antinomianism
(redirected from Anti-nomian)Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus.
Related to Anti-nomian: Antinomian controversy
antinomianism
the beliefs held, e.g. by the members of some Protestant sects in the 16th and 17th centuries, that, as members of ‘God's elect’, they could no longer be guilty of sin. As WEBER (1922) put it, such persons felt themselves ‘certain of salvation’, and ‘no longer bound by any conventional rule of conduct’. This belief was interpreted by some believers as permitting them to engage in unorthodox marital practices, including plural marriages, as well as in sexual activity outside marriage, which they justified as bringing others to salvation. Weber's view was that antinomianism is a generally occurring phenomenon, and that the more systematically the ‘practical psychological character’ of a religious faith develops, the greater is the tendency for antinomianism to be the outcome.Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000