THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MYSTERY IN RUDOLF OTTO’S METAPHYSICS

Rudolf Otto's metaphysical theology treats the sacred not as a question to be answered but as an invitation to become aware of encountering sacrality. The irrational aspect of mystery is embraced, and knowledge becomes an acceptance of what cannot be known about mystery. The numinous state of mysterium tremendum lies beyond reason, conventional ethics, and causal relations, and is metaphysically undefinable. Its reality, confirmed by empirical pragmatism's impact on human conscience, might be better approached through negative theology. Otto's terminological analysis of divine mystery confirms a dimension of human spiritual life that remains undefinable by reason and argumentative logic.

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Abstract

The interrogation of the sacred proposed by Rudolf Otto’s metaphysical theology is not so much an answerless question as it is a conceptual open invitation to becoming aware of the phenomenon of meeting sacrality. It is also desired to become aware of the limits of reason in the process of analyzing the phenomenology of the sacred. Thus, the irrational is assumed to have the sense of mystery and knowledge becomes, then, an assumption of that which cannot be known about mystery. Regarded analytically, in the Kantian sense, the mystery and the numinous state it induces, that of mysterum tremendum, is revealed to be situated beyond the formalisms of reason, but also of the conventional ethics, metaphysically undefinable, above the relations of causality or dependency. Its reality, confirmed, at the level of the impact on human conscience, and by the philosophies of empirical pragmatism, could better be postulated by appealing to similar perspectives of the negative theology. For Rudolf Otto, these ascertainments and the appeal to the terminological genesis and evolution of the concept of divine mystery’s typology constitute landmarks which confirm the dimension of the human being’s spiritual life, a dimension which remains, for now, undefinable for the potential of our reason and argumentative logic.