preexistentism
English edit
Etymology edit
preexistent + -ism
Noun edit
preexistentism (uncountable)
- (philosophy) The theory that souls exist prior to their association with human bodies.
- 1840, G. F. Wiggers, “Augustine’s reasons for his theory”, in An Historical Presentation of Augustinism and Pelagianism from the Original Sources, Andover: Gould, Newman & Saxton, page 280:
- The soul either exists before its union with the body (preexistentism), or it is created by God at the same time with the body (creationism or coexistentism), or it springs up from physical generation (traducianism, evolution system). These are the principal hypotheses on the origin of the soul[.]
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “preexistentism”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)