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LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

CALVIN’S REFORMED EPISTEMOLOGY

A PAPER

SUBMITTED TO DR. MARTIN KLAUBER

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE

CHHI 525

BY

CHAD RESSLER

WARREN, PA

MARCH 8, 2014



ii

Contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1

The Nature of the Sensus Divinitatis ...............................................................................................2

Universality of the Sensus ...............................................................................................................5

Calvin’s Reformed Epistemology Today .........................................................................................7

Conclusion .....................................................................................................................................10



1

Introduction

Throughout history, men have wrestled with the question of the existence of God and

how one can know that God exists. For many centuries, these questions were not openly debated

and Christianity was the major influence in society. As time progressed, however, this influence

began to weaken. Years of religious warfare, doctrinal debates, the Protestant Reformation, and

the Enlightenment all contributed to the weakening of Christianity and the rise of secularism. As

secularism gained ground, it became increasingly important for Christians to offer a defense of

the Christian faith as well as explanations of how a believer knows what he or she knows.

Perhaps most critical to the debate is one’s epistemology. The Enlightenment demanded that

beliefs be examined on the basis of the evidence if they are to be rationally held, while formerly

the belief in and knowledge of God required no such demand. To be rational, according to

Enlightenment thinkers, belief in and the existence of God must be proved via evidence.

However, prior to the Enlightenment, one man, John Calvin, laid the foundation for a Christian

epistemology that demonstrated belief in God to be perfectly rational without the sort of

evidentiary requirements that would follow with the Enlightenment. Kelly James Clark writes,

“It is the position of Reformed epistemology (likely the position Calvin held) that belief in God,

like belief in other persons, does not require the support of evidence or argument in order for it to

be rational”1. This paper will argue that, in fact, this is the position that Calvin held. It is the

purpose of this paper to demonstrate that Calvin’s formulation of the sensus divinitatis provides

the necessary foundation for knowledge of God without evidence or argument, and that Calvin’s

Reformed epistemology is the source from which this modern day apologetic method drew its

inspiration.

1 Steven B. Cowan, ed., Five Views On Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 267.



3

still retain this preconception. Calvin does not intend for the sensus to communicate that an

individual possessing the sensus has actual, direct knowledge of their Creator. The sensus must

be awakened within man before he is able to come fully into knowledge of God. Calvin writes,

“For although no man will now, in the present ruin of the human race, perceive God to be either

a father, or the author of salvation…until Christ interpose to make our peace”.5

That Calvin asserts the presence of a sensus within man begs the question as to why all

men do not then believe. For Calvin, the fall of man had serious consequences for the sensus;

says Calvin, “I speak only of that simple and primitive knowledge, to which the mere course of

nature would have conducted us, had Adam stood upright.”

6

Knowledge of God, had Adam

stood upright, would have flowed naturally from his being a creation of God. However, due to

Adam’s transgression sin entered the world affecting man’s thinking, feeling, behavior, etc. This

is most commonly referred to as the noetic effect of sin amongst theologians. In his discussion

of the effects of sin on mankind, Millard Erickson touches on a few with particular relevance

here.

One effect of sin on the human mind is what Erickson terms a “flight from reality” where

the sinner exhibits an “unwillingness to face reality”.7 Second, Erickson talks of the self-deceit

resulting from man’s sinful nature. This self -deceit produces hypocrisy and is one of the

fundamental problems denied when man sins.8 Calvin’s thought on the effects of sin on the

sensus divinitatis mirror both of these effects when he writes, “Mingled vanity and pride appear

in this, that when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves,

5 Calvin, Institutes, 40.

6 Ibid.

7 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3 ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 633.

8 Erickson, Christian Theology, 634



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as they ought to do, they measure him by their own carnal stupidity…”9 The fall has brought

about a tendency in man to suppress knowledge of the true God in exchange for vain speculation.

When presented with evidence, man must interpret that evidence. A pre-lapsarian sensus would

have provided the proper noetic structure for seeing in the creation evidence for God. However,

man’s post-lapsarian sensus has suffered damage and this damage leads one to either measure

God by their own carnal stupidity or misrepresent the facts in order to deny the reality of God’s

existence.

The sensus has both a moral and a metaphysical aspect to it, in Calvin’s thinking.10

For

Calvin, knowledge of God as creator and knowledge of Christ as Redeemer were two different

concepts (I, ii, 1). The fall prevented the sensus from enabling in man the ability to come to a

knowledge of Christ as Redeemer, thus preventing true knowledge of God. Paul Helm notes,

“rather, error is due to perversity or willfulness of the human self, a perversity that is

often…made possible by, self -deception”.11

As Erickson indicated, self-deceit is one of the

effects of the fall on man’s noetic structure. Calvin intertwines true knowledge of God with an

individual’s conscience. Both man’s intellect and morality must be open such that once man

looks at himself, he sees the true nature of his fallen character. Only when a person comes face to

face with God can they truly discern both themselves and their Creator.12

The problem of false religion and atheism appear to be defeaters to Calvin’s

epistemology. For, if a sense of the divine has been implanted in all mankind, then it would seem

9 Calvin, 46.

10 Paul Helm, “John Calvin, the Sensus Divinitatis, and the Noetic Effects of Sin”, International Journal for

Philosophy of Religion 43 (1998): 100.

