Sensus divinitatis (Latin for "sense of divinity"), also referred to as sensus deitatis ("sense of deity") or semen religionis ("seed of religion"), is a term first employed by French Protestant reformer John Calvin to describe a postulated human sense. Instead of knowledge of the environment (as with, for example, smell or sight), the sensus divinitatis is believed to give humans a knowledge of God.[1]
In Calvin's view, there is no reasonable non-belief:
Jonathan Edwards, the 18th-century American Calvinist preacher and theologian, claimed that while every human being has been granted the capacity to know God, a sense of divinity, successful use of these capacities requires an attitude of "true benevolence". Analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame posits a similar modified form of the sensus divinitatis in his Reformed epistemology whereby all have the sense, only it does not work properly in some humans, due to sin's noetic effects.[2]
Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner proposed an innate sense or pre-apprehension of God, which has been noted to share elements in common with Calvin's Sensus Divinitatis.[3] This concept of innate knowledge of God is similar to the Islamic concept of Fitra.
Neo-Calvinists who adhere to the presuppositionalist school of Christian apologetics sometimes appeal to a sensus divinitatis to argue that there are no genuine atheists.
Research in the cognitive science of religion suggests that the human brain has a natural and evolutionary predisposition towards theistic beliefs, which Kelly James Clark argues is empirical evidence for the presence of a sensus divinitatis.[4]
Philosopher Evan Fales presents three arguments against the presence of a sensus divinitatis:[5]
Philosopher Steven Maitzen claimed in 2006 that the demographics of religious belief make the existence of the sensus divinitatis unlikely, as this sense appears so unevenly distributed.[6] However, Maitzen may have confused Aquinas's sensus dei with sensus divinitatis—sensus divinitatis (a religious sense) only necessitates a core religious/faith component to one's beliefs, whereas the sensus dei aims at a natural knowledge of God—compare In the Twilight of Western Thought by Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977).[7]
Hans Van Eyghen further argues that the phenomenological description of the sensus divinitatis does not match what the cognitive sciences show about religious belief.[8]