“The Idea of the Holy” by Rudolf Otto – Chapter 11
Chapter 11 of “The Idea of the Holy” by Rudolf Otto is named ‘The Numinous in the New Testament.’ Here is our summary.
CHAPTER 11
The Numinous in the New Testament
Pages 85 to 96
The Old Testament tries to rationalize and moralize the One God. The Lord Jesus continues that trend, culminating in his insight about the “fatherhood” of God. Yet the numinous is not excluded nor superseded. His message was the Gospel of the Kingdom, which is wholly other, the mysterious itself. [Page 85]
All is made into a ‘mystery. All becomes numinous. Disciples call themselves the numinous term of the holy ones. The Saints. This does not mean the morally perfect people. Rather, it means the people who participate in the mystery of the final Day. [Page 86]
The Lord of the Kingdom is more holy, more numinous, than the kingdom itself. He is the sublimation and consummation of all that went before. Christ taught that this Holy One of Israel was a heavenly Father. [Page 86]
The Pharisees preached servitude to the Law. John the Baptist preached a harsh, ascetic interpretation of God. But the Lord Jesus preached the easy yoke, the light burden of the fatherhood of God. [Page 87]
Christians pray: “Hallowed be thy name.” This suggests a trace of awe and dread before the mysteries of the transcendent. See also passages such as Matthew 10:28 and Hebrews 10:31 and Hebrews 12:29. [Page 87]
Christ’s Agony in Gethsemane is best seen in light of the mysterium tremendum. Why was he exceedingly sorrowful? Why did his sweat fall to the ground like great drops of blood? It was his numinous experience. He was in awe of the mysterium tremendum. Similarly, the writings of St. Paul have a pervading numinous atmosphere. [Page 88]
The writings of St. Paul are permeated by the awefulness of the numinous. And yet the writings of St. Paul are also marked by fascination with the experienced love of God. In Romans 1:18 ff, Paul asserts that the angry God’s punishment for sin is sin itself. [Page 89]
Paul has a doctrine of predestination. It springs directly from religious intuition. But for a Rationalist, nothing is as alien as this doctrine. It is a sheer absurdity. A stumbling-block. It has no basis in the laws of nature. Yet predestination springs from two sources. [Page 90]
One of the sources of predestination is election. Election means people are chosen by God for salvation. This is an expression of the actual religious experience of grace. [Page 91]
Election has nothing to do with double-predestination, which is the notion that some people are predestined for damnation. [Page 91]
Another source of predestination is predestination proper. It springs directly from religious intuition. The numen, overpoweringly experienced, becomes the all in all; and the creature becomes nothing. Note that predestination has nothing to do with the arguments concerning Determinism vs. Free Will. [Page 92]
Many people portray the inflexibility of God. These narratives display that our human efforts are overshadowed by the divine. The divine is the absolutely sole and all-embracing active cause. This realization intensifies creature-feeling and leads to mysticism. [Page 93]
The root of the predestination concept is consciousness of the numinous, as creature-feeling. Thus the faith-movements that have an exaggerated insistence on the non-rational elements in the idea of God lean the most toward predestination. Otto cites Islam. In Allah the numinous is absolutely preponderant over everything else. [Page 94]
Besides predestination, another element in Paul is his utter depreciation of the Flesh. Paul uses that term to describe the condition of the creature in general. Concerning the Flesh, Paul sees it utterly disparages and depreciated by the numinous consciousness. In John, the elements of mystery and fascination are strong. [Page 95]
When John speaks of spirit, he is contrasting the utterly mysterious and miraculous heavenly Being with the world and the flesh. [Page 96]
THE IDEA OF THE HOLY
CHAPTERS: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
RESOURCES: Outline, Terminology, Professor Rudolf Otto
Read online at Internet Archive
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