Recognition and religion : a historical and systematic study / Risto Saarinen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Saarinen, Risto, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Recognition (Ecumenical relations).

Recognition (Philosophy)--Religious aspects.

Recognition (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

268 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Summary:

Religious life is typically shaped by acts of interpersonal recognition. Other people grant us access to religious communities and initiate us in their practices. God appears as the supreme ruler who acknowledges us, loves us, and even creates our very being. While such acts are common in Jewish-Christian tradition and their meaning has been extensively discussed in the history of theology, scholars have not paid attention to the long history of religious recognition in Christian sources. Recognition and Religion undertake the task of writing the first intellectual history of recognition in Western religious thought. Starting from the New Testament and Greco-Roman antiquity, Risto Saarinen clarifies the Latin terminology of recognition from the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions to the European Reformations. He then connects the emerging French, English, and German theological vocabularies with the philosophical innovations of Hobbes, Locke, Fichte, and Hegel. This history stretches to the contemporary legal and ecumenical understanding of mutual recognition. In its concluding chapter, the study outlines the distinctive profile of religion recognition. This profile includes personal conversion, the promise of self-preservation, and existential attachment. While it also alludes to mutual bonding, respect, and status change, it emphasizes the transformation of the recognizing subject. Religious recognition is thus both a predecessor of Hegelian philosophical modernity and a distinctive theological current that complements the Enlightenment views of toleration and autonomy. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The Task 1

1.2 Philosophical Theories of Recognition 5

1.3 Recognition in Current Theology 20

1.4 Concepts, Conceptions, and Paradigms 24

1.5 Parts of Recognition 35

2 The Latin Traditions 42

2.1 From the New Testament to the Latin Recognitions 42

2.2 Augustine on Agnitio and Recognitio 54

2.3 Attachment, Feudalism, and Bernard of Clairvaux 58

2.4 Thomas Aquinas and Later Scholastics 69

2.5 Marsilio Ficino: Loving Recognition 79

2.6 Martin Luther; Justification and Attachment 87

2.7 Calvin and Religious Knowledge 98

3 The Modern Era 110

3.1 From Hobbes to Pietism 110

3.2 Anerkennung in Religion: Fichte and Spalding 125

3.3 Hegel and Schleiermacher 136

3.4 Cultural Protestantism and Dialectical Theology 152

3.5 Legal Developments 164

3.6 Vatican II and the Ecumenical Movement 168

4 Recognition in Religion: A Systematic Outline 184

4.1 The Emergence of Historical Paradigms 184

4.2 The Nature of Religious Recognition 200

4.3 Gift and Language 221

4.4 Recognizing Oneself 233

4.5 Conclusion: Ways and Aims of Recognition 241.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-264) and index.

ISBN:

9780198791966

0198791968

OCLC:

951759854