Richard Viladesau - Divine Transcendence and Sacred Space: A Theological/Aesthetic Perspective
Channel: Julio Bermudez
Date: 2023-09-07

Dr. Richard Viladesau offered this keynote lecture and the conversation that followed at the Neurophenomenology and Sacred Space Symposium that took place at the Catholic University of America (School of Architecture and Planning) on March 25-27, 2023.

Both feeling and thought operate largely through a process of associations. Some of these are learned; some seem to be transcultural. In Western art, it has long been assumed that certain arrangements of sounds, shapes, and colors evoke particular emotions and ideas. Rudolph Otto proposes that the experience of the "Holy" as "mysterium tremendum et fascinans" is unique and irreducible to any other experience. However, there is a "law of association" by which aesthetic and moral experiences evoke the "numinous" by a kind of analogy. Otto's analysis raises the question of whether there is in fact a specific experience of "the holy." Is religious consciousness a sui generis experience, or is it rather an interpretation of experience? Post-Kantian transcendental theology proposes that "depth" or "limit" experiences are implicit in consciousness, and provide the basis for a variety of associations with the ultimate mystery of existence. The divine is anticipated as infinite transcendence that is at the same time radical immanence. The implicit intentionality of the divine can be implicit or can be formulated at different levels as feeling, image, concept, and transcendental intentionality. The "sacred" is an aesthetic construct signifying heightened awareness of the mystery. Sacred spaces are places consecrated to such awareness; they can be constructed in response to various aspects of communal awareness. All such aesthetic mediations of the sacred have an ambiguous relation to religious conversion.