rationalism

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Reliance on reason as the best guide for belief and action.
2. n. Philosophy The theory that the exercise of reason, rather than experience, authority, or spiritual revelation, provides the primary basis for knowledge.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In general, adherence to the supremacy of reason in matters of belief or conduct, in contradistinction to the submission of reason to authority; thinking for one's self.
2. n. In theology:
3. n. In general, the subjection of religious doctrine and Scriptural interpretation to the test of human reason or understanding; the rejection of dogmatic authority as against reason or conscience; rational latitude of religious thought or belief.
4. n. More specifically, as used with reference to the modern sehool or party of rationalists, that system of doctrine which, in its extreme form, denies the existence of any authoritative and supernatural revelation, and maintains that the human reason is of itself, and unaided by special divine inspiration, adequate to ascertain all attainable religious truth. As a theological system rationalism regards the reason as the sole, final, and adequate arbiter of all religious questions, and is thus opposed to mysticism, which maintains the existence in man of a spiritual power transcending observation and the reasoning faculty. As a doctrinal system, it includes the doctrines founded upon rationalistic philosophy as a postulate, and embraces a denial of the authority of the Scripture and the supernatural origin of Christianity, but maintains as at least probable opinions the existence of a God and the immortality of the soul, and as indisputable facts the great principles of the moral law. As an interpretation of Scripture, it holds that the Scriptures themselves, rightly interpreted, corroborate rationalism; and thus it eliminates from them all supernatural elements. The term is. however, one of somewhat vague import, and is used with various modified meanings in modern polemical theology.
5. n. In metaphysics, the doctrine of a priori cognitions; the doctrine that knowledge is not all produced by the action of outward things upon the senses, but partly arises from the natural adaptation of the mind to think things that are true.

Wiktionary

1. n. philosophy The theory that the basis of knowledge is reason, rather than experience or divine revelation.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Theol.) The doctrine or system of those who deduce their religious opinions from reason or the understanding, as distinct from, or opposed to, revelation.
2. n. (Philos.) The system that makes rational power the ultimate test of truth; -- opposed to sensualism, or sensationalism, and empiricism.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (philosophy) the doctrine that knowledge is acquired by reason without resort to experience
2. n. the doctrine that reason is the right basis for regulating conduct
3. n. the theological doctrine that human reason rather than divine revelation establishes religious truth