cannot know/prove God using reason, Kierkegaardsu

Question 5

summary of the numinous

Answer 5

• ‘numen’, transcendent spirit
• describes an encounter with the holy
• common to all religions
• source of religious experiences

Question 6

mysterium tremendum et fascinans

Answer 6

• numinous is ‘ganz andere’ –> wholly other to everything we have ever experienced
• numinous is mysterium tremendum –> provokes terror because it is overwhelming
• fascinans, glorious and compelling
• Huxley: ‘fear is due to the in-compatibility between mans egotism and the divine purity, between mans self aggravated separateness and the infinity of God’ –> finite brain experiencing the finite brings awe
• man faced with the fact that we are not the biggest thing in the universe and find out they are insignificant

Question 7

characteristic responses of humans experiencing the numinous

Answer 7

• stupor: ‘blank wonder..strikes us dumb, amazement absolute’
• shudder: ‘held speechless, trembles inwardly to the farthest fibre of of its being’
• creature consciousness and simultaneously experiencing yourself as nothing: become aware of ourselves as contingent creatures, who barely exist at all, we feel inferior as we are nothing like the numinous -> ‘self depreciation’ #
• sense of unworthiness and need for covering: showing respect, eg covering hair, kneeling etc

Question 8

characteristics of a numinous experience

Answer 8

• ineffable –> cannot fully be described using words
• sui generis, stand alone
• arational, not against reason but does not use it so experience God
• mysterium tremendum et fascinans, tremendous and fascinating mystery

Question 9

quotes about numinous experience

Answer 9

• ‘emotion of a creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures’ otto
• ‘fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom’, proverbs 9:10 –> only way to understand him
• ‘holy, holy, holy is the lord almighty’, isiah, trihagion
• ‘joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.. let me never be cut off from him’ blaise paschal