fideism

American  

[fee-dey-iz-uhm, fahy-dee-] / ˈfi deɪˌɪz əm, ˈfaɪ di- /

noun

1. exclusive reliance in religious matters upon faith, with consequent rejection of appeals to science or philosophy.

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fideism British  

/ ˈfiːdeɪˌɪzəm /

noun

1. the theological doctrine that religious truth is a matter of faith and cannot be established by reason Compare natural theology

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Other Word Forms

• fideist noun
• fideistic adjective

Etymology

Origin of fideism

1880–85; < Latin fide- stem of fidēs faith + -ism; probably first coined in French ( fidéisme )

Example Sentences

Fideism holds that proof of God’s existence is irrelevant, as religion requires faith, not reason.

From Washington Post

Philosophers label them religious rationalism, fideism and phenomenology.

From Washington Post

He steadied my thoughts very much, and by the aid of his authority and that of M. Gosselin, I was enabled to put away the exaggerations of M. Pinault; my conscience was at rest, and I even got to think that the contempt for scholasticism and reason, so stoutly professed by the mystics, was not devoid of heresy, and of the worst of all heresies in the eyes of the Company of St. Sulpice, viz., the Fideism of M. de Lamennais.

From Project Gutenberg

He would show that there was nothing dangerous in what he held, that there was a passage in De Lugo which supported him— that Perrone, by maintaining that the Immaculate Conception could be defined, had implicitly admitted one of his main positions, and that his language about Faith had been confused, quite erroneously, with the fideism of M. Bautain.

From Project Gutenberg