Word.ws English Dictionary

antilegalism

antilegalism noun: 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.

Noun

antilegalism

  1. 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.
    • 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.1896, William Rainey Harper, Ernest DeWitt Burton, Shailer Mathews, The Biblical World - Volume 7, page 10
    Antonyms:
    legalism, nomism
  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.
    • Near-synonym: nonlegalism
    • Understanding antilegalism in this manner helps us to read French legal dramas in a different way.2014, Michael Asimow, Kathryn Brown, David Papke, Law and Popular Culture: International Perspectives, page 328
    Synonyms:
    nonlegalism
    Antonyms:
    legalism

Synonyms of antilegalism

Antonyms

Forms of antilegalism

alternative formanti-legalism

Origin of antilegalism

From anti- + legalism.

Questions about antilegalism

What does antilegalism mean?
Antilegalism means 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.
What part of speech is antilegalism?
Antilegalism is a noun.

Words near antilegalism in the dictionary

  1. antilearning
  2. antileather
  3. antileech
  4. antileft
  5. antilegal
  6. antilegalism
  7. antilegalization
  8. antilegionella
  9. antilegislation
  10. antilegislative
  11. Antilegomena

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: antilegalism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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