infallibility
Impossibility of mistakes
Infallibility is the quality of being incapable of error or failure.
The term appears most often in religious contexts—papal infallibility is the Catholic doctrine that the Pope cannot err when speaking officially on matters of faith and morals.
More broadly, infallibility describes any claim to perfect judgment or reliability: He spoke with an air of infallibility that irritated his colleagues.
The word often carries skeptical overtones, since few accept that any human institution is truly incapable of being wrong.
Total freedom from mistakes
- scriptureSacred religious writings
- divineOf or from gods
- revelationSurprising disclosed truth
- orthodoxyAdherence to accepted beliefs
doctrine · dogma · canon · creed · authority · inspiration · tradition · exegesis
Total freedom from mistakes
- unerringConsistently accurate, unfailing
- foolproofIncapable of failure
- surenessAbsence of uncertainty
- irrefutabilityImpossible to argue against
conclusiveness · undeniability · absoluteness · reliability · dependability · trustworthiness · assurance · conviction
Papal city-state
- PopeCatholic Church's supreme leader
- pontiffSupreme Catholic leader
- apostolicOf the first disciples
- encyclicalFormal papal circular letter
dogma · cathedra · conclave · primacy · succession · canonization · ecumenical · Roman
Total absence of doubt
- knowledgeUnderstood facts and skills
- truthAccordance with reality
- validityQuality of being sound
- objectivityFreedom from personal bias
foundationalism · Descartes · reason · logic · belief · judgement · rationality · skepticism
Entirely without fault
- impeccableFree from any defect
- faultlessFree from any defect
- unerringConsistently accurate, unfailing
- inerrantWholly free from fault
unblemished · immaculate · precision · accuracy · exactness · excellence · ideal · consummate
inerrancy
Total freedom from mistakes
- scriptureSacred religious writings
- divineOf or from gods
- revelationSurprising disclosed truth
orthodoxy · doctrine · dogma · canon · creed · authority · inspiration · tradition · exegesis · prophecy
inerrancy
Total freedom from mistakes
irrefutability · conclusiveness · undeniability · absoluteness · reliability · dependability · trustworthiness · assurance · conviction · definiteness
Vatican
Papal city-state
encyclical · dogma · cathedra · conclave · primacy · succession · canonization · ecumenical · Roman · Catholicism
certainty
Total absence of doubt
objectivity · foundationalism · Descartes · reason · logic · belief · judgement · rationality · skepticism · Popper
flawless
Entirely without fault
- impeccableFree from any defect
- faultlessFree from any defect
- unerringConsistently accurate, unfailing
inerrant · unblemished · immaculate · precision · accuracy · exactness · excellence · ideal · consummate · supreme
- Catholic ChurchVatican, papacy, cardinals, popes, papal
- CatholicismVatican, cardinals, pope, Holy Communion, popes
- papacypontiff, Pope, pope, Holy See, papal election
- Church disputesschism, Great Schism, Arian controversy, Monophysitism, iconoclasm
- megalomaniamegalomania, delusions of grandeur, grandiosity, messiah complex, savior complex
- Popepontiff, Holy Father, papacy, papal, Vatican
infallibilityfallibility
Liability to err
errancy · error-proneness · imperfection · faultiness · imprecision
infallibilityunreliability
Tendency to disappoint expectations
untrustworthiness · undependability · inconsistency · unpredictability · uncertainty
infallibilityfrailty
Weakness of body
human weakness · mortality · vulnerability · limitedness · fallibility
- papal infallibilityPontiff's error-free teaching authority