Phenomenology of the Holy

[levinas12]

What is it like to experience the holy? Does this experience vary in essential ways across cultures? Or is there something “universal” about the experience?

I am asking these questions in the philosophy subforum because they involve a philosophical phenomenology of the experience of the holy.

One method of phenomenology is “comparing and contrasting” experiences.

For example, the experience of the holy is similar to the experience of the beautiful. Both of these experiences seem to be direct and immediate, and almost involuntary (we do not go looking for these experiences; rather we are ambushed by them).

But is there also a distinction between these two experiences?

Are there other related experiences? For example, the experience of love.

 

[Gaber]

What is it like to experience the holy? Does this experience vary in essential ways across cultures? Or is there something “universal” about the experience?

I am asking these questions in the philosophy subforum because they involve a philosophical phenomenology of the experience of the holy.

One method of phenomenology is “comparing and contrasting” experiences.

For example, the experience of the holy is similar to the experience of the beautiful. Both of these experiences seem to be direct and immediate, and almost involuntary (we do not go looking for these experiences; rather we are ambushed by them).

But is there also a distinction between these two experiences?

Are there other related experiences? For example, the experience of love.

All good questions!

I’ve never heard it put quite the way you did, using the phrse “phenomenology of the Holy.” But I like it. For my part I claim that since we are all made, as it is said, “in the image and likeness of God,” that any sincere “seeker” will invariably end with the same result.

Now in that regard, ikt is useful to note that both in religious practices and in philosophy, there is the common, or the exoteric, and the inner, or the esoteric. A in my expereince, the most problematic of all the religions and philosophies aive compared is the Catholic view. I say this because it isthe most heavily veild in symbolism and requires the most effort mentally to get through, as far as I cqn see. Some ways to the Holy are pretty simple and direct. They are usually of the descending category of religoins, or philosophies. Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism are examples of ascending forms of worship. And each has its esoteric counterpart, more or less publicm and more or less acknowledged.

Overall, the end reaches of such practices delve into identity itself, and show a way that our common understanding of the wolrd as outside ourselves is not what it seems. Neither is God. One of the most pellucid deliiniations of this, in my opinion, comes from a Catholic contemplative. There are others, similar or in one case equal, but they are generally not looked upon with favor by those who “haven’t been there.” That is unfortunate. because much can be done to be receptive to grace.

The ultimate statement from mysitcs and contemplatives is universally identical in one respect: you won’t find it in a book, though some books my offer encouragement to look within, or they are useful pointers away from what is commonly accepted as faith but is incomplete. Even very high orders of mysticism find their right completion in the contemplative state after all visions, phenomena, and manifestations are seen beyond.

But one thing is sure. More awaits the ardent devotee who persistently searches for an actual contact with God than any book, promise, or tale, or even religion, can tell.

 

[levinas12]

But one thing is sure. More awaits the ardent devotee who persistently searches for an actual contact with God than any book, promise, or tale, or even religion, can tell.

The “experience” of the holy is, as Kant might say, the a priori condition of possibility for religion.

Moses, for example, didn’t reason to God’s existence. He was “ambushed” (no pun intended).

The question for us today: have we lost the capacity to experience the holy?

 

[Gaber]

The “experience” of the holy is, as Kant might say, the a priori condition of possibility for religion.

Moses, for example, didn’t reason to God’s existence. He was “ambushed” (no pun intended). [Yeah, right! ]

The question for us today: have we lost the capacity to experience the holy?

Not at all. I might even be easier today than before. The difficulty, I found, is accounting for it to those who haven’t. Better to seek your own kind and remain silent otherwise.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

What is it like to experience the holy? Does this experience vary in essential ways across cultures? Or is there something “universal” about the experience?

I am asking these questions in the philosophy subforum because they involve a philosophical phenomenology of the experience of the holy.

One method of phenomenology is “comparing and contrasting” experiences.

