Theological Term of the Week

sensus divinitatis
The innate true knowledge of God that all human beings have because they are created in the image of God; also called sensus, for short, or sense of deity.

• From scripture:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  (Ephesians 1:18-21, ESV)

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The Way Things Really and Truly Are

From Covenantal Apologetics by K. Scott Oliphant, the seventh tenet in a list of “ten crucial theological tenets for a covenantal, Christian apologetic”:

7. There is an absolute, covenantal antithesis between Christian theism and any other, opposing position. Thus, Christianity is true and anything opposing it is false. 

This should be obvious to any Christian, but it is oftentimes not as prominent in our thinking as it ought to be. When we claim to be Christians, we are doing more than just listing a biographical detail. We are claiming that the truth set forth in God’s revelation describes the way things really and truly are in the world. That is, we are saying that what God says about the world is the way the world really is. 

Any view or position that opposes what God has said is therefore, by definition, false and does not “fit” with the way the real world is. This means that the views of any who remain in unbelief are, in reality, illusions. They do not and cannot make sense of the world as it really is. Not only so, but, we should notice, there are at bottom only two options available to us. Either we bow the knee to Christ and affirm the truth of what God says, or we oppose him and thus attempt to “create” a world of our own making.

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Linked Together: Church History

A Question
Was the Reformation understanding of the gospel something new? Nathan Busenitz answers this question from the evidence of the New Testament and the pre-Reformation history of the church: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

A Quiz
Six questions to test your knowledge of church history at Koinonia.

An Account
Athanasius tells the compelling story of the heretic Arius’s death (The Cripplegate).