traducianism
UK/tɹəˈdjuːsɪənɪz(ə)m/
traducianism noun: the doctrine that the soul or spirit is inherited from one or both parents.
Noun
traducianism (uncountable)
- The doctrine that the soul or spirit is inherited from one or both parents.
- Augustine's insistence on its spiritual nature made it hard for him to uphold, along with Tertullian, the doctrine of physical traducianism.2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Penguin (2004), page 37n
- Tertullian suggested that the human soul is transmitted by parents to their children and is therefore inescapably associated with continuing human sin: this doctrine of ‘traducianism’ underlay the pessimistic view of the human condition and its imprisonment in original sin which was presented in an...2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 145
- Synonyms:
- generationism
Synonyms of traducianism
Origin of traducianism
From traducian + -ism.
Questions about traducianism
- What does traducianism mean?
- Traducianism means the doctrine that the soul or spirit is inherited from one or both parents.
- What part of speech is traducianism?
- Traducianism is a noun.
- How do you pronounce traducianism?
- Traducianism is pronounced /tɹəˈdjuːsɪənɪz(ə)m/ (UK).
Words near traducianism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: traducianism (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “traducianism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/traducianism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