For example, the experience of the holy is similar to the experience of the beautiful. Both of these experiences seem to be direct and immediate, and almost involuntary (we do not go looking for these experiences; rather we are ambushed by them).

But is there also a distinction between these two experiences?

Are there other related experiences? For example, the experience of love.

This is a great question!

A number of outstanding works have explored this theme in the history of religions.

Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, Oxford Univerwsity Press, 1929.

Mircea Eliade, : The Sacred and the Profane**The Nature of Religion. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1959.

Christopher Dawson, Religion and Culture, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1948.

Caroline Franks Davis, The Evidential Force of Religious Experience, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989.

An encouonter with the sacred or (as it is also called) the holy, forms the basis of all religion. A number of authors have studied human religious experience from primitive times to our own. Rudolf Otto (1929) describes some common elements in the experience of the holy or awareness of being in the presence of the sacred. He uses several Latin expressions to try articulate the nature and content of the encounter.

1. mysterium - mystery
   What is experienced is inexpressible and above all creatures; it is something that does not belong to this world; it is wholly-other; of a different order than natural realities.
   It is a mystery in that it is absolutely and invariably above our understanding, not just a problem whose solution temporarily eludes us.
2. mysterium tremendum - fear/awe
   One experiences a fearful or awe-inspiring mystery.
   majestas - one is in the presence of an overwhelming superiority of power; majesty
   energy - one is aware of great energy, passion
3. mysterium fascinans - fascinating
   The mysterious sacred being encountered is at the same time attractive and fascinating, wonderful, overabounding in life, possessing the perfect fullness of being.

One becomes aware of the holy because it manifests itself, shows itself. This is often through natural realities or the phenomena of nature. Eliade (1959, p. 11.) writes:
“To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term hierophany. It is a fitting term, . . it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological content, i.e., that something sacred shows itself to us.”

Davis (p. 190-1) lists 6 claims that summarize the nature of religious experience and provide a “common core” of propositions about it. Here are 2.
“(iv) This holy power can be experienced as an awesome, loving, pardoning, guiding (etc.) presence with whom individuals can have a personal relationship, to whom they are profoundly attracted, and on whom they feel utterly dependent. . . .
(vi) Some kind of union or harmonious relation with the ultimate reality is the human being’s summum bonum, one’s final liberation or salvation, and the means by which one discovers one’s ‘true self’ or ‘true home.’”

 

[Gaber]

This is a great question!

A number of outstanding works have explored this theme in the history of religions.

Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, Oxford Univerwsity Press, 1929.

Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1959.

Christopher Dawson, Religion and Culture, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1948.

Caroline Franks Davis, The Evidential Force of Religious Experience, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989.

An encouonter with the sacred or (as it is also called) the holy, forms the basis of all religion. A number of authors have studied human religious experience from primitive times to our own. Rudolf Otto (1929) describes some common elements in the experience of the holy or awareness of being in the presence of the sacred. He uses several Latin expressions to try articulate the nature and content of the encounter.

1. mysterium - mystery
   What is experienced is inexpressible and above all creatures; it is something that does not belong to this world; it is wholly-other; of a different order than natural realities.
   It is a mystery in that it is absolutely and invariably above our understanding, not just a problem whose solution temporarily eludes us.
2. mysterium tremendum - fear/awe
   One experiences a fearful or awe-inspiring mystery.
   majestas - one is in the presence of an overwhelming superiority of power; majesty
   energy - one is aware of great energy, passion
3. mysterium fascinans - fascinating
   The mysterious sacred being encountered is at the same time attractive and fascinating, wonderful, overabounding in life, possessing the perfect fullness of being.

One becomes aware of the holy because it manifests itself, shows itself. This is often through natural realities or the phenomena of nature. Eliade (1959, p. 11.) writes:
“To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term hierophany. It is a fitting term, . . it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological content, i.e., that something sacred shows itself to us.”

