OTTO, RUDOLF. Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) was a German systematic theologian who contributed especially to the philosophy and history of religion. As a liberal theologian or, more accurately, a Vermittlungstheologe (theologian of mediation), Otto conceived of systematic theology as a science of religion, whose components were the philosophy, psychology, and history of religions. In his view, philosophy identified the source of religion in a qualitatively unique experience for which he coined the term numinous. Descriptive psychology revealed the nonrational dimensions of this experience as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans, dimensions that, Otto said, were conjoined to rational or conceptual elements through a process that, loosely following Immanuel Kant, he called schematization. Otto's ideas became foundational for much twentieth-century work in the study of religion that claimed to be phenomenological or scientific rather than theological.

Life

Born on September 25, 1869, in Peine in the region of Hanover, Germany, Otto spent...