The aspect of trust is thought of by König in terms of strong
personal appropriation. Trust is‘reception or apprehension of the
merits of God-man to me and you individually’.^29 This apprehension
does not mean any theoretical knowledge or intellectual act of assent,
but a practical apprehension which‘involves the rest of the whole
heart and will in the merit of Christ’.^30 The‘trusting rest’(recumben-
tiafiducialis)^31 thus means the end result of regeneration and con-
version that involves personal appropriation.
König frequently employs the Latin termsapplicatioandappro-
priatioto underline this idea of personal appropriation. He continues
the tradition ofcommendatiothat goes from Cicero and Bernard to
Luther and is revived in early modern Neo-Stoic ideas of personal
appropriation.^32 The concept ofagnitiois not at the heart of König’s
doctrine offiducia, as Lutherans aim to minimize the human contri-
bution in salvation. As shown above,agnitionevertheless plays a
fairly important role in the events of regeneration and conversion.
This preserves the old idea of conversion that involves human
acknowledgement.
We will see below (section 3.4) that the later German theological
discussion about Anerkennungoften takes the tripartite division
notitia—assensus—fiduciaas its starting point, considering it to be
problematic. The debates on this concern the issue of whether know-
ing and assenting precede personal appropriation. König defines this
sequence as follows:
The form of faith as regards knowing is the bare cognitive reception of
Christ’s merit; as regards assenting, approving reception; as regards trust,
individual application and appropriative reception (individualis applicatio,
et appropriativa receptio) of the known and approved object.^33This definition reveals some modern aspects of König’s discussion.
He sees clearly that the individual, personal dimension of trust is
something different from knowledge and assent. The individual
appropriation of religious faith is a typical modern phenomenon
which is conceived here in a manner that resembles later Pietist
(^29) Theologia, §898. (^30) Theologia, §899.
(^31) Theologia, §469, cf. §899.
(^32) Cf. Franz 2000 as well as sections 2.3 and 2.6 in this volume.
(^33) Theologia, §904.
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