Davis (p. 190-1) lists 6 claims that summarize the nature of religious experience and provide a “common core” of propositions about it. Here are 2.
“(iv) This holy power can be experienced as an awesome, loving, pardoning, guiding (etc.) presence with whom individuals can have a personal relationship, to whom they are profoundly attracted, and on whom they feel utterly dependent. . . .
(vi) Some kind of union or harmonious relation with the ultimate reality is the human being’s summum bonum, one’s final liberation or salvation, and the means by which one discovers one’s ‘true self’ or ‘true home.’”

This is a good presentation. thank you.

As to the last two from Davis, (wish you had included the others!) those two kind of define the difference between mysticism, and its completion, in contemplation. As one of my favorite Catholic contemplatives delineates, the first case is often thought to be the end of mystical or religious practice as far as one can go as an embodied human being. According to her experience, and that of many others, it is not. That complete and final end is more akin to the second sentence , the one you end with.

The difference seems to be a huge bone of contention, unfortunately. but it speaks to the need of some clarification from the Church as an institution needing to preserve itself, and yet responsible foe guidance of its “flock.” What isn’t address, as best I can see, is that there are at least four stages of “encounter” with the Divine, including the last. The last is most often discounted and ignored in the ascending form of worship that Catholicism is, or has become, say, after the third century,

This seems to be because it is, in the end, a far more radical shift than any that precede it. It is the only one that radically, in its exegesis, challenges the fundamental nature of the kind of awareness itself that we have up to that point… After that point, there is a radical **** in the experiential understanding of awareness itself. And many who have experienced this ultimate state, there being far more than the Church might recognize, claim, as a most useful name, that it is Knowledge by Identity. They also have some fascinating things to say about the Personhood of God, again relative to the state of awareness one has accomplished, or been graced with. In any case, this last tipping of a fulcrum is the least understood and least, therefore, publicized by the Church. while some others have no difficulty being pretty straight forward about it.

 

[levinas12]

This is a great question!

A number of outstanding works have explored this theme in the history of religions.

Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, Oxford Univerwsity Press, 1929.

Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1959.

Christopher Dawson, Religion and Culture, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1948.

Caroline Franks Davis, The Evidential Force of Religious Experience, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989.

An encouonter with the sacred or (as it is also called) the holy, forms the basis of all religion. A number of authors have studied human religious experience from primitive times to our own. Rudolf Otto (1929) describes some common elements in the experience of the holy or awareness of being in the presence of the sacred. He uses several Latin expressions to try articulate the nature and content of the encounter.

1. mysterium - mystery
   What is experienced is inexpressible and above all creatures; it is something that does not belong to this world; it is wholly-other; of a different order than natural realities.
   It is a mystery in that it is absolutely and invariably above our understanding, not just a problem whose solution temporarily eludes us.
2. mysterium tremendum - fear/awe
   One experiences a fearful or awe-inspiring mystery.
   majestas - one is in the presence of an overwhelming superiority of power; majesty
   energy - one is aware of great energy, passion
3. mysterium fascinans - fascinating
   The mysterious sacred being encountered is at the same time attractive and fascinating, wonderful, overabounding in life, possessing the perfect fullness of being.

One becomes aware of the holy because it manifests itself, shows itself. This is often through natural realities or the phenomena of nature. Eliade (1959, p. 11.) writes:
“To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term hierophany. It is a fitting term, . . it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological content, i.e., that something sacred shows itself to us.”

Davis (p. 190-1) lists 6 claims that summarize the nature of religious experience and provide a “common core” of propositions about it. Here are 2.
“(iv) This holy power can be experienced as an awesome, loving, pardoning, guiding (etc.) presence with whom individuals can have a personal relationship, to whom they are profoundly attracted, and on whom they feel utterly dependent. . . .
(vi) Some kind of union or harmonious relation with the ultimate reality is the human being’s summum bonum, one’s final liberation or salvation, and the means by which one discovers one’s ‘true self’ or ‘true home.’”

