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It is occasionally used to refer to a belief that Christians are saved by faith alone: for which see sola fide. This position is sometimes called solifidianism.
A more widely used meaning for the term is that fideism essentially teaches that reason is more or less irrelevant to faith. Specifically, fideism teaches that arguments for the existence of God are fallacious and irrelevant, and have nothing to do with the truth of Christian theology. Its argument in essence goes:
This sort of fideism has a long history in Christianity. It can plausibly be argued as an interpretation of 1 Corinthians, wherein Paul says, "For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe . . . For the foolishness of God is wiser than (the wisdom of) men" ( 1 Cor. 1:21, 25) The statement "Credo quia absurdum" ("I believe because it is absurd"), often attributed to Tertullian, is sometimes cited as an example of such a view in the Church Fathers, but this appears to be a misquotation from Tertullian's De Carne Christi (External Link: On the Flesh of Christ). What he actually says in DCC 5 is ". . . the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd." This may be a statement of a fideist position, but it is also possible--and rendered somewhat plausible by the context--that Tertullian was simply engaging in ironic overstatement. A fideist position of this general sort -- that God's existence cannot be certainly known, and that the decision to accept faith is neither founded on, nor needs, rational justification --- may be found in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard (though his writings are notoriously hard to interpret) and his followers in Christian existentialismExistentialism is a philosophical movement characterized by an emphasis on individualism, individual freedom, and subjectivity. Existentialism emphasises the idea that existence precedes essence, i. that one must be alive in order to create meaning, and t.
A more sophisticated form of fideism is assumed by Pascal's WagerBlaise Pascal argued that it is a better "bet" to believe in God than not to do so. Pascal's Wager (also known as Pascal's Gambit is Blaise Pascal's argument for the belief in God. It is based on game theory and appears in his Pensees a collection of note. Blaise PascalBlaise Pascal ( June 19, 1623 August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. His contributions to the natural sciences include the construction of mechanical calculators, considerations on probability theory, studies of invites the sceptic to see faith in God as a cost-free choice that carries a potential reward. He does not attempt to argue that God indeed exists, only that it might be valuable to assume that it is true. Pascal's attitude has some commonality with another prominent Catholic writer of his period, Michel de MontaigneMichel Eyquem de Montaigne ( February 28, 1533 September 13, 1592) was an influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay. In his main work, the Essais unprecedented in its candidness and personal flavo, who in his Essays shows a certain amount of sympathy with skepticism.
Some theologies, however, strongly reject fideism. The Catechism of the Catholic ChurchThe Catechism of the Catholic Church (abbreviation: CCC) is an official exposition of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, first published in French in 1992 with the authorization of Pope John Paul II. To correspond exactly with the official text i, representing Roman Catholicism's great regard for ThomismThomism refers to the philosophical school that followed in the legacy Thomas Aquinas and lead to the canonization of the original dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. The word comes from the name of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose summary work Summa Theologica, the teachings of St Thomas Aquinas, affirms that it is a doctrine of Roman Catholicism that God's existence can indeed be demonstrated by reason. Likewise, a tradition of argument found among some Protestant fundamentalists as well as Catholics argues that respect for Jesus as a teacher and a wise man is logically contradictory if one does not accept him as God as well, also known as the Lord, Liar, or Lunatic argument: either He was insane or a charlatan, or he was in fact the Messiah and Son of God. Cf., Christological argument Presuppositional apologetics is a system of Christian apologetics that treats the existence of God and the authority of Scripture as axiomatic, the "givens" or faith assumptions without which any theological discussion lacks meaning.
While the centrality of issues of faith and its role in salvation make fideism of this sort an important issue for Christianity, it can exist in other revealed religions as well. In Islam, the theologian Ghazali strikes a position similar to Tertullian's fideism in his Talafut al-falasafa, the "Incoherence of the Philosophers." Where the claims of reason come into conflict with revelation, reason must yield to revelation. This position drew a rejoinder from Averroes, whose position was more influential in Thomist and other medieval Christian thinking than it was in the Islamic world itself. Ghazali's position of the absolute authority and finality of divine revelation became the standard of orthodox Muslim exegesis.
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