Meaning

(religion, theology) A belief that salvation is attained or maintained not just by adherence to the requirements of moral law, but also by worship, faith, or grace..

Definitions by Sense

1. (religion, theology) A belief that salvation is attained or maintained not just by adherence to the requirements of moral law, but also by worship, faith, or grace.
2. (political philosophy) An opposition to slavishly following the law, especially the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law; sometimes also an attitude that questions the legitimacy of the legal system and the judicial infrastructure.

Example Sentences

Near-synonym: nonlegalism

In this coinage of the great apostle extremes meet; legalism and antilegalism; legalism in so far as it implies that God, as the Judaists contended demanded righteousness from all, antilegalism in so fare as it implies that the righteousness which God demands he at the same time bestows.

Understanding antilegalism in this manner helps us to read French legal dramas in a different way.

For many commentatiors, antilegalism is a characteristic trait of Hegelianism, which thus finds itself far from the dominant opinion within postrevolutionary political philosophy, which saw rights as the inalienable condition of political freedom.

Those symbols and images of acts of civil disobedience that can turn a nation toward a better and more moral future path, in turn, merged seamlessly with the near mythic antilegalism of our Consitution, and its First and Fourteenth Amendments that target oppresive and discriminatory law, to eventually feed a narrative of civil rights as not only birthed by disobedience but as being in toto antithetical to law, and aligned instead with consitutionalism's most non-civic and atomistic inclinations.

Word Forms

• anti-legalism

Synonyms for antilegalism

Antonyms for antilegalism

When Should You Use Antilegalism?

Use antilegalism when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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