Thank you for this response.

I had to rummage about in my chaotic library but I located Otto, Eliade and Dawson. Hopefully, I can post something in more detail today or tomorrow.

The direction I’m moving in deviates a bit from the mysterium tremendum and fascinans. And from Eliade’s distinction of the sacred and profane.

For example, is there an everyday or non-mystical experience of the holy a la Therese of Lisieux?

Does this deconstruct “profane” and “sacred”?

 

[Gaber]

Thank you for this response.

I had to rummage about in my chaotic library but I located Otto, Eliade and Dawson. Hopefully, I can post something in more detail today or tomorrow.

The direction I’m moving in deviates a bit from the mysterium tremendum and fascinans. And from Eliade’s distinction of the sacred and profane.

For example, is there an everyday or non-mystical experience of the holy a la Therese of Lisieux?

Does this deconstruct “profane” and “sacred”?

According to my understanding, at the highest level of Union, there is no distinction between the sacred and profane. Tere is simply Reality. And while from the ordinary standpoint of humanity this might seem to be a contradiction, in that state it is not. And I have read this in both Catholic and non Catholic works. The most cogent synopsis I’ve seen is: "Before enlightenment-- chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment–chopping wood and carrying water. What my understanding of that is is that what changes is not the world, or Creation, but your footing of understanding of what those are and mean.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

Thank you for this response.

I had to rummage about in my chaotic library but I located Otto, Eliade and Dawson. Hopefully, I can post something in more detail today or tomorrow.

The direction I’m moving in deviates a bit from the mysterium tremendum and fascinans. And from Eliade’s distinction of the sacred and profane.

For example, is there an everyday or non-mystical experience of the holy a la Therese of Lisieux?

Does this deconstruct “profane” and “sacred”?

It’s hard for me to think of a non-mystical experience of the holy in the writings of St. Therese of Lisieux. “Mystical” understood as a contemplative grace.

Further, what Otto, Eliade and Dawson describe is non-mystical. It is common human religious experience. I don’t see how it could deconstruct the distinction betwen the sacred and profane which shows up even in the RCC today: consecrated space (churches, monasteries, cemeteries), liturgical action versus everyday activities, blessing articles for religious use versus profane use.

 

[levinas12]

It’s hard for me to think of a non-mystical experience of the holy in the writings of St. Therese of Lisieux. “Mystical” understood as a contemplative grace.

Further, what Otto, Eliade and Dawson describe is non-mystical. It is common human religious experience. I don’t see how it could deconstruct the distinction betwen the sacred and profane which shows up even in the RCC today: consecrated space (churches, monasteries, cemeteries), liturgical action versus everyday activities, blessing articles for religious use versus profane use.

It’s not that the everyday or profane overwhelms or eclipses the sacred. Just the opposite. The sacred saturates the everyday so there is no longer a profane space outside of the sacred. Every action, no matter how “insignificant”, e.g., scrubbing toilets, becomes sacred.

I think this is what St. Therese was alluding to.

But St. Therese was not responsible for this new understanding.

It was the the event of the Incarnation that really “deconstructed” the difference between sacred and profane.

I don’t think that this theological perspective destabilizes the Catholic sense of the sacred. Rather, it reenforces that what happens inside the churches is the hub around which the wheel of everyday life revolves, or better, the heart that drives everything else. In the final analysis, there is no distinction between inside and outside. The temple curtain has been torn asunder by Jesus Himself. Jerusalem is everywhere.

You might call this the Hegelian moment of synthesis, or the divine aufhebung. Or, in Rahnerian language, the “liturgy” of the world.

 

[Gaber]

It’s not that the everyday or profane overwhelms or eclipses the sacred. Just the opposite. The sacred saturates the everyday so there is no longer a profane space outside of the sacred. Every action, no matter how “insignificant”, e.g., scrubbing toilets, becomes sacred.

I think this is what St. Therese was alluding to.

