“The Idea of the Holy” by Rudolf Otto – Chapter 18
Chapter 18 of “The Idea of the Holy” by Rudolf Otto is named ‘The Manifestations of the Holy and the Faculty of Divination’. Here is our summary.
CHAPTER 18
The Manifestations of the ‘Holy’ and the Faculty of ‘Divination’
Pages 147 to 158
It is one thing merely to believe in a reality beyond the senses, but another to have experience of it also. Of course all religions say both are possible. [Page 147]
People have non-rational experiences such as terrible or sublime, overpowering or or astounding, uncomprehended or mysterious. These are seen as portents and miracles. But actually, these were opportunities and circumstances. They prompted the religious feeling to awaken within us. [Page 147]
We confound holiness with something that merely resembles it. When we reject those false recognitions, a more pure religious judgement has been reached. [Page 148]
It is like when a crude person says something is beautiful when it is not. If they can recognize their erroneous judgement, they can grow from it. [Page 148]
We can call the faculty of genuinely cognizing and recognizing the holy in its manifestations as the faculty of divination. [Page 148]
OUR NOTE. Otto is using the word divination in an unusual way. Divination normally refers to the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occult ritual or practice. Reference: Wikipedia.
This theory of divination is solidly rationalist. It assumes the power of divination is the understanding. Genuine divination, is not concerned with the way in which a phenomenon came into existence, but rather with what it means. That is, with its significance as a sign of the holy. [Page 149]
In this sense, then, divination is not a new theological discovery. In comparison, Schleiermacher and Fries and De Wette consider humans capable of experiencing an overplus. That means a type of knowing that is beyond empirical reality. It stems from intuitions and feelings. [Page 150]
The nature of knowledge from the overplus is groping intimations, cognitions or surmises. The knowledge is limited and inadequate, yet true. It gives us a glimpse of an Eternal, a Reality fraught with mystery and momentousness. [Page 151]
Schleiermacher and Fries and De Wette posit the faculty of Ahndung as a faculty of divining the objective teleology of the world. [Page 151]
Ahndung provides a meaning that eludes our understanding. The best analogy is from the faculty of judging. We judge things in two ways: (1) by our understanding; and (2) by our feeling. [Page 152]
Judgements that spring from contemplative feeling resemble judgements of aesthetic taste. Both are subjective and personal; both can grow and improve. [Page 153]
Schleiermacher assumes the faculty of divination is universal. But it is not. [Page 153]
But a universal human potentiality is by no means to be found in every single human. Rather, it is witnessed as a special endowment of particular gifted individuals. They are the ones that receive impressions of the transcendent. [Page 154]
In the life of Goethe, divination played an important part. He connected it to the term daemonic. [Page 154]
OUR NOTE. The word used here is daemonic, not demonic.
Goethe said the daemonic cannot be accounted for by understanding or reason. Otto sees in that the elements of the numinous, although Goethe approximates the non-rational to wisdom. [Page 155]
The daemonic has an import of energy and overpoweringness. It alights upon numinous people. Goethe wrote: [Page 156]
This daemonic character appears in its most dreadful form when it stands out dominatingly in some man. Such are not always the most remarkable men, either in spiritual quality or natural talents, and they seldom have any goodness of heart to recommend them. But an incredible force goes forth from them and they exercise an incredible power over all creatures, nay, perhaps even over the elements.
There can be no clearer expression than this of the prodigiously strong impression which divination of the numinous may make upon the mind. It can even happen repeatedly until it becomes almost a matter of habit. [Page 157]
All that said, for Goethe, it is a divination that functions only at the level of the daemonic. It precedes religion proper. [Page 157]
What Goethe and Schleiermacher had in mind were intuitions and feelings, not of something divine, but numinous nonetheless. [Page 158]
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
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