Paper Presented at the Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies. December 2013.
1 Introduction.
In the
foreword to his seminal work, Das Heilige,
Rudolf Otto advised the reader not to venture in the investigation of the Numen Ineffabile before having devoted
assiduous and serious study to the Ratio Aeterna.[1]
Such recommendation advances the proposal stated at full length in chapter XIV
of the book: the sacred (or the Holy) is an a priori category in the Kantian
sense with both rational and irrational content.[2]
With this thesis, Otto was reopening an old philosophical problem -which goes
back to early Greek philosophy- about the rational or irrational nature of the Divine.
In the VI century B.C., Xenophanes of Colophon noticed the inconsistencies of
an ethic based on the amoral behavior of the Olympian gods, a theoretical
question that shook the foundations of the Greek Polis and that was finally solved
with the progressive and steady grounding of religion on rational philosophical
bases. Moral consistency came with a price: the traditional social praxis of
the cults, and religious experience in general, became little more than old
superstitions of the ignorant masses. The tension was unsolved, and there was
little need to solve it in a society which got progressively more complex and
could function with a split religious axis in which the intellectual elites
held a philosophical metaphysics, and the masses the old agrarian cults. We
find in other traditions equivalent theological tensions, like the one between
philosophical and devotional Taoism,[3] or
between the Vedanta philosophical religion -developed by Sankaracharia from the
Upanishads- and different traditional cults linked to the agrarian cycle,[4] or
again, in the European milieu, between the Medieval theological systems and the
religious popular festivals and pilgrimages. The mysterious and irrational, the
Numinous at the base of mythological narratives and rituals throughout the
world, has never been reduced to the rational constraints of philosophy: the
peasant nor less than the citizen needs a well structured calendar of
ceremonies and rites, but the drive for these is not exactly the need for
apodictical argumentation. Devotional and popular cult ideas show a clear
difference in relation to the postulates on the Divine expressed through
philosophical rationality. However, if in theological ontologies the measure
for all things is God, as Plato
sustained in the Laws (716.c), and therefore
is the principle of order and ground for rationality, all things, including non-rational religious elements, somehow should
be explained by philosophical rationality.
2 On
the epistemological and anthropological content of the concept of the sacred.
Otto’s thesis inherits this general problem as part of
Schleirmacher’s program for deepening the rational Christian concept of God
with non-rational elements.[5]
The postulate holds two assumptions already implicit in Plato’s philosophy and
subsequently in the main philosophical tradition: the irreducible tension
between the rational and the irrational in the experience of the Divine, and
the conviction that the irrational part can be somehow rendered into rational
terms, although never be completely reduced to human rational constructions.
The term sought for was precisely the concept of the sacred, that, as a
property of the Divine, could mediate in the valuation and understanding of the
relation between the world of God and the world of man.
To Otto, the ground for this valuation is not merely moral, but
transcendental,[6]
so the category of the sacred gives a universal standard for the general interpretation
of human action. Nonetheless, such a claim does not hold neither on
epistemological nor on anthropological grounds.
It is obvious that, in order to be a category of
valuation of universal scope, the sacred should encompass both rational and
irrational elements. However, as soon as Otto declared the sacred to be an a
priori category in the Kantian sense, and adopted the basic frame of the
Kantian system, he inherited as well its philosophical problems. In relation to
the purposefulness of human life in the universe, Kant’s system encountered the
antinomy between the mechanical workings of nature and the moral idea of a free
will, the contradiction between mechanical and teleological causation[7], a
Gordian knot that he quickly solved appealing to the idea of the human being
under moral laws as the final end of the universe,[8] a
postulate that implied a deeper form of order behind the chaotic curtain of
human affairs. From this point of view, the final purpose of the universe, the
divine plan, is equated with what we consider unintelligible and irrational,
and therefore, the irrationality of the sacred proposed by Otto simply would mean
rationality on a divine dimension, an analogous ratio to the one expressed in the
relation of the sublime to the beautiful.[9]
The works of the artistic genius would be an example of this moral
meta-rationality of the divine plan, a proof of the mysterious but ordered
processes of nature presented to our aesthetic intuition.
Otto’s theory not only inherits Kant’s problems but also
contradicts the Kantian edifice in which it is based. Kant’s categories, as
pure concepts of the understanding, are simple conceptual units that cannot be
reduced to simpler terms. The concept of the sacred elaborated by Otto is
supposed to be a category in the Kantian sense, but it is, nonetheless,
compound, and as such, does not qualify as category, it cannot be an ancestral
concept with a universal scope. What is then the ontological status of the sacred
within this Kantian-Ottian conceptual frame? It comes to mind the possibility
of considering it a derivative concept, i.e., a predicable of the pure concepts
of the understanding, derivative and subalternate to them, like, for instance, force, action and passion in
relation to the category of causality.[10]As
a derivative concept, the sacred could
maintain its a priori character, and perhaps even work in the realm of the
sensible, of experience, as the desired tool for valuation, just like the
concept of force does for physics in
our understanding of the connections amongst phenomena. Nevertheless, such a
postulate would bring rather problematic epistemological consequences, for if
the sacred is a derivative concept, it could only be derived or subordinate to
the concept of God, which would imply that the Divinity is a category, a conclusion
that would entail a number of ontoepistemological problems.