But St. Therese was not responsible for this new understanding.

It was the the event of the Incarnation that really “deconstructed” the difference between sacred and profane.

I don’t think that this theological perspective destabilizes the Catholic sense of the sacred. Rather, it reenforces that what happens inside the churches is the hub around which the wheel of everyday life revolves, or better, the heart that drives everything else. In the final analysis, there is no distinction between inside and outside. The temple curtain has been torn asunder by Jesus Himself. Jerusalem is everywhere.

You might call this the Hegelian moment of synthesis, or the divine aufhebung. Or, in Rahnerian language, the “liturgy” of the world.

Yes, and the best, so far, Catholic delineation of how and why this is so has been put forth, albeit unpopularly, by one Bernadette Roberts. Her trilogy on the subject surpasses superb, in my opinion.

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

It’s not that the everyday or profane overwhelms or eclipses the sacred. Just the opposite. The sacred saturates the everyday so there is no longer a profane space outside of the sacred. Every action, no matter how “insignificant”, e.g., scrubbing toilets, becomes sacred.

I think this is what St. Therese was alluding to.

But St. Therese was not responsible for this new understanding.

It was the the event of the Incarnation that really “deconstructed” the difference between sacred and profane.

I don’t think that this theological perspective destabilizes the Catholic sense of the sacred. Rather, it reenforces that what happens inside the churches is the hub around which the wheel of everyday life revolves, or better, the heart that drives everything else. In the final analysis, there is no distinction between inside and outside. The temple curtain has been torn asunder by Jesus Himself. Jerusalem is everywhere.

You might call this the Hegelian moment of synthesis, or the divine aufhebung. Or, in Rahnerian language, the “liturgy” of the world.

Yet in point of fact, in the examples I gave there is a difference between the sacred and profane that has not been obliterated by the Incarnation, nor has the distinction between nature and the supernatural. Further–taken to extreme–the position you espouse can lead to a loss of the sense of the sacred, as is clearly evidenced too often in the church today.

True, as you nicely put it, the liturgy is a hub; but the distinction remains between consecrated space in a church versus space as a football field, between liturgical action and the action of building a car, a rosary and a piece of jewelry, God and His creation.

 

[levinas12]

Yet in point of fact, in the examples I gave there is a difference between the sacred and profane that has not been obliterated by the Incarnation, nor has the distinction between nature and the supernatural. Further–taken to extreme–the position you espouse can lead to a loss of the sense of the sacred, as is clearly evidenced too often in the church today.

True, as you nicely put it, the liturgy is a hub; but the distinction remains between consecrated space in a church versus space as a football field, between liturgical action and the action of building a car, a rosary and a piece of jewelry, God and His creation.

But St Therese’s relationship with God is characterized by an unusual familiarity. The element of the uncanny, of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, seems to be missing.

Catholicism replaces the uncanny with “family” (hence familiarity), “home” (heimlichkeit as opposed to unheimlichkeit).

Just think of the nursing Madonnas in Renaissance art.

Or, in a more contemporary idiom, the sacramentality of the body in JP II’s TOB.

 

[levinas12]

… “home” (heimlichkeit as opposed to unheimlichkeit).

Scratch “heimlichkeit” - it means “secrecy”, “furtiveness” in German.

I thought it meant “feeling at home”.

So much for my German.

“Unheimlichkeit” still means “uncanniness” (I think).

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

But St Therese’s relationship with God is characterized by an unusual familiarity. The element of the uncanny, of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, seems to be missing.

Catholicism replaces the uncanny with “family” (hence familiarity), “home” (heimlichkeit as opposed to unheimlichkeit).

Just think of the nursing Madonnas in Renaissance art.

Or, in a more contemporary idiom, the sacramentality of the body in JP II’s TOB.

Perhaps I’m missing the point; but here’s the direction of this discussion as I see it.

