Abstract
Holiness as God’s attribute is often conceived within the framework of the Creator-creature relationship. Rudolf Otto’s work on holiness—the numinous as a common peculiar entity across and within religion—lingers upon uncritical Christian theology, which ignores the uniqueness of the Triune God. The author argues that God’s essential holiness (in se) is conceivable without presupposing the Creator-creature relationship in the first place; Thus, not only true to God’s ousia but also to his hypostases. By employing John Calvin’s autotheos trinitarian theology, essential holiness is proposed as a viable notion ontologically grounded in God’s opera ad intra. Consequently, we can properly understand the notion of relational holiness towards us (pro nobis) as revealed in scripture. This new model of holiness does not negate the earlier Creator-creature distinction but constructs a more dynamic model of holiness pro nobis precisely due to God’s holiness in se.