absolute dependence and justification consistently and in great
detail, the basic idea of recognition in these passages resembles the
ideas expressed in 1821/2. In Schleiermacher, one may see some
Fichtean or Hegelian philosophical ideas, such as the heteronomous
creation of the person, the collective or common spirit, and the
equality of all people.
In thefirst place, however, one needs to connect Schleiermacher
with the theological tradition of Luther and Zinzendorf. When
Schleiermacher says that God recognizes people in the event of
justification, he is in some sense innovative and reverses the old
order of religious recognition from upward to downward act. At the
same time, he continues the ideas of heteronomy, reciprocity, and
subjective appropriation that are prominent in Luther and Zinzendorf.
While earlier theologians like König and Spalding turn increasingly
towards personal autonomy, Schleiermacher relies on strong heteron-
omy, attempting to associate it with the Enlightenment ideas of equal-
ity and self-consciousness.
This being said, the line from Spalding to Schleiermacher needs to
be regarded as the theological root of later Protestant conceptions.
Both Spalding and Schleiermacher assume that recognition is a
mutual act in which the human upward appreciation of a higher
being has already been preceded by the divine act of affirmation.
For Spalding, the human act exemplifies recognition. For Schleier-
macher, both the human act of realizing our absolute dependence
(a sort of upward horizon of expectation) and the divine downward
act of justification are called recognition. At the same time, they both
teach that since recognition is a primary act or a condition of possi-
bility, it is not an act of consenting to something of which we are
already informed.
One conspicuous point in which the old and the new traditions of
recognition come together is that of appropriation. Hegel and
Schleiermacher employ this idea a lot, and in some sense the notion
of subjective appropriation can be thought of as a fundamental of
modernity. At the same time, appropriation is an old religious and
philosophical notion that again becomes prominent in Pietism.
Regarding the conceptions of recognition, the early modern view of
recognizing oneself in terms of self-discovery is intimately connected
with this, not an individualistic or autonomously motivated idea
but employing a strong reciprocity in that we recognize ourselves
through others.
The Modern Era 151