Sensus Divinitats and Science

Just this week, I was listening to an excellent podcast by Dan Koch with the theologian Miroslav Volf, and they ventured into the territory of human self-transcendence and how that human characteristic might open us up to the Transcendent. This has been called the religious a priori by many 19th century liberal theologians (among others). 

It got me to thinking about various connections with the Cognitive Science of Religion (which Justin Barrett describes expertly and theologically here) and its similar findings about the natural structure of the human mind, all of which will appear in the Science for the Church newsletter on Tuesday, July 14. These are some notes that didn't make it into the newsletters.

It may surprise some in the Reformed tradition—at least those who have read Karl Barth’s cavils against “natural theology”—that the seminal voice of Reformed theology, John Calvin, wrote similarly of the "the sense of the divine" (sensus divintatis). Calvin was not out to prove God, but to state that inherent in human existence is a basic, vague, and powerful natural knowledge of God. Indeed, in Calvin’s vastly influential 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote, 

“There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity.” John Calvin

This sensus divinitatis is “beyond dispute” according to Calvin.

It appears in other places. For example, C.S. Lewis wrote about this desire for God in his brilliant novel, Till We Have Faces, 

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing… to find the place where all this beauty came from.” C.S. Lewis

But I have to admit that I wonder, is that true? Increasingly with my Chico State University students, 40% of whom answer "None of the Above," when asked, "Which religion do you affiliate with?" I've also asked them whether they believe in a transcendent reality. And many don't. To be more precise, I did this in a Great Books class where we read Augustine, Lucretius, Lewis, Kurzweil and others on the theme of transcendence. Of course, Augustine describe transcendence as central, while Lucretius outright denies it and Kurzweil as well, though in a transhumanism motif. This experience has been replicated in my Death, Dying, and the Afterlife class where I teach about naturalism (like Lucretius) with various religions on these subjects. Many students--though not all, to be sure--express their agreement. We are our bodies. We die. Game over. And that's fine.

The preponderance of the evidence from history, from contemporary science, and even statistical analysis all support the conclusion. 

But it's worth asking: Is this desire for transcendence and the sensus divinitatis cultural and not natural? Is it therefore something we've been taught, but that today many aren't learning at all?