Ficino adheres to a strictly heteronomous and interactive constitution
of one’s identity. His view of self-recognition takes some elements of
the Augustinian idea of recollection, but the discovery of one’s
inner self goes beyond Augustinian memory. Using the conceptual
resources of Platonism, Ficino describes a self-recognition which
needs heteronomous mirroring in order to evoke the idea of one’s
own inner self. While his view can be regarded as one of thefirst
conceptions to contain both truly horizontal recognition and heter-
onomous identity constitution, Ficino also continues the Latin tradi-
tions of Bernard and Thomas, detaching them from feudal concepts.
2.6. Martin Luther: Justification and Attachment
Many of the religious controversies of the Reformation concern the
doctrine of justification. While justification should not be uncritically
mixed with the issues of recognition, modern theology often makes a
connection between them. In sections 1.1 and 1.3, the views of
Eberhard Jüngel and Veronika Hoffmann exemplify this state of
affairs. While Martin Luther does not define justification in terms
of recognition, he brings the Latin verbscommendoandagnoscointo
close contact with justification, as we will see below. This proximity is
a distinctive feature of the Reformation. To see as clearly as possible
the connections and differences between justification and recogni-
tion, we need to start with a brief sketch of what justification means in
Western theology.
The apostle Paul builds his theology of justification around a law
court setting in which God appears as judge and the human being as
accused and guilty. Although exegetes continue to debate the details
of this setting, scholars generally assume that Paul is employing law
court images from the Old Testament.^153 In the history of theology,
this imagery is commonly called‘forensic justification’. The law court
imagery is no discovery of modern exegetes but has always permeated
the interpretation of Pauline theology.
(^153) For some basic literature, see Westerholm 2004; Wright 2009. For the history of
the doctrine, see McGrath 1986.
The Latin Traditions 87