article of faith
1
7.4
- noun
- /ˈɑrtɪkl əv feɪθ/
:
artículo de fe
- And in the long run, the important point for me, one which I regard not as an optional theological position, but as an article of faith, is that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God made human—in whatever terms you express this.
Examples
-
For Blair, it was a post-9/11 article of faith that it was intolerable for Saddam Hussein to have even the potential to develop WMD, which, however improbably, he might pass on to terrorists.
Academic text (2014) -
It then examined the theological context in which the CAC article of faith on inspiration and authority of the Bible emerged.
Academic text (2018) -
These are your basic articles of faith.
Fiction book (1991) -
The CAC on its website explains its article of faith on Bible inspiration thus:
Academic text (2018) -
It is an article of faith that there is a predestination.
Academic text (2003) -
It is not symbolic, according to the canon of the Catholic Church; it is an article of faith.
Blog text (11) -
One of those articles of faith states—
Blog text (22) -
This article of faith has remained sacrosanct, even when it is universally acknowledged that today's parties have lost much of their former influence.
Academic text (1992) -
More importantly, however, it means that if one is to address the challenge posed by liberalism to contemporary Christianity, one should not begin by insisting on submission to particular articles of faith.
Academic text (2005) -
The permanence of marriage has always been an article of faith for Catholics.
Synonyms
314
3.4
A separate section of a legal document like a contract
A belief in a creed that people are expected to accept
Surface Forms
Morphology
article + of + faith
A learner who knows 'article' as an item/proposition and 'faith' as belief can plausibly infer 'an item of belief' and thus guess this refers to a particular belief. However, the conventional nuance — that it is a doctrine accepted without question — and the specific doctrinal sense of 'article' are somewhat conventional/cultural and not fully predictable from the parts, so prior exposure is helpful.
Etymology
Article of faith comes from church lists of beliefs. In those lists, each important belief was a separate article of faith — a numbered point people had to accept — so the phrase means 'an essential religious belief'.