{"agent_id":"calvin","agent_name":"Jean Calvin","slug":"the-sensus-divinitatis","label":"The sensus divinitatis: is there a natural knowledge of God, and if so what does it accomplish?","topic":"The sensus divinitatis","question":"Is there a natural knowledge of God, and if so what does it accomplish?","position":"There is an awareness of divinity in every mind and the world displays its maker on every side, so that no one is ignorant. It suffices to leave every person inexcusable and it suffices for nothing else.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"There is an awareness of divinity in every mind and the world displays its maker on every side, so that no one is ignorant.","n":[]},{"t":"It suffices to leave every person inexcusable and it suffices for nothing else.","n":[1,2]}]],"texts":"*Institutes* I.iii–v; the commentary on Romans 1; the commentary on John 1. Reception: Barth's Nein to natural theology and the Brunner controversy of 1934; Alvin Plantinga's reformed epistemology, which takes the *sensus divinitatis* as the ground of properly basic belief in God.","works":["*Institutes* I.iii–v","the commentary on Romans 1","the commentary on John 1"],"reception":"Barth's Nein to natural theology and the Brunner controversy of 1934; Alvin Plantinga's reformed epistemology, which takes the *sensus divinitatis* as the ground of properly basic belief in God.","status":"Widely appropriated in twentieth-century philosophy of religion, and appropriated for a use the text does not obviously license.","era":"1509-1564","discipline":"Theology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol 1","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"It consists in faith, united with a serious fear of God, comprehending a voluntary reverence, and producing legitimate worship agreeable to the injunctions of the law. And this requires to be the more carefully remarked, because men in general render to God a formal worship, but very few truly reverence him; while great ostentation in ceremonies is universally displayed, but sincerity of heart is rarely to be found.","label":"Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol 1"},{"n":2,"work":"Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol 1","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"In the moment of tranquillity, they facetiously mock the Divine Being, and with loquacious impertinence derogate from his power. But if any despair oppress them, it stimulates them to seek him, and dictates concise prayers, which prove that they are not altogether ignorant of God, but that what ought to have appeared before had been suppressed by obstinacy. Chapter V.","label":"Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol 1"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"double-predestination","label":"Double predestination: does God eternally decree the reprobation of some as well as the election of others?"},{"slug":"the-lord-s-supper","label":"The Lord's Supper: in what sense is Christ present, if the elements are not changed and his body is not brought down?"}]}