From Recognition to Resonance: Insights for Lutheran Theology From Hartmut Rosa's Critique of Honneth

Abstract

This article engages Hartmut Rosa's critique of Axel Honneth's theory of recognition to reconsider Lutheran interpretations of the doctrine of justification. While recognition theory has offered fruitful resources for articulating justification as divine recognition, it also risks reducing faith to a form of moral validation. Drawing on Rosa's concept of resonance, the article argues that justification can also be understood as an uncontrollable, transformative event in which God addresses human beings and evokes faith as response. Through a systematic comparison of recognition and resonance, the article explores possible implications for faith, the good life, world relations, divine–human mutuality, and social struggle. It proposes that resonance expands Lutheran theology by addressing contemporary experiences of alienation and spiritual muteness, reframing justification as participation in a living, responsive relation to God with consequences for relations to the world.