11 Helm, 98.

12 Cornelius Van Der Kooi, “Within Proper Limits: Basic Feature of John Calvin's Theological

Epistemology”, Calvin Theological Journal 29 (1994): 368.



5

to follow that all men should believe. Calvin, anticipating these objections, turned these

arguments upon themselves in order to provide empirical evidence for the sensus as well as

establish its universality.

Universality of the Sensus

Calvin masterfully anticipates and answers objections to the sensus further strengthening

his argument that the sensus is universal, while at the same time offering empirical evidence for

its existence. Throughout Book I of the Institutes Calvin lays the groundwork for the sensus

divinitatis and how man comes to a knowledge of God. In Chapter 3 he pauses his discussion to

rightly address objections. Calvin has asserted that “a sense of Deity is inscribed on every

heart”.13

However, the existence of idolatry and atheism appear to challenge this argument.

Separately, Calvin addresses both.

Beginning with idolatry and false religion, Calvin writes, “For we know how reluctant

man is to lower himself, in order to set creatures above him. Therefore, when he chooses to

worship wood and stone rather than be thought to have no God, it is evident how very strong this

impression of Deity must be.”14 Calvin has thus posited a logical argument for the existence of

the sensus using the fact of idolatry which takes the form:

1. If idolatry exists, this proves man’s need for a Deity.

2. If a need for Deity exists, it is the result of the sensus divinitatis.

3. Idolatry exists.

4. Therefore, man’s need for a Deity is the result of the sensus divinitatis.

Calvin thus establishes that idolatry, which exists everywhere, is proof that a sense of the divine

resides in all men. Adams concurs with this conclusion in his own article where he notes that

13 Calvin, 43.

14 Ibid.



6

even though the sensus has been corrupted from the fall, a “sense of God persists” and is

manifested through idolatry.15

Perhaps one of the better known enemies of religion is Sigmund Freud. His

psychoanalytic theory suggested that an individual’s belief in God is the result of a wish

fulfillment mechanism.16

Freud believed that in adolescence one comes to the realization of a

world that is nasty, brutish, and short, to borrow from Thomas Hobbes, and thus creates out of

this anxiety an illusion designed to protect oneself.17

Thus, Freud viewed religion as a form of

neurosis that “substitutes for a more authentic personal reality”.18

Anticipating this objection almost four centuries prior, Calvin responds that it is quite

absurd to believe that man or a few men would have devised the existence of a deity had it not

first been implanted in their minds. Calvin, drawing from his extensive classical education, offers

the example of Caligula, one of the most wretched of Roman emperors as evidence. He writes,

“We do not read of any man who broke out into more unbridled and audacious contempt of

Deity than C. Caligula, and yet none showed greater dread when any indication of divine wrath

was manifested.”19 The most wretched individuals are themselves evidence that a sense of the

divine has been implanted in men’s souls. The absurdity that an individual would create such an

idea of his own will stands in stark contrast to man’s very nature. For the atheist, it is this sense

of the divine that is most wished, contra Freud, to be extinguished, not stoked. In fact, for Calvin

15 Adams, 286.

16 Stanton L. Jones and Richard E. Butman, Modern Psychotherapies: a Comprehensive Christian

Appraisal (Christian Association for Psychological Studies Partnership), 02 ed. (Downer Grove, IL: IVP Academic,

2011), 115.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Calvin, Institutes, 44.



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the very existence of the reprobate cemented his conclusion that a sense of the divine exists in all

men when he writes:

Still, however, the conviction that there is some Deity continues to exist, like a plant

which can never be completely eradicated, though so corrupt that it is only capable of

producing the worst of fruit. Nay, we have still stronger evidence of the proposition for

which I now contend – viz. that a sense of the Deity is naturally engraven on the human

heart, in the fact, that the very reprobate are forced to acknowledge it.20

Calvin’s Reformed Epistemology Today

Calvin’s Reformed epistemology, grounded in the sensus divinitatis, provided the

intellectual basis for a modern day apologetic. Leading Christian apologists such as Alvin

Plantinga, Kelly James Clark, and Nicholas Wolsterhoff have defended the idea that belief in

God is a natural tendency that is part of one’s noetic structure. As this tendency is activated by

experiences, Calvin’s sensus divinitatis (one’s natural tendency) naturally leads to a belief in

God.21

As was mentioned earlier, one of the greatest challenges to theistic belief arose during the

Enlightement with its emphasis on evidentiary requirement for belief. Enlightenment thinkers,

however, rested this claim on classic foundationalism. Foundationalism is defined as “the system

of one’s beliefs and their logical relations to one another”22

Moreover, according to

foundationalism, “only sensory beliefs or beliefs about the truths of reason should be allowed in

20 Calvin, 49.

21 W. Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic,

1998), 162-163.

