Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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ANTINOMIANISM

The doctrine that claims that a person's faith in God and in the person of Christ frees him from the moral obligations of the law, whether natural or positive, biblical or ecclesiastical. It is a logical consequence of any theory that so stresses the work of the Holy Spirit as to exclude the need for co-operation with divine grace. The most authoritative condemnation of Antinomianism was by the Council of Trent, which saw in the Reformation principle of faith without good works the source of Antinomian conclusions. Hence among other anathemas of Trent was the censure of anyone who says that "God has given Jesus Christ to men as a redeemer in whom they are to trust, but not as a lawgiver whom they are to obey" (Denzinger 1571). (Etym. Greek anti, against + nomos, law.)