On other occasions, however,Anerkennungdepicts the specific
insight of the faith that deviates from ordinary knowledge. In such
cases Ritschl can speak of the‘divine value of Christ’which the person
‘recognizes in the very specific faith’.^199 The power of the law can only
be thought of adequately‘as the recognition of the decisive value of
the lawgiver for the salvation of the human being’. In such a state, the
person‘feels addressed by the power that is to be recognized as the
only power of salvation’.^200 Through faith,‘a person’s new relation-
ship to God is recognized religiously (religiös anerkannt) with regard
to justification’.^201 In such passages, Ritschl comes fairly close to
Schleiermacher’s and Spalding’s expressions. At the same time, his
use ofAnerkennungremains sporadic.
Ritschl’s consistent pleading for the understanding of justification
as synthetic divine judgement remains influential in later Protestant
theology. In some sense, he is a precursor of the fideism of the
twentieth century, as Ritschl emphasizes that the meaning of the acts
of faith is very different from their ordinary meaning. For this reason,
religious recognition is a very specific act of primary value attachment
that is not based on ordinary evidence. In this manner, Ritschl
continues the tradition of Spalding and Schleiermacher.
A similar understanding of religious recognition is apparent in the
theology of Wilhelm Herrmann, another leading cultural Protestant.
In his early studyDie Religion im Verhältnis zum Welterkennen und
zur Sittlichkeit (1879,‘The relationship between religion and the
knowledge of the world and morality’) Herrmann pleads for the
understanding of Jesus Christ as the constitutive historical fact and
ground of faith. At the same time,
while we claim strongly that the being of the Christian community is
rooted in a historical fact, we should not forget that it is valid as the
ground of common faith only because it can be presented in terms of
free recognition within a moral community. With regard to the external
matters of the life of Jesus, this is not immediately possible. These
matters arefirst equipped with a religious value when they are appro-
priated from the perspective of this accessible ground of faith.^202(^199) Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung, 1, 199.
(^200) Both inRechtfertigung und Versöhnung, 1, 200.
(^201) Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung, 3, 104. (^202) Religion, 389.
The Modern Era 155