Justification and Recognition. The Boundaries of Interpretation of the Doctrine of Justification

Abstract

The article attempts to reformulate the Reformational doctrine of justification using the theory of recognition as presented by Paul Ricœur. To do this, it first reconstructs Ricœurs doctrine, which tries to detach the phenomenon of recognition from theoretical knowledge acquisition and to understand it as a phenomenon accompanying life, where subjective facts (conscience) and intersubjective structures (law or state) are important. These phenomena, according to the interpretation, have implicit religious content. Its articulation and contemplation comes across the figure of justification, which is also realized as accompanying life and not only as the exceptional state of religion. In that way Ricœurs theory helps to understand the doctrine of justification as an interpretation of life.