The epistemological difficulties of the double concept
of the sacred are not limited to the Kantian-Ottian system but can be generalized
to any system which contains rational elements for its foundation. The sacred
as merely Numinous could function as a category for some sort of psychological
experience, but as soon as we include in our system also the rational part of
the Divine, and we must do so if we want to have a concept that has any use at
all in the human world, we are faced with the antinomies and paralogisms
already treated by Kant in relation to transcendental ideas, plus some extra
contradictions. As a simple ancestral category, it would either have to be
rational or irrational. If rational and simple, it would have to be analytical,
for the simple cannot be an object of experience, and therefore, being
analytical, would not be valid as a valuation of experience. On the other hand,
if the sacred were an irrational and simple ancestral category, we would face
the same problem, for it is the property of simplicity (inherent to the concept
of category), not the one of irrationality what rules out the validity of the
sacred as an account of human experience. The epistemological problems do not
end here. Even if the sacred were a compound concept with empirical content we
would need the grounds for the synthesis of the opposites of rationality and
irrationality. But what kind of concept could produce such a synthesis or give
a primitive concept for the derivation of both? It could not be any of the
Kantian categories, not only because they are simple but because they are a
priori conditions of rationality not of the irrational.
Our
epistemological elucidation proved to be aporetic, but the concept of the sacred
presented by Otto included also an anthropological dimension in which the
category is confronted to its contrary, the profane. Such an anthropological
opposition was further developed in the work of Mircea Eliade The sacred and the profane, who followed
Otto’s transcendental approach although not limiting his analysis to the
opposition rational-irrational but extending it to what he called the totality of the sacred.[11]
For Eliade the pair sacred-profane represents two opposed ways of being in the
world, that somehow exhaust existence, for the sacred is the real, and the profane,
the unreal.[12]
Such an ontological statement is necessarily given as a definition, and
supposes the construction of a semantic operator whose relevance can only be
given by its use in describing anthropological experience. Nonetheless, Eliade
goes beyond the practical use of the operator to maintain a transcendental
content of its nature, for the interest of such opposition is precisely that it
gives a universal procedure to identify what is real and unreal in human
experience. But what are Eliade’s grounds for the definition, what are the
principles that sustain it? They are empirical, the whole investigation is
based on the data offered by history of religions and anthropology, from a direct
evidence of experience. Then, how could we construct a definition of
transcendental concepts starting from historical experience if we do not
already put a transcendental content into history? We step into basic
epistemological contradictions, but even if we ignore them -by appealing to a
higher way of understanding- we heedlessly create a system which requires a
meta-religion, à la Schelling, to justify the validity of the operator in the different
religious traditions.
Eliade’s theses present particular difficulties when maintaining
that the opposition sacred-profane finds a parallel in the relation between the
old world and the modern.[13]
Such a postulate expresses the well known mythologem of the Golden Age of the
World, how the universe changes from a moment of perfection in the distant past
to the decay of the present, an hypothesis which implies a rather nonsensical
conclusion: the modern world is unreal and devoid of meaning compared to the real
and meaningful past.
Nonetheless, let us for a moment put aside all these
problems and consider that the operator sacred-profane represents a
transcendental way of being, that the world and human life can universally be
explained by this opposition, that all our actions are either sacred or profane.
Such a thesis would be contradicted if we can prove the non-universal meaning
of the sacred in experience, the non-universal scope of the concept. Emile
Durkheim, in The Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life, already noticed that, although the distinction between the sacred
and the profane is a distinctive trait of religious thought, the circle of sacred
things cannot be determined once and for all.[14]
There are many examples of actions and objects which are considered sacred in
one tradition and profane in another. Think for a moment in the
self-emasculation of the priests of Attis when they entered into the service of
Cybele, a sacred action from the point of view of this mythical axis, for it
was the enactment of the myth of Agdistis,[15]
but that from a contemporary moral vantage point could be easily dismissed as
merely barbaric. Then, what about the emasculations within early Christianity,
like Origene’s or Saint Agustin’s?[16]
Let us simplify the psychological reasons for this action and reduce them to a
question of asceticism, and let us morally prefer ascetic actions over
non-ascetic. Could we say then that all ascetic actions are sacred? If that is
the case, some rituals of Tantric Buddhism should have to be declared profane,
but on extra tantric grounds, id est, on some meta-religious grounds for the
concept of the sacred, and something similar would happen with a long list of
the actions considered sacred in one tradition but profane in another.
Consider, for instance, the case of the Ganesha temple in Annangar (Chenai)
where after the cricket final of the World Cup of 2003, the head of the son of
Shiva was substituted by the heads of the eleven heroes of the Indian team, and
cricket mantras were developed as part of the regular cult.
Even when there is an agreement about the sacred
character of an action or an object, the arguments for assigning the quality
may not coincide, furthermore, they might be diametrically opposed to one another,
as in the case of Holy Wars. And within these contexts of religious dualistic
systems, how do we discern between evil and profane? If we say, for instance,
that evil is sacred, we are implying that evil is either part of a divine plan
or that it has an independent source, as in the ancient Zoroastrian tradition.
