Sensus Divinitatus

    The contemporary philosopher of religion Alvin Plantinga (tipping his hat to Calvin--see Calvin and Calvin & the Knowledge of God on this) defined the term ‘sensus divinatatus’ as, “a disposition or set of dispositions to form theistic beliefs in various circumstances, in response to the sorts of conditions or stimuli that trigger the working of this sense of divinity.”  

    This alleged disposition is generally conceived of as part of God’s work in the lives of unbelievers as a part of their rational endowment and though it can be diminished by sin (i.e. suppressing the truth in unrighteousness), by culture and even cognitive impairment (akin to color blindness), if true it plays an important role in bringing people to believe that God exists. (Compare with Romans 1:19-20.) That role in disposing “non-believers” to form beliefs that imply God’s existence is logically prior to believing in (or being committed) to God; this latter task being primarily (and perhaps wholly) the work of the Holy Spirit.

    So what we see is that if it is true that such dispositions and capacities are real, we have in another situation, whether or not you hold to various forms of predestination, where we have good cause to believe that God is doing work apart from human witness in this process of drawing His creatures to Himself. His sensus divinatatus is helping people form beliefs that imply God’s existence and His Holy Spirit is working on that knowledge to help the unbeliever become committed to Christ.

    Setting aside the question as to precisely just what is the Scriptural justification for the sensus divinatatus, we want to affirm that its reality does seem to cohere with the teaching of the New Testament. That should be comforting and take the pressure off of those of us who choose to participate in this mystery of proclaiming the gospel. It should also allow us to avoid over-pressing our arguments and give us greater confidence in our witnessing in most conversational circumstances because we believe that in all of these witnessing experiences while we do our 100% (in response to our stewardship duties), God does his 100% and his 100% is much, much more important than ours!

    So, remember that while rational arguments and verbally testifying to the good news that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself has intrinsic and instrumental value, the key is not to OVERLY rely on our part in that participation to see people either come to belief that God exists or finally, come to commitment to Jesus Christ.

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