A few weeks ago I started to describe what holiness<\/a> means, and someone requested that I go into more detail.<\/p>\n One way to approach this is through the concept of the numinous, described in the classic work The Idea of the Holy<\/a> by the Blessed Rudolf Otto.\u00a0 This book was a significant influence on St. Lewis, who discusses the numinous especially in his introduction to The Problem of Pain<\/a>.\u00a0 The concept of the numinous is difficult to explain because most of the language we use to describe it has come to mean other things.\u00a0 In English, the words “awesome” and “awful” both used to mean the same thing: the feeling of dread, wonder, uncanniness, terror, or reverence one gets in the presence of something you believe to be eerie or supernatural.\u00a0 As Lewis points out, we use the same word “afraid” when we say that someone is a jungle is “afraid of tigers” as that someone in a haunted house is “afraid of ghosts”.\u00a0 But in the first case, the fear is just for our own safety, whereas in the case of ghosts one is afraid of what the ghost IS, more than what it will do to you.<\/p>\n Please note, I am not claiming that ghosts exist, but rather using them as an example to make a point about human psychology.\u00a0 Just as we have a sexual instinct which responds to sexual stimuli, so we have another instinct which responds when we believe we are encountering supernatural stimuli.\u00a0 The hairs stand up on the back of our neck and we feel chilly.\u00a0 In that sense it feels like fear, even though the experience may be pleasant or unpleasant, and we may or may not be concerned for our physical safety.\u00a0 Atheists, pagans, and Christians all experience this feeling on certain occasions; the difference is how they interpret it.<\/p>\n In our own minds, we can feel numinous feelings without making any connection to ethical concepts; a pagan or a pantheist may feel that they are worshiping a Spirit which is beyond human notions of good or evil.\u00a0 However, when ethical concepts do intrude, a special composite feeling arises.\u00a0 In the case where the object is perceived as Numinous Evil, we call the feeling that arises in us Horror.\u00a0 This feeling can be excited by natural objects which seem “eerie” such as corpses or creepy insects.\u00a0 (Lewis claims that there is no survival advantage in this feeling, but it seems to me that avoiding diseased corpses and dangerous insects may well have evolutionary advantage.)\u00a0 It can also be excited when we read or watch movies about vampires, werewolves, demons etc.\u00a0 (This assumes that the movies treat the topic seriously, of course.\u00a0 Monsters that think and act just like regular people are humorous, <\/em>since we expected a numinous thrill and then it was a false alarm).<\/p>\n When the object is perceived as Numinous Good, this composite idea is nothing other than the Holy.\u00a0 (Unfortunately, there’s a lack of grammatical parallelism here, in that “Holy” refers to the Object about which we have numinous feelings, whereas “Horror” refers to the feelings themselves.)\u00a0 The distinctive characteristic of holiness is that ethics itself becomes imbued with supernatural significance.\u00a0 This experience is not always happy.\u00a0 As the classic example, consider Isaiah chapter 6:<\/p>\n In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2\u00a0<\/sup>Above him were seraphs [burning ones]<\/em>, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3\u00a0<\/sup>And they were calling to one another:<\/p>\n \u201cHoly, holy, holy is YHWH of hosts; 4\u00a0<\/sup>At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.<\/p>\n 5\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cWoe to me!\u201d I cried. \u201cI am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, YHWH of hosts.\u201d<\/p>\n 6\u00a0<\/sup>Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7\u00a0<\/sup>With it he touched my mouth and said, \u201cSee, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.\u201d<\/p>\n 8\u00a0<\/sup>Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, \u201cWhom shall I send? And who will go for us?\u201d\u00a0 And I said, \u201cHere am I. Send me!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you are a nonreligious person, I hope you tried to read that as you would some passage in a fantasy novel, with “suspension of disbelief”.\u00a0 Put aside how you feel about Christianity in general, and just ask how this passage makes you feel, as if it were a fictional work of art.<\/p>\n Doubtless Isaiah knew beforehand that he had ethical shortcomings; perhaps he lied, or berated someone.\u00a0 But before, it was a matter of merely personal regret, excused by the fact that everyone does it.\u00a0 In the presence of this astounding vision, his guilt becomes something completely different: a feeling of uncleanness and shrinking before a majestic purity, that even the angels had to hide their faces from.\u00a0 It was like coming into a formal dinner party stinking, and wearing no clothes at all.<\/p>\n This is a numinous problem, not just an ethical problem.\u00a0 So it needs a numinous solution.\u00a0 The coal from the altar makes “atonement” for Isaiah’s uncleanness.\u00a0 That is, it allows Isaiah to become a participant in the numinous, in a way that covers up or removes his guilt.\u00a0 Only then can St. Isaiah hear God’s call to be a prophet, denouncing the sins of others.<\/p>\n It’s a mistake to try to argue that Christianity is true before the audience knows what Christianity is.\u00a0 Before people can understand Christianity, they have to understand the basic concepts in which it is expressed.\u00a0 Without the concept of holiness, nothing we say about God deserving worship, or about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, or about love requiring purity\u2014none of it makes any sense at all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few weeks ago I started to describe what holiness means, and someone requested that I go into more detail. One way to approach this is through the concept of the numinous, described in the classic work The Idea of … Continue reading
\nthe whole earth is full of his glory.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n