Vasile Chira The Fear and the Sacred: The Ontology and the Phenomenology of Theophobia 113 The Fear and the Sacred: The Ontology and the Phenomenology of Theophobia Vasile Chira, Faculty of Theology, “Andrei aguna” , “Lucian Blaga” University, Sibiu / Romania, E-mail: [email protected] Received 14 January, 2019; Revised 3 march February , 2019; Accepted 20 March, 2019 Copyright c 2019 Vasile Chira. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Available online 21 March, 2019 at www.atlas-journal.org, doi: 10.22545/2019/0122 he present study aims to analyze the rela- by such a divine spectrum , anthropomorphized. tionship between fear and sacred, but also the Ttheophobic forms from a pluri-, inter- and Keywords: Fear, sacred, ontology, phemenology, transdisciplinary perspective. In the Introduction, God, metaphisics, anxiety, theophobia, divine are addressed the nature of fear, the distinction antropophobia, anguish, unconscious. between fear and anxiety, metaphysical anguish, the range of manifestations related to God, sacred, religion, saints, places of worship, religious rituals, 1 Introduction prayers, etc. The following chapters address Phe- Fear has always kept company to humans as a sec- nomenology of Fear, The concept of fear and anxiety ond shadow. Consequently, the human being could at Kierkegaard , The Existential Analysis of Fear at be correctly defined as a being-that-fears. We are Martin Heidegger, Theophobia, Divine Antropopho- afraid of God, we are afraid of our neighbors, we are bia ,The symptomatic picture of theophobia, The afraid of ourselves, we are afraid of the other sex, we causes of theophobia and Metaphysical etiology of are afraid of wild animals, we are afraid of viruses, phobic behavior. In conclusion, the objective, major bacteria, fungi and parasites, we are afraid of death, cause of theophobia is religious doctrines, according we are afraid of natural phenomena, and, eventu- to which the origin of the universe is a punitive, ally, we are afraid of our own fears (phobophobia). avenging creator, etc. Strong knowledge of the Our appeal to divinity, life partner, guardian angel, ancient mythology, the history of religions, archaic friends, etc. - all these are attempts to seek for a theogonies, religious phenomenology, archetypal support to save us from the abyss of fear. psychology, cultural anthropology, philosophy and Fear is an emotion of universal character which science shelters not only the idea of a "celestial helps us survive as individuals and eventually as ontological dictatorship", but also the fear inspired species as it functions as a genuine alarm system. Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science Vol. 10, pp. 113-120, 2019 ISSN: 1949-0569 online Vasile Chira The Fear and the Sacred: The Ontology and the Phenomenology of Theophobia 114 It signals danger and makes us react instantly to as an irrational fear of religion, of God's wrath, of danger.1 But when fear becomes persistent, obses- gods, or of sin. There is an entire range of pho- sive, exaggerated as related to the danger degree bic manifestations related to God, religions, sacred, that the facing of a certain situation supposes, we saints, prayers, temples and cult objects, religious speak about phobia and phobic behavior. rituals: sacrophobia (fear of sacred objects), hamar- After making a distinction between fear and an- tanophobia (fear of sin), stavrophobia (fear of the guish anguish is specific to humans, whereas fear is cross sign), eschatophobia (fear of the end of the present in animals' behavior as well { Jean Delumeau, world and of the last Judgement), atherophobia ( in his famous La Peur en Occident (XIVe-XVIIIe fear of being deprived of the idea of God, fear of not si`ecles), asserts that man tried to vanquish fear frag- having God as a supreme goal in life), phasmopho- menting it into peculiar fears: fear of the sea, of bia (fear of ghosts), demonophobia or satanophobia the tempest, of famine, of sin, of the devil, of the (fear of demons), espectrophobia (fear of phantoms), end of the world, of death, of the inferno, of pest, of estigiophobia or hadephobia (fear of hell), hagiopho- strangers, of witches, of ghosts, or the fear of own bia (fear of saints or blessed objects), homilophobia self.2 (pathological fear of sermons), Hexakosiohexekonta- Human fear has an infinity of forms, shades, and hexaphobia (fear of the number 666), hierophobia degrees, being thus incompatible with animal fear: (fear of priests), mythophobia (fear of myths, false the fear of being devoured by other species, \while stories or false assertions), Theologicophobia (fear of human fear, the offspring of our imagination is not