20 Facts About Rudolf Otto

Rudolf Otto was an eminent German Lutheran theologian, philosopher, and comparative religionist.

Rudolf Otto is regarded as one of the most influential scholars of religion in the early twentieth century and is best known for his concept of the numinous, a profound emotional experience he argued was at the heart of the world's religions.

Rudolf Otto attended the Gymnasium Andreanum in Hildesheim and studied at the universities of Erlangen and Gottingen, where he wrote his dissertation on Martin Luther's understanding of the Holy Spirit, and his habilitation on Kant.

Rudolf Otto cited a 1911 visit to a Moroccan synagogue as a key inspiration for the theme of the Holy he would later develop.

Rudolf Otto became a member of the Prussian parliament in 1913 and retained this position through the First World War.

Rudolf Otto then served in the post-war constituent assembly in 1918, and remained involved in the politics of the Weimar Republic.

Schleiermacher described this religious feeling as one of absolute dependence; Rudolf Otto eventually rejected this characterization as too closely analogous to earthly dependence and emphasized the complete otherness of the religious feeling from the mundane world.

In 1904, while a student at the University of Gottingen, Rudolf Otto became a proponent of the philosophy of Jakob Fries along with two fellow students.

Rudolf Otto argues consciousness cannot be explained in terms of physical or neural processes, and accords it epistemological primacy by arguing all knowledge of the physical world is mediated by personal experience.

Rudolf Otto felt intuition was valuable in rational domains like mathematics, but subject to the corrective of reason, whereas religious intuitions might not be subject to that corrective.

Rudolf Otto stated that they focused on the rational aspects of the divine whereas his next book focused on the nonrational aspects of the divine.

Rudolf Otto explains the numinous as a "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self".

Rudolf Otto applied this model specifically to religious experiences, which he felt were qualitatively different from other emotions.

Rudolf Otto felt people should first do serious rational study of God, before turning to the non-rational element of God as he did in this book.

In Mysticism East and West, published in German in 1926 and English in 1932, Rudolf Otto compares and contrasts the views of the medieval German Christian mystic Meister Eckhart with those of the influential Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara, the key figure of the Advaita Vedanta school.

Rudolf Otto left a broad influence on theology, religious studies, and philosophy of religion, which continues into the 21st century.

Karl Barth, an influential Protestant theologian contemporary to Rudolf Otto, acknowledged Rudolf Otto's influence and approved a similar conception of God as ganz Andere or totaliter aliter, thus falling within the tradition of apophatic theology.

Rudolf Otto's ideas have exerted an influence on non-Christian theology and spirituality.

Rudolf Otto was heavily involved in ecumenical activities between Christian denominations and between Christianity and other religions.

Rudolf Otto experimented with adding a time similar to a Quaker moment of silence to the Lutheran liturgy as an opportunity for worshipers to experience the numinous.