As I mentioned in my most recent post, it seems that almost all awe experiences come from a limited number of sources, including encounters with the Divine, nature, art, inspiring music, or being in the presence of someone extremely powerful or virtuous. One unresolved question is whether these sources of awe provide equivalent experiences.
C. S. Lewis explicitly writes about the possibility that religious awe is different from other kinds of fear in his book, “The Problem of Pain:”
“Suppose you were told that there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told ‘There is a ghost in the next room,’ and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is ‘uncanny’ rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply ‘There is a mighty spirit in the room’ and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking–described as awe.”
Perhaps this is what Lewis had in mind in another quotation: “There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.”
In these quotations, Lewis likely is drawing on his understanding of perhaps the best discussion of religious awe, provided by Rudolph Otto in “The Idea of the Holy.” Otto famously discusses the non-rational (not irrational) aspects of religion, which have to do with encountering Something completely different from anything else we normally encounter in daily life – what Otto and others have called the “Numinous.”
Because he didn’t want encounters with the Divine to lose their distinctness, Otto referred to this mysterious aspect of religion in latin: the “mysterium tremendum.” According to Otto, the mysterium tremendum consists of (1) dread (in that one is coming into direct contact with that which is beyond normal conceptions of approachability, power, urgency, and energy); (2) stupor (“blank wonder, an astonishment that strikes us dumb, amazement absolute”); (3) experiencing the self as if nothing (“I am nothing in the presence of something that is all”); and (4) a sense of unworthiness.
More generally, I think Otto’s “idea of the holy” gets at the literal meaning of “holy:” That which is “set apart” or “distinct.”
These ideas help to clarify for me something that has long been a puzzle: That the Judeo-Christian belief system encourages a “fear of the Lord.” For example, in the beginning of the book of Proverbs, the author writes that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). I think this matches the popular understanding of religion; that is, that religion encourages commitment through fear tactics. Perhaps the use of the word “fear,” however, is confusing, as it is a word that has different meanings, at least in English.
In fact, the most common phrase of the Bible is “fear not.” This phrase appears in the Old Testament and New Testament over 400 times. Of course, there is a good reason for this. A true encounter with God’s majesty provokes awe. However, God is with us, particularly with and through Jesus Christ, in such a way that we need not fear. As it says in 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear.”
Taken together, then, there is a kind of fear mentioned in the Bible that clearly is foundational for faith: The kind involved in a true awe experience. Then, there is another kind of fear experience that is contrary to faith: The kind that is involved in anxiety and worry about the ways of this world.
Beyond the awe that one may have in the Numinous, however, is an awe for the grace shown by Jesus. Unlike other faith perspectives, in the person of Jesus Christ, there is a story of a God who enters into pain in order to overcome it, who sacrifices for the people who seem to otherwise shrink in response to His glory. This paradox of a God who is so great as to provoke the ultimate awe experience but who is so humble as to take all the pain of the world onto Himself is at the heart of what Christianity really means.