22 Kelly James Clark, Return to Reason: a Critique of Enlightenment Evidentialism, and a Defense of

Reason and Belief in God (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990), 132.



8

the foundations”.23

These are the only beliefs that are allowed to be called properly basic beliefs,

and it is upon these beliefs that the foundations of one’s non-basic beliefs are built. At the heart

of strong foundationalism lies the heart of the evidentiary argument against the proper basicality

of belief in God, formulated thusly:

1. To be rational the theist must have sufficient evidence for the existence of God.

2. There is not sufficient evidence for the existence of God.24

Unfortunately for the evidentialist, the foundation upon which their objection lies renders

incoherent many of the beliefs that man holds. On this assumption, one has no good reason for

believing that the future will be like the past, that one’s spouse is a person, nor that other minds

exist. Perhaps Plantinga had the most devastating critique of classical foundationalism when he

asked whether classical foundationalism was, in itself, a properly basic belief when one cannot

observe any evidence for it.25

The problem with evidentialism based on classical

foundationalism, as Plantinga saw it, was that there were no good arguments for belief in other

minds and that such arguments were not even necessary for one to rationally hold to the belief in

other minds.26 Belief in God is analogous to belief in a person or belief in other minds. We do

not question the existence of other people or the existence of other minds, and so the evidentialist

objection to belief in God is, according to Plantinga, irrelevant.27

Clark concurs with Plantinga

when he suggests that the scientist who cannot leave evidentialist assumptions in the laboratory

23 J.P. Moreland & William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL:IVP Academic, 2003), 112.

24 Clark, Return to Reason, 135.

25 Ibid., 137.

26 Clark, 119.

27 Ibid.



9

would have a difficult time experience lasting friendships.28

Attempting to apply the scientific

method in all areas of knowing would seem to be met with some limitations.

The objection of classic foundationalism is not a defeater to theistic belief, for one can

hold to a weak version of foundationalism and hold that belief in God is, in fact, properly basic.

Calvin’s sensus divinitatis is perfectly compatible with a weak foundationalism that holds to

internalism. Internalism “claims that the conditions that ground properly basic beliefs are internal

to the knower.”29

It is the position of Reformed epistemology that, rather than arriving at God via

natural theological arguments, a person can come to know God through experiences.30

In fact,

Calvin’s own writing is in line with the internalist definition of knowledge as he suggested that

knowledge of God is not something that is “first learned at school”, but is something that derives

“from the womb”.31

Kelly James Clark also contends that Calvin saw individuals as being held

responsible not because they failed to believe in Him through evaluation of the natural

theological arguments, but rather because they suppressed the truth of him that was implanted.32

As Calvin established, the sensus is universal in all men. This sense of the divine, though

affected by the fall, still manifests itself both in idolatry and atheism. It would appear that Calvin

would have held to a weak foundationalist and internalist model of epistemology. Belief in God

for Calvin was properly basic and that, had the fall not occurred, man would universally belief in

the one true God. Like Calvin, Reformed epistemologists today hold that one can be entirely

rational by beginning with belief in God as one would begin with the belief that other people

28

Cowan, Five Views on Apologetics, 272.

29 Moreland and Craig, 114.

30 Wood, 164.

31 Calvin, 45.

32 Cowan, 272.



11

Bibliography

Adams, Edward. "Calvin's View of Natural Knowledge of God." International Journal of

Systematic Theology 3, no. 3 (November 2001): 280-92.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. one vol. [pbk.] ed. Translated by Henry

Beveridge. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989.

Clark, Kelly James. Return to Reason: a Critique of Enlightenment Evidentialism, and a Defense

of Reason and Belief in God . Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990.

Cowan, Steven B., ed. Five Views On Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000.

Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. 3 ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013.

Helm, Paul. "John Calvin, the Sensus Divinitatis, and the Noetic Effects of Sin." International

Journal for Philosophy of Religion 43 (1998): 87-107.

Jones, Stanton L., and Richard E. Butman. Modern Psychotherapies: a Comprehensive Christian

Appraisal (Christian Association for Psychological Studies Partnership). 02 ed. Downer

Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.

Moreland, J.P. and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview.

Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003.

Van Der Kooi, Cornelius. "Within Proper Limits: Basic Feature of John Calvin's Theological

Epistemology." Calvin Theological Journal 29 (1994): 364-87.

Wood, W. Jay. Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous. Downers Grove, IL: IVP

Academic, 1998.

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