Religious A Priori
A separate, innate category of the human consciousness, religious in that it issues certain insights and indisputable certainties concerning God or a Superhuman Presence. Man’s religious nature rests upon the peculiar character of his mind. He possesses a native apprehension of the Divine. God’s existence is guaranteed as an axiomatic truth. For Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) this a priori quality of the mind is both a rational intuition and an immediate experience. God is present as a real fact both rationally and empirically. For Rudolf Otto this a priori quality of the mind is a non-rational awareness of the holy, mysterious and awe-inspiring divine Reality. Man posesses a kind of eerie sense of a Presence which is the basis of the genuinely religious feeling. See Numinous. — V.F.