In the philosophy subforum your initial post asked: What is it like to experience the holy? Does this experience vary in essential ways across cultures? Or is there something “universal” about the experience?

I am asking these questions in the philosophy subforum because they involve a philosophical phenomenology of the experience of the holy.

One method of phenomenology is “comparing and contrasting” experiences.”

My first response, I think, exactly answered this philosophical question with authors whose thought on the subject of the holy is phenomenological and makes the cross-cultural generalizations you sought. To these could be added Paul Ricoeur who along with Otto is cited by JPII in his Wednesday addresses that develop his TOB.

Your discussion then moves onto the somewhat different plane of Catholic theology and mysticism.

You ask: is there an everyday or non-mystical experience of the holy a la Therese of Lisieux?

Does this deconstruct “profane” and “sacred”?

You further elaborate in a subsequent post: It’s not that the everyday or profane overwhelms or eclipses the sacred. Just the opposite. The sacred saturates the everyday so there is no longer a profane space outside of the sacred. Every action, no matter how “insignificant”, e.g., scrubbing toilets, becomes sacred.

I think this is what St. Therese was alluding to.

So moving with your discussion from philosophy to theology and mysticism my point has been not to dispute the spirituality of St. Therese, but to observe that the distinction between the sacred and profane still obtains in the Christian life based on the Incarnation. The Little Flower still knows there is a difference between the latrine and the altar, scrubbing toilets and worshipping at Mass, Bastille Day and the Easter Triduum, and all the other distinctions I have given as well.

As I pointed out “the distinction remains between consecrated space in a church versus space as a football field, between liturgical action and the action of building a car, a rosary and a piece of jewelry, God and His creation.”

Further, the hieraphanies Eliade speaks of and “the holy” that Otto characterizes are universal human religious experiences and they are operative all through the encounter with the one true God witnessed to in the pages of the Bible. As Jean Danielou points out in his God and the Ways of Knowing (Chap 1.) just as Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, so too He did to come to abolish human religious experience across cultures but to fulfill it.

I would highly recommend reading this book by Danielou.

 

[levinas12]

I would highly recommend reading this book by Danielou.

I have this book somewhere in the house and I’ll take a look at it.

You have been very patient with me.

I’m having a problem with the notion of the “absolutely other” which is presupposed in Eliade, Otto and other authors.

The “absolutely other” can be frightening. We can’t categorize it or control it. Our experience of it is associated with our experience of the sublime (an experience which floods our consciousness and overwhelms Cartesian “clear and distinct perceptions”).

Although it includes moments when the “absolutely other” invades everyday life (e.g., the annunciation scene in Ziffirelli’s film, Jesus of Nazareth), the Christian experience of the holy also has a “family” aspect. God is Our Father. We are sons and daughters (albeit adopted). Jesus is our Brother. Heaven is our home.

All of this seems at odds with an uncanny experience of the “absolutely other”.

The issue here is how we fit the Christian experience of the holy into other experiences of the holy. This is consistent with a phenomenological approach because it starts from experience.

 

[levinas12]

… Ziffirelli’s film

… Zeffirelli’s

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

I have this book somewhere in the house and I’ll take a look at it.

You have been very patient with me.

I’m having a problem with the notion of the “absolutely other” which is presupposed in Eliade, Otto and other authors.

The “absolutely other” can be frightening. We can’t categorize it or control it. Our experience of it is associated with our experience of the sublime (an experience which floods our consciousness and overwhelms Cartesian “clear and distinct perceptions”).

Although it includes moments when the “absolutely other” invades everyday life (e.g., the annunciation scene in Ziffirelli’s film, Jesus of Nazareth), the Christian experience of the holy also has a “family” aspect. God is Our Father. We are sons and daughters (albeit adopted). Jesus is our Brother. Heaven is our home.

All of this seems at odds with an uncanny experience of the “absolutely other”.

The issue here is how we fit the Christian experience of the holy into other experiences of the holy. This is consistent with a phenomenological approach because it starts from experience.