theology), Theophobia (fear of God), ecclesiophobia a unitary, but a multiple one, not fixed, but an (fear of the Church), teletophobia (fear of religious ever-changing one."3 rituals), hierophobia or hagiophobia (fear of religious From the fear of our ancestors of wild beasts or or holy objects), heresyphobia or heresophobia (fear of ghosts to the modern man's fear of the unpre- of challenges to the official doctrine or fear of losing dictability of the economics fluctuations, fear has the way of own belief, the fear of heresy), sacropho- remained the same, even if its object is a different bia (fear of the sacred), eternophobia (fear of eternal one. life), uriphobia (fear of paranormal phenomena), etc. Anguish and anxiety are intrinsic statuses of hu- The literary, philosophic discourse, the sciences man beings, specifically of sensitive, metaphysically of the soul, psychology and psychiatry, but also the lucid people. They are not psychopathological sta- biochemistry and biophysics of the brain provided tuses in themselves, of course excepting some ob- us with a series of knowledge and data which have vious psychoses, forms of schizophrenia or anxious shaped a pretty complete image of the causes, the flutters within some organic diseases such as angina, physiology, the semiology and the phenomenology bronchial asthma, hyperthyroidism, etc. and therapy of fera in the last decades. 5 Besides, the serious dissertations of psychopathol- ogy make a distinction between metaphysical anguish 5Aaron T.Back, Gary Emery with Ruth Greenberg, Anx- - as it appears at Augustine, Pascal, Kierkegaard, iety disorders and Phobias. A cognitive perspective, Ba- Heidegger, Sartre, Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel or Emil sic Books, Printed n SUA, 1985; David A.Clark, Aaron 4 T.Back, The anxiety and Worry Workbook.The cognitive Cioran - and other forms of anguish. behavioral solution, The Guilford Press, A Division of Guil- Theophobia is generally defined by psychologists ford Publications, Inc., 1954; Ronald M. Doctor, Ada P. Kahn, and Christine Adame, The encyclopedia of phobias, 1Irena Milosevic and Randi E. McCabe, Editors, Pho- fears, and anxieties, 3rd ed., Facts On File, Inc., New bias.The Psychology of Irrational Fear, Greenwood , An York ,2008;Bernard, E.,(Eds.), Using Rationale Emotive Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC , SantaBar- Therapy Efectiveley.A Practioner's Guide, Plenum Press, bara,California, 2015, Introduction, p. XIII. New York , London, 1991;Bourne, E.J., The anxiety and 2Jean Delumeau, Frica ^ın Occident(secoleleXIV-XVIII.O Phobia Workbook, The sixth edition, New Harbiner Publi- cetate asediatˇa),vol I, traducere , postfat¸ˇa¸sinote de Modest cations INC., Oakland, 1995; DuPont, Robert L. Phobia: Moarariu, Editura Meridiane, Bucure¸sti, 1986, p.40. A Comprehensive Summary of Modern Treatments. New 3R.Caillois, Le masques de la peur chez les insectes ,^ınProb- York: Brunner/Mazel, 1982. Jampolsky, Gerald. Love lemes, avril-mai,1961, p.25, apud Jean Delumeau,op.cit., Is Letting Go of Fear. New York: Bantam Books, 1979. p.19. Marks, Isaac M. Living with Fear New York: McGraw-Hill, 4See Constantin Enˇachescu,Tratat de psihopatologie, Edi- 1980; Markway, B. G., et al. Dying of Embarrassment: tia a III-a ,revˇazutˇa¸siadˇaugitˇa,Editura Polirom, Ia¸si, Help for Social Anxiety and Phobias. Oakland, Calif.: 2006,p.332. New Harbinger, 1992. Marshall, John R. Social Phobia: Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science Vol. 10, pp. 113-120, 2019 ISSN: 1949-0569 online Vasile Chira The Fear and the Sacred: The Ontology and the Phenomenology of Theophobia 115 Ancient literature and mythology abound in de- mately 6000 affections, not to mention the psychic scriptions of such reactions towards existence, begin- diseases. The American handbook of Diagnosis and ning from the books of the Old Testament to the Statistics of Mental Disorders (DSM) completes ev- Greek and Latin writers. Also, the works of some ery edition with new mental, behavioural, psychic, modern and contemporary writers, philosophers, and psychological disorders etc. theologians such as Shakespeare, Soren Kirkegaard, Franz Kafka, Lev Tolstoi, Virginia Woolf, Martin Heidegger, Sigmund Freud, Alphonse Daudet, Hans 3 The Concept of Fear at Urs von Balthasar, etc. have contributed to the un- Kierkegaard derstanding of this universal phenomenon of the soul, anticipating the systematic studies later elaborated Soren Kierkegaard (1813 1855) is not only a great by psychologists. philosopher, theologian and writer, but also a pro- moter of Psy sciences, as in his ample and profound works, we can find behavioral analyses as related to 2 The Phenomenology