A lehetetlen tapasztalat. A vallási paradoxon fenomenológiája
Experiencing the Impossible: the Phenomenology of the Religious Paradox

Summary/Abstract: In my article, I explore the experience and phenomenological approach of the religious paradox. In his book The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto places this experience at the center of his phenomenological analysis of religion, an experience which Husserl and Heidegger approach in opposite ways. It is against the backdrop of this disagreement that the question emerges: Can phenomenological description encapsulate the religious paradox, and if so, how? Otto provides a phenomenological description, but he still holds up the reader who has no religious experience. It is within this framework that I present the approach of phenomenology to the religious paradox by reinterpreting Otto in three steps: the first step is the horror, the second the paradox of offense, the third the paradox of harmony ‒ only the latter represents the religious paradox in the strict sense. Since, for Otto, Luther’s experience is the main motivation for his analysis, I will proceed in this paper with the help of Luther’s experience. The paper concludes that, although the phenomenology of the religious paradox cannot eliminate the esoteric character of experience, the approach to it in the description is a meaningful and peculiarly phenomenological enterprise.

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