The starting-point of this article is the fact that within the language of theology it is a widespread usage to identify public opinion with sensus fidelium. The Author is convinced that the two formulas cannot be directly superposed. An accurate examination of similarities and differences is necessary otherwise the undifferenciated use of the two locutions could bring elements of confusion and groundless conflict into the theological debate. As a matter of fact the difference does not only concern the (...) difference of field or disciplines - sociology for public opinion, theology for the sensus fidelium - so that it would be a matter of the same phenomena interpreted by different points of view. Even if similar dynamics in the two functions can be gathered, sensus fidelium and public opinion are of a different kind so that also subject, object, conditions and way of practice are different. On the basis of these differences the two dynamisms -both utterly important for the life of the Church - can be correctly applied in theology as well as in the more concrete praxis of the Church. (shrink)

This paper explores the contribution of Karl Rahner to theological reflection on the topic of the sensus fidelium and offers his thought as a resource towards rethinking ecclesial norms and praxis in the Roman Catholic Church. Rahner’s reflections bring to the surface a theological value at the heart of revelation, the sensus fidelium, which has remained latent in the Christian tradition. Rahner understood that the People of God as a whole are “Hearers of the Word.” They (...) share the collective responsibility of transmitting revelation from age to age. Rahner understood authoritative teachers of the faith to have a normative role in interpreting God’s revelation; yet the insights and collective faith consciousness of the faithful also provide a legitimate norm for the faith. This work presents Rahner’s thought on the sensus fidelium to show how it is relevant to present-day theological discussion and offers his ideas for integrating the value of the sensus fidelium into the practices of the Catholic Church. (shrink)

Lucas, Brian Review of: The breath of the spirit in the church: The sensus fidelium and canon law, by Anthony Ekpo, Strathfield, NSW: St Pauls, 2014, pp. 260, paperback, $24.95.

A pesquisa sobre o dogma mariano mostra que, no seu desenvolvimento, a experiência, mas, sobretudo, a fé vivida, precedeu as proclamações dogmáticas oficiais, de modo que é importante que o dogma mantenha contato com a fé viva da Igreja, pois é nesse contato, que aquilo que está ainda implícito se torne sempre mais explícito sem que haja mudança no seu conteúdo formal, porque não se trata de adição de verdades, e sim de clarificação da verdade. Esse estudo mostra também a (...) contribuição da psicologia das profundezas na compreensão da relação entre experiência e dogma. (shrink)

D'Arcy May, in his review, contends Magliola argues that the Buddhist doctrines of no-self and rebirth are contradictory, whereas Magliola in fact argues just the opposite--that these two Buddhist doctrines are not contradictory (and he explains why). What Magliola does contend is that Buddhist no-self and rebirth contradict the Catholic teachings of individual identity and "one life-span only." D'Arcy May's review contends that Magliola admits "authoritative statements" are "hard to come by" in Buddhism, whereas Magliola in his book contends that (...) "authoritative statements" play a very important role in Buddhism: his book explains how "authority" functions in Buddhism, and he directs readers to the careful "vetting" of his book--including his discussions of "authority in Buddhism"-- by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi (for Theravada) and Ven. Dr. Dhammadipa [Fa Yao] (for both Theravada and the two "Big Vehicles"). His book also cites approvals by several established academics who are Buddhologists. Magliola's "Reply" goes on to argue that D'Arcy May's interpretation of the "sensus fidelium" foists the opinions of "white intellectual elites and higher-income Catholics of the North Atlantic tier of countries and their geographical projections--Australia, etc. (only 9 percent of the world's Catholic population) upon the 68 percent of Catholics who live in the global South and East. Magliola's "Reply" also expresses his dismay that D'Arcy May, throughoout his review, dodges the pivotal Derridean notion of "samenesses erected by irreducible difference" though this "thought-motif" constitutes the scaffolding of Magliola's entire book. (shrink)

In chapter 5 of Pope Francis’s encyclical Fratelli tutti, the “better” politics is based on community social discernment as an embodied expression of the sensus fidelium. From the point of view of Latin American theology, it is reflected in people and populism; creative work and structural unemployment; party and movements; conflict and social friendship; value and discard. Without a categorization of these words in light of the Gospel, it will not be possible to address the threat posed by (...) the ecological, socio-environmental crisis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Christ's Male Sexuality and Acting In Persona Christi:A New Argument in Favor of the All-Male PriesthoodPaul Gondreau"One must be allowed to think about and discuