quietism
Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- noun A form of Christian mysticism enjoining passive contemplation and the beatific annihilation of the will.
- noun A state of quietness and passivity.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- noun That form of mysticism which consists in the entire abnegation of all active exercise of the will and a purely passive meditation on God and divine things as the highest spiritual exercise and the means of bringing the soul into immediate union with the Godhead. Conspicuous exponents of quietism were Molinos and Mme. Guyon, in the seventeenth century.
- noun The state or quality of being quiet; quietness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- noun Peace or tranquillity of mind; calmness; indifference; apathy; dispassion; indisturbance; inaction.
- noun The system of the Quietists, who maintained that religion consists in the withdrawal of the mind from worldly interests and anxieties and its constant employment in the passive contemplation of God and his attributes.
Examples
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But progress, not quietism, is the principle which governs humanity and it is favoured by events of most different nature.
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In all the dispute on what is called quietism, there has been nothing good but the old tale revived of the honest woman who brought a torch to burn paradise, and a cruse of water to extinguish the fire of hell, that God should no longer be served either through hope or fear.
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Staying quiet in the face of political strife is the reigning philosophy in Najaf and is known as quietism, or taquia, in Arabic.
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Mr. Sistani, the true hero of Iraq's survival and incipient renaissance, is the standard-bearer of the traditional Shiite view of politics called quietism, which rejects the clerical rule invented by the Ayatollah Khomenei in Iran.
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Spencer produced the venerable Basil Pennington now deceased with the abbot, whose name I cannot recall, who invented centering prayer - a form of prayer that is pretty much associated with quietism.
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Spencer produced the venerable Basil Pennington now deceased with the abbot, whose name I cannot recall, who invented centering prayer - a form of prayer that is pretty much associated with quietism.
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This may have tended to give an obliquity to the disciple's understanding, or to arrest and dwarf its growth; to fix it in prejudices instead of training it to judgments; or to dispense with its exercise by merging it in a kind of quietism; so that the proper tendency of religion to excite intellectual activity was partly overruled and frustrated.
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Cameron brings a concerted historical and cultural analysis to bear on allegations of apathy, or quietism among the Millennial generation.
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Almost at once he sank down again into his brooding mood of isolation and quietism, roaming about the streets of Dresden, as he hail haunted those of Rome, by night or at unfrequented hours, very solitary, seeing few visitors, writing few letters, slowly finishing his photographic comedy, which he did not get off his hands until March, 1869.
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The real pessimism is quietism – not doing anything because nothing can be changed, argues Bauman: Why do I write books?
Zygmunt Bauman and ‘The poor will always be with us’ « Gerry Canavan
Note
The word 'quietism' comes ultimately from a Latin word meaning 'keep quiet, rest'.
