The Idea of the Holy: part 3

"The reader is invited to direct his mind to a moment of deeply-felt religion experience, . . . whoever cannot do this, whoever knows no such moments in his experience, is requested to read no further . . ." Otto, The Elements in the 'Numinous'

So we are to remember one of our own religious experiences. What was unique about the experience? What was a unique element about being 'rapt in worship', or in 'solemn worship'? Schleiermacher thought it was a 'feeling of dependence'. Otto doesn't think that's right - we feel such a Feeling in other circumstances besides religious worship. If we feel 'dependence', the feeling might give an analogy to the Numinous, but it itself isn't an element in the Experience. What can give us a hint about such an Experience of the Numinous?

When Abraham is trying to get God to save the people in Sodom, we read, "Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes" (Gen. 28:27). Here, we have feelings of Dependence and Something More. Otto calls this something more 'Creature-Consciousness'. That is, a Feeling that one is Nothing when confronted with that Whom is Supreme in Being above all creatures - Otto says we feel Submerged in Nothingness before an 'Overpowering Absolute Might' of some sort. Again, concepts flee from us; we can indirecly understand it by the 'tone and content' of this Feeling that Otto notes.

Another reason Otto thinks It can't be mere Dependence is that it focuses too much on the Self. We have to travel from this Feeling I have (of dependence) and go to whatever or whoever caused it. But 'creature-consciousness' has a direct aquaintance with Something outside the Self, and it's as a result that Feelings of Dependence arise. Feelings of dependence are the shadow cast by the feeling of 'creature-consciousness'. This Feeling is a 'primary immediate datum of consciousness' of an Object outside the Self. This Object IS the Numinous.

It is this Numen which Abraham experiences as he Feels like 'dust and ashes' before the Holy God. Next, Otto will get into the nature of the Numinous, and how it manifests itself.