Sacred Space, Profane Space, Human Space
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Abstract
IN ALMOST every period Western intellectual life has been preoccupied with the problem of time and history. In the last fifty years this preoccupation has become an obsession, especially in literature and theology. Like most obsessions it has tended to numb our perception for other realms of experience. As philosophy of religion and theology stir toward a wider consciousness, they are slowly beginning to focus on the realm of nature and space. Of course, there have long been premonitions of this turn toward nature. Some of the intellectual forces which were responsible for our fascination with time such as relativity theory or existential phenomenology have also held out new perspectives on space. Among the students of religious phenomena, however, only van der Leeuw and Eliade have given space equal prominence with time.' Although in this respect, as in so many others, we owe a tremendous debt to their work, much remains to be accomplished if we are fully to appreciate the religious valorization of space and begin to lay the foundations for an existential understanding of nature. One of the first tasks that needs to be taken up is to clarify the meaning of "sacred space." My contribution toward that end is to show how the typical polarity of sacred and profane space has been overdrawn to the point of obscuring the actual character of human spatiality in its manifold dimensions. In place of this radical polarity I will sketch in a description of "lived space" and will suggest that lived space is the possibility of both the homogenous space of objectifying thought and the luminosity of sacred places. My procedure will be (1) to briefly summarize Eliade's conception of sacred and profane space since it is the most complete and sophisticated account we now have, (2) to describe the structures of "lived space," (3) to reconsider the concept of sacred space and profane space in light of the analysis of human spatiality. My quarrel is less with the qualities which Eliade, van der Leeuw, Isaac and others usually attribute to sacred space than with the polarization of the data which results when the concept is applied. It will be argued that distortions of both present and past spatial experience are