approaching religious truths. Conversion transforms the recognizer
and changes her understanding of religion. The conversion narrative
is, therefore, a powerful and many-sided paradigm of religious rec-
ognition. At the same time, it is not conceptually elaborated and is
most adequately expressed in terms of story.
The second paradigm of religious recognition can be labeledpromise
of self-preservation. Historically, it stretches from Bernard of Clairvaux
to Zinzendorf. I employ the term‘promise’as shorthand for all acts of
initial religious expectation, such as commendation, favour, and justi-
fication. The term‘self-preservation’depicts the Stoic philosophical
tradition of attachment,oikeiosis, and commendation. In religious
life, it is closely related to the issues of salvation and restitution of
one’s true identity. The second paradigm takes over the situation and
the vocabulary of feudal law, its terms employing the ideas of pro-
tection, benefit, andfidelity. The second paradigm also employs the
language of bridal mysticism, a religious form of life that is signifi-
cant from Bernard to the times of Ficino and Zinzendorf.
As the second paradigm has many elements, it has a variety of
different historical shapes that may not resemble one another onfirst
appearance. Their core is found in the dialectic of downward promise
and upward acknowledgement that provide for the self-preservation
of the recognizer. Like thefirst one, the second paradigm normally
employs upward recognition as its basic conception. It is accompanied
by downward (Thomas, Luther) and even seemingly equal (Ficino)
aspects. Because of its links with the feudal situation, the second
paradigm expresses a strongly mutual social interaction, assuming a
bond between lord and servant. The promise of the lord is basic and
constitutive of the interaction in question.
The promise of self-preservation assumes a particularly strong
heteronomy of the recognizer, his survival and identity being
dependent on the favour of the lord who is the religious source of
all goods of this and the future life. In the medieval variants, this
heteronomy is to an extent neutralized by the mutual bond that
resembles the relationship between the bridegroom and the bride.
Ficino’s description of love also employs equalizing features in that
although the lover is killed and revived by the more beautiful beloved,
their relationship should lead to a mutual discovery of likeness.
In the emerging Protestantism, the heteronomy and mutability of
the recognizer is radicalized. Luther and Calvin consider that human
beings are entirely constituted by the object of religious knowledge.
Recognition in Religion 197