I would clarify that the “absolutely other” is not presupposed by Eliade, et al., but discovered in accounts (including biblical ones) of the encounter with the holy, sacred, divine given in human religious experience down through time.

Yes, as I pointed out, Christian revelation elevates, purifies, and informs common human religious experience–but does not destroy it. Pius XII stressed this in his encyclical Evangelii praecones. So it is definitely informed by the Trinitarian truth about God given to us in Christ as you observe.

But at the same time our mystical tradition (and the Bible) also highlights the otherness of God. In one way or another (although some more clearly than others) all mystics are apophatic. “God is a dark night to man in this life.” (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, I, 2, 1)

Check out some of these other quotes.

“Indeed the inscrutable One is out of the reach of every rational process. Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible Good, this One, this Source of all unity, this super-existent Being. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name. It is and it is as no other being is.” (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 1, 1)

“If you comprehend, it is not God. If you are able to comprehend, it is because you mistook something else for God. If you almost comprehend, it is again because you allowed your own thoughts to deceive you.”
(St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 52, 16; see also Sermon 117, 5)

“That there is a God is clear; but what He is by essence and nature, this is altogether beyond our comprehension and knowledge.”
(St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, I, 40

“The most we can know of God during our present life is that He transcends everything that we can conceive of Him.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, 2, 1 ad 9) He lived from 1225-1274.

“For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some kind of knowledge of it by knowing what it is not.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 14, 2)

“We cannot grasp what God is, but only what He is not and how other things are related to Him.”
(St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 30, 4)

“It is noteworthy that among all creatures both superior and inferior none bears a likeness to God’s being.” (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, II, 8, 3)

“It is said that all beings are objects of knowledge because they bear the demonstrable principles of their own knowledge. God, however, is called the unknown, and among all knowable things only His existence can be perceived. This is why no knowable object can compare in any way with Him.”
(St. Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Knowledge, I, 8)

“The perfect mind is the one that through genuine faith supremely knows in supreme ignorance the supremely unknowable, and in gazing on the universe of his handiwork has received from God comprehensive knowledge of his Providence and judgment in it, as far as is allowable to men.”
(St. Maximus the Confessor, Four Hundred Chapters On Love, III, 99)

“But if you wish to know how these things [the ascent to God] come about, ask grace not instruction, desire not understanding, the groaning of prayer not diligent reading, the Spouse not the teacher, God not man, darkness not clarity, not light but the fire that totally inflames and carries us into God. . . .”
(St. Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey Into God, 7, 6)

“No one has ever seen the fullness of this divine Beauty, . . . . But in addition to this incomprehensibility, what is most divine and extraordinary is that the very comprehension a man may have, he possesses incomprehensibly. Those who see, in fact, do not know the one who enables them to see, . . . for the Spirit by whom they see is incomprehensible. . . .
Similarly, beyond the stripping away of beings, or rather after the cessation [of our perceiving or thinking of them] accomplished not only in words, but in reality, there remains an unknowing which is beyond knowledge; though indeed a darkness, it is yet beyond radiance, and, as the great Dionysius says, it is in this dazzling darkness that divine things are given to the saints.”
(St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, I, iii, 17-18) He lived from 1296-1359.

“For biblical Revelation says that, while man’s ‘likeness’ to God is true, the ‘non-likeness’ which separates the whole of creation from the Creator is still more essentially true.”
(John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 1988, §8)

 

[levinas12]

I would clarify that the “absolutely other” is not presupposed by Eliade, et al., but discovered in accounts (including biblical ones) of the encounter with the holy, sacred, divine given in human religious experience down through time.

Yes, as I pointed out, Christian revelation elevates, purifies, and informs common human religious experience–but does not destroy it. Pius XII stressed this in his encyclical Evangelii praecones. So it is definitely informed by the Trinitarian truth about God given to us in Christ as you observe.

