Phenomenology of religion

3. The sacred

Phenomenology is a kind of empiricism; it addresses itself to the modes of our experience. But this does not keep it from making the world (the object of experience) its theme in various ways. Similarly, the phenomenology of religion is not compelled to focus on the subjective side of religion (for example, faith) as distinct from its objective side (for example, God). Indeed, if anything, the tendency has been to focus precisely on the ‘object’ of religious experience.

However, this is doubly problematic. First, the concept of God or gods is not appropriate for such religious ‘objects’ as the Buddha nature, which is at once the being of all things and anatta, no-self or no-substance; the mana of the Melanesians, and its many dynamistic correlates; or even the spirits of animistic religion. Second, even in contexts that speak freely about God, the claim is widespread that the highest experience of God or Brahman or the Buddha nature and so forth is beyond the structure of subject–object experience. Hence the quotation marks when speaking of the ‘object’ of religion.

The terms ‘sacred’ and ‘holy’ have come to serve as the generic names for the ‘object’ of religion. The ways in which these notions are spelled out provide the first answer to the question ‘What is religion?’ or ‘What is the common feature in virtue of which we call this very diverse set of phenomena religious?’ Two classic accounts highlight possibilities for both convergence and divergence.

Geerardus van der Leeuw gives a triadic structure to his classic work Religion in Essence and Manifestation: A Study in Phenomenology (1933): the object of religion, the subject of religion, and object and subject in their reciprocal operation. The object of religion, which he calls the sacred, is above all else power. But this power is not just any agency. Van der Leeuw stresses its remoteness. However frequently one encounters it, it never becomes usual or familiar, but remains a ‘highly exceptional and extremely dangerous "Other"’ ([1933] 1963 (1): 24). Accordingly, encounters with the sacred are accompanied by amazement, fear, and especially awe.

Van der Leeuw stresses that in its ‘primitive’ – that is, dynamistic and animistic – forms, this notion of sacred power lacks two features that often accompany it in the religions of the world’s ‘high’ civilizations. The first of these is a principle of unity in terms of which it is possible to think of the universe as an ordered and integrated cosmos. The second is a moral link between power and something like justice so that ‘the ground of the world may be trusted’ ([1933] 1963 (1): 31). In its generic sense, then, the sacred power ‘remains merely dynamic, and not in the slightest degree ethical or "spiritual"’ ([1933] 1963 (1): 28).

Rudolf Otto’s earlier study, The Idea of the Holy (1917), challenges this latter claim. Seeking to elaborate on what Schleiermacher (§7) called the feeling of absolute dependence, he defines the holy or the numinous as the mysterium tremendum et fascinans (overwhelming and fascinating mystery). To speak of the holy as mysterious is to focus explicitly on that in the ‘object’ of religion which is non-rational or ineffable in the sense of exceeding our conceptual apprehension. To call it the mysterium tremendum is to accentuate the awe-fulness of the holy, its ability to evoke fear and dread. This is the aspect of the sacred that allows it to be designated the ‘Wholly Other’. Finally, to describe it as fascinans is to find it to be ‘uniquely attractive and fascinating’ ([1917] 1958: 31). If the wrath of God is an expression of tremendousness, the mercy of God is an expression of the fascinating aspect of the holy. We are naturally ambivalent before the holy, drawn to it and repelled by it at the same time (see Otto, R.).

But for Otto, this complex ‘object’ of experience is not just a matter of power but also of value. Before the numinous I experience not only the limits of my power but also the limits of my worth. The notions of sin and defilement that emerge go beyond the notions of guilt and remorse derived from morality, just as holiness is not reducible to goodness; however, the value categories of religion are intimately related to those of morality. Over against van der Leeuw, Otto leaves us with two important and probably interrelated questions: Is the dialectical tension between attraction and repulsion generic to religion, or only a feature of some species? And is there an essential link between religion and morality, or is the supreme and unique value of the holy a specific rather than a generic feature of religion?

One approach to this latter question involves the sharp distinction between religion and magic. If the sacred is a matter of value-free power, then it entails no normative restraints against making it a means to human ends. The only barriers are technical, and the sacred power is on a par with atomic power: can we figure out safe and reliable procedures for putting this power at our own disposal? On Otto’s view that the holy is a category of value, we should say at this point that we are no longer dealing with religion but with magic. On van der Leeuw’s view, by contrast, we should speak here of instrumental religion, recognizing that phenomena we normally designate as religious sometimes have this means–end structure constrained by no values but our own purposes.