Idealism

This article is about the philosophical notion of Idealism. Idealism is also a term in international relations theory and in Christian eschatology.

Idealism in religious thought

Not all religion and belief in the supernatural is, strictly speaking, anti-materialist in nature. While many types of religious belief are indeed specifically idealist, for example, Hindu beliefs about the nature of the Brahman, Zen Buddhism stands in the middle way of dialectics between idealism and materialism, and mainstream Christian doctrine affirms the importance of the materiality of Christ's human body and the necessity of self-restraint when dealing with the material world.

Related Topics:
Religion - Supernatural - Hindu - Brahman - Zen - Dialectics - Christian - Christ

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Several modern religious movements and texts, for example the organisations within the New Thought Movement (especially the Unity Church) and the book, A Course in Miracles, may be said to have a particularly idealist orientation. The theology of Christian Science is explicitly idealist.

Related Topics:
New Thought Movement - Unity Church - A Course in Miracles - Theology - Christian Science

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More accurately, Idealism is based on the root word "Ideal," meaning a perfect form of, and is most accurately described as a belief in perfect forms of virtue, truth, and the absolute. Idea-ism may be a more appropriate term for the definitions listed above. There is a clear distinction between an idea and an ideal (i.e. Websters Dictionary says "conforming exactly to an ideal, law, or standard: perfect.").

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