Rudolph Otto - Part 2

I’ve just finished my report on “The Idea of the Holy” by Rudolph Otto. Right now I’m a bit upset at my teacher because he wants me to write a five page report including a summary, interaction, analysis, etc. of the book. I might be able to write a five page report on the first chapter, but definitely not on the entire book (that would take at least 50 pages to do somewhat of a justifiable analysis of his work). But whatever, it’s okay (I shouldn’t complain too much).

The book itself I couldn’t really read that closely. I’m going to go back and reread it much more slowly and for content over the break. Maybe I’ll be able to go back and blog on each chapter individually. We’ll see. What I’ve really taken from the chunks that I have skimmed is that God is not bound by our theological “concepts.” God is a God much bigger than those who think they can describe him down to his essence. God again and again defies definition and cannot be condensed to the reality of this world. Jesus described the kingdom of God, but could not tell us what it was concretely. This is no accident.

The kingdom of God is one that calls for us to be able to swept up into the story putting God first. The one thing that Otto said most powerfully in his book was that we cannot begin with ourselves in a feeling of dependence, we must first begin with idea of God realizing we are but “dust and ashes.” If we do not start with God there will be little that we can do for ourselves.