SOURCE: "Otto and Numinous Experience," in Religious Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, June, 1976, pp. 159-67.

In the following essay, Bastow examines the phenomenological aspects of Otto's religious theory.

The basic position of Otto in The Idea of the Holy² may be stated as follows:

All religions involve and rest on experience of the numinous, which affords a positive knowledge of the central object of religion—God. This position is what may be called a Theory of Religion: like Freud's explanation of religion in terms of father figures, and Durkheim's claim that religion is society's celebration of itself, it claims to give an explanation of the phenomenon of religion—the fact that men belong to religions etc. Unlike some of its rivals, this Theory of Religion does not explain religion away; the explanation is intended to be compatible with religious belief; the explanatory concepts are supposed to be concepts from within...