Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy Chapter 2 Numen and the Numinous

Summary: Holiness is a valuation peculiar to religion, even though it has been applied in spheres such as ethics by transplant. Kantian thought had tied holiness with complete goodness, so that the will acting on the moral law alone was the holy will. But this transformation obscures the original significance of the holy. Like the beautiful, the holy contains an element or feeling-response "moment" that eludes apprehension in terms of concepts. This "overplus of meaning" is what the term holiness denoted foremostly in ancient languages; it was neutral in terms of moral significance. We need to disregard the moral and rational factors in investigating the term, and to help in that regard, Otto adopts the term "Numen" (and corresponding "numinous") for this focus on the holy. Otto believes the numinous state of mind is irreducible to another mental state, and as a primary one, cannot be strictly defined. Understanding is brought by consideration and discussion of the matter through one's own mind until the numinous in one may stir and be brought to life. The process can be advanced via comparing and contrasting it with other mental states/experiences.

Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy Chapter 1 The Rational and the Non-Rational

Summary: Theists, by analogy, project and perfect their human rationality and personality on to their idea of God. The attributes that they apply to God can be understood and analyzed by the mind, and are thus what Otto calls "rational." Religions, such as Christianity, applying such attributes to God are rational religions and summon a belief and faith-based knowledge in their doctrines in contrast to vague, propositionless feelings. Yet it is wrong to suppose that God's essence can fully be understood through rational attributions, even though the rational occupies the foreground of discourse. Otto urges that the rational attributions imply a non-rational subject of which they are predicates. The rational elements are essential, but also "synthetic." Otto's explanation is dense: we have to attribute these rational elements to the God-subject, but this subject "in its deeper sense" is not comprehended by these elements. Comprehending it requires a different mode of understanding. Otto believes this mode must be utilized by mankind or we would not be able to assert anything of the God-subject, and we do this. Mysticism, in its assertions of experiential ineffability, does not mean nothing can be asserted of the object of religious consciousness, but their copious writings suggest there is something beyond the effable. Otto takes this as the first distinction between religious "rationalism" and "profounder religion." It is not the rejection of the miraculous that distinguishes them, but a difference regarding the "quality in the mental attitude and emotional content of the religious life itself." Orthodoxy constructed dogma/doctrine, and in the meantime failed to value the non-rational element in religion and so gave God an unbalanced intellectualistic spin. Eyes have been shut to the uniqueness of religious experience, but Otto believes it is one of the most unique of phenomena. In what follows, Otto will try to unpack the category of the holy or sacred.