principial

comparative more principial · superlative most principial

1. Elementary; fundamental.

   My only aim will be to trace the dislocating work of the two conditions that ensue, namely, the principial condition over which the foundation presides and the ground as the originary condition.

   2003, Reiner Schürmann, Broken Hegemonies, page 274

   2 more examples

   On account of heat being kindled by the attrition of bodies, reject a principial nature. By principial nature I mean that which exists in the nature of things positively, and not as the effect of any antecedent nature.

   1620, Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

   The latter, a principial christocentrism, may include the monergistic view of salvation, but it will also assume that Christ is the principium cognoscendi theologiae or, in Kickel's phrase the Erkenntnissgrund of theology.

   2011, David Gibson, Reading the Decree