But at the same time our mystical tradition (and the Bible) also highlights the otherness of God. In one way or another (although some more clearly than others) all mystics are apophatic. “God is a dark night to man in this life.” (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, I, 2, 1)

Check out some of these other quotes.

“Indeed the inscrutable One is out of the reach of every rational process. Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible Good, this One, this Source of all unity, this super-existent Being. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name. It is and it is as no other being is.” (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 1, 1)

“If you comprehend, it is not God. If you are able to comprehend, it is because you mistook something else for God. If you almost comprehend, it is again because you allowed your own thoughts to deceive you.”
(St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 52, 16; see also Sermon 117, 5)

“That there is a God is clear; but what He is by essence and nature, this is altogether beyond our comprehension and knowledge.”
(St. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith, I, 40

“The most we can know of God during our present life is that He transcends everything that we can conceive of Him.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, 2, 1 ad 9) He lived from 1225-1274.

“For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some kind of knowledge of it by knowing what it is not.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 14, 2)

“We cannot grasp what God is, but only what He is not and how other things are related to Him.”
(St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 30, 4)

“It is noteworthy that among all creatures both superior and inferior none bears a likeness to God’s being.” (St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, II, 8, 3)

“It is said that all beings are objects of knowledge because they bear the demonstrable principles of their own knowledge. God, however, is called the unknown, and among all knowable things only His existence can be perceived. This is why no knowable object can compare in any way with Him.”
(St. Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Knowledge, I, 8)

“The perfect mind is the one that through genuine faith supremely knows in supreme ignorance the supremely unknowable, and in gazing on the universe of his handiwork has received from God comprehensive knowledge of his Providence and judgment in it, as far as is allowable to men.”
(St. Maximus the Confessor, Four Hundred Chapters On Love, III, 99)

“But if you wish to know how these things [the ascent to God] come about, ask grace not instruction, desire not understanding, the groaning of prayer not diligent reading, the Spouse not the teacher, God not man, darkness not clarity, not light but the fire that totally inflames and carries us into God. . . .”
(St. Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey Into God, 7, 6)

“No one has ever seen the fullness of this divine Beauty, . . . . But in addition to this incomprehensibility, what is most divine and extraordinary is that the very comprehension a man may have, he possesses incomprehensibly. Those who see, in fact, do not know the one who enables them to see, . . . for the Spirit by whom they see is incomprehensible. . . .
Similarly, beyond the stripping away of beings, or rather after the cessation [of our perceiving or thinking of them] accomplished not only in words, but in reality, there remains an unknowing which is beyond knowledge; though indeed a darkness, it is yet beyond radiance, and, as the great Dionysius says, it is in this dazzling darkness that divine things are given to the saints.”
(St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, I, iii, 17-18) He lived from 1296-1359.

“For biblical Revelation says that, while man’s ‘likeness’ to God is true, the ‘non-likeness’ which separates the whole of creation from the Creator is still more essentially true.”
(John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 1988, §8)

Your list of quotes is magisterial.

Are you familiar with G. Van Der Leeuw? Jean Luc Marion?

I acknowledge the emphasis in the mystical tradition on the apophatic, the dark night - but it’s hard for me to reconcile this with Jesus as Friend and Brother, God as “forgiving” Father to the prodigal son, the gentleness of the Holy Spirit as Dove or Dew - the familiarity between God and Adam walking together in the Garden before the Fall - the emotional bond between Jesus and the Apostles.

 

[levinas12]

I meant to add that the New Testament includes “transcendental” moments - the Annunciation, Jesus walking on water, the Transfiguration - not to mention all the miracles - and of course finally the Resurrection.

All of these events are outside ordinary experience.

And are part of the Christian mysterium tremendum et fascinans (CMTF).

But the CMTF seems different from the experience of the sacred in other religions. Although at first it may be “fearful”, the CMTF is fundamentally an experience of “family” in which we do not lose our identity (rather we receive our identity).