In the second case, we would have two different kinds of sacred, one for the
good and another for the evil, each with its own rationality and irrationality,
an ontological multiplication which invalidates the practical use of the
opposition sacred-profane. In the first case, if evil is part of the divine
plan, it would meet the objections of Xenophanes to the amorality of the Divine,
for what could be the rationale of the infliction of deliberate evil upon the
innocent?
The question becomes more entangled when we discover
that one and the same action can be considered sacred at one time and place and
profane at another. For instance, a hunting party, or a sexual relationship are
sacred actions when they are performed under proper customs and rituals, according
to a calendar, but profane under some restricted conditions. We have even cases
where the fetish which represents the supernatural being is beaten with
discontent when does not respond to the petitions of the group, or ritual
situations where stones are thrown against the divine pond to upbraid the gods
and make them to come out and bring the rain,[17] actions
considered not only sound but also sacred under special circumstances and
profane and disrespectful the rest of the times.
Therefore, the actions of consecration seem to be the
application of a dual semantic operator which orders the general life of a
human community according to specific economic and metaphysical purposes, both
closely related. Through the dual operator, a general frame for the valuation
of actions, persons and scenarios is established, although its operative
relevance is not due to some intrinsic property of the concept of the sacred
but to its dual nature. In fact, any pair of opposite symbols which favors one
action, object or subject in relation to another can determine with the same
effectiveness the ideological framework needed for the ordering of the group.
3.
Conclusion.
The category of the sacred is not a valid concept for
the understanding of religious experience for it does not add anything new to
our comprehension of the concept of the Divine, nor to the socio-psychological
dimension of such human experience, whose homogeneity, both traditional and
current anthropological studies seem to deny. The complexity of the religious
phenomenon is no other than the complexity of our human nature. We still are a
mystery to ourselves, but could say that today is a mystery under the noonday
sun of science. By this, I do not mean to say that science and philosophy have
final representations of human life, for they do not have a system that could
encompass all human actions, nor that such a construction could be possible
without epistemological contradictions. However, we do not need additional
complexities in the form of misty and phantasmagorical concepts, like the
notion of the sacred. It seems to me
rather doubtful that any clarity of thinking whatsoever could be obtained in
philosophy of religion without the final reference of religious experience to
the general phenomenon of life, not only human life. Life, as Aristotle
understood well, is intelligence. Whether we call to the maximal expression of this
life-intelligence Godhead, or Ideal Regulative Principle, is not as
important as the intellectual honesty and innocence with which we are ready to
discuss the genesis of such idea in the different symbolical constructions of
identity developed by humankind.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Durkheim,
Emile, The Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life, Trans. Joseph Ward Swain, (London: Geoge Allen & Unwin
Ltd., 1964).
Eliade, Mircea, Lo sagrado y lo profano, Trans. Luis Gil (Barcelona: Editorial
Labor, 1985).
Frazer,
James, The Golden Bough (New York:
Collier Books, 1963).
Kant, Inmanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Trans.
Paul Guyer and Allen Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
---.Critique of the Power of Judgement. Trans.
Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
---.
Critique of the Practical Reason. Trans.
Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Kuelfer,
Matt, The Manly Eunuch: Gender ambiguity
and Christian Ideology in late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2001).
Otto, Rudolf, The
Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey. (London: Humphrey S.
Mildford, Oxford University Press, 1936).
Wong,
Eva, Taoísmo, Trans. Isidro Arias
(Barcelona: Paidos, 1998).
[1]
Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans.
John W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), vii.
[2]
Otto, The idea of the Holy, 116.
[3]
The Han Emperor built a sanctuary for Lao-Tzen 150 B.C. Eva Wong. Taoísmo. (Barcelona: Paidos, 1998),
46-55.
[4]
Whether Hinduist or of other previous mythic-ritual axes.
[5]
Otto, The idea of the Holy, 112.
[6]
Otto, The idea of the Holy, 54.
[7]
Inmanuel Kant, The Critique of the Power
of Judgement, Trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), 258-259.
[8]
Kant, The Critique of the Power of
Judgement, 308-311.
[9] Already noticed by Otto, The
idea of the Holy, 65.
[10]
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , Trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W.
Wood(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2000), 213-214.
[11] Mircea Eliade, Lo sagrado y lo profano, Trans. Luis Gil
(Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1985), 18.
[12] Mircea Eliade, Lo sagrado y lo profano, 20-21.
[13] Mircea Eliade, Lo sagrado y lo profano, 21.
[14]
Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of
the Religious life (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1964), 37.
[15]
There is a reference to this castration in James Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: Collier Books, 1963), 406.
[16] Matt Kuelfer The
Manly Eunuch: Gender ambiguity and Christian Ideology in late Antiquity
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). Published partially on http://www.transchristians.
org/archive/the-practice-of-self-castration-in-early-christianity.
[17] Emile Durkheim, The Elementary
Forms of the Religious life, 38.
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