Fideism and Christian Tradition

Defining "fideism" is a complicated task. ¹ The term "fideism" first appears apparently independently in the texts of the Protestant Eugene Ménégoz and the Catholic Léon Ollé-Laprune in late 1880s. and already then it had two different meanings. ² Ménégoz used the term in Schleiermacherian fashion to define the core of religious life, a pure state of faith, which would exceed the historical particulars and symbols of different religions. What matters most is God's moving the heart, not reason, which only creates contingent expressions of the more fundamental feeling. Ménégoz's position has sometimes been called "symbolo-fideism" due to its emphasis on religious symbols over doctrines. ³ In contrast to his liberal Protestant colleague. Ollé-Laprune used the concept in order to criticize those Catholic theological currents which did not rely on natural theology but which tried to put more emphasis on faith as they saw the contemporary secular reason as a threat to religion; if public reasoning could not be used to provide evidence for Christianity any more, maybe one could rely on faith instead. ⁴