Socinianism

1 definition found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Socinianism \So*cin"i*an*ism\, n. (Eccl. Hist.)
     The tenets or doctrines of Faustus Socinus, an Italian
     theologian of the sixteenth century, who denied the Trinity,
     the deity of Christ, the personality of the Devil, the native
     and total depravity of man, the vicarious atonement, and the
     eternity of future punishment. His theory was, that Christ


     was a man divinely commissioned, who had no existence before
     he was conceived by the Virgin Mary; that human sin was the
     imitation of Adam's sin, and that human salvation was the
     imitation and adoption of Christ's virtue; that the Bible was
     to be interpreted by human reason; and that its language was
     metaphorical, and not to be taken literally.
     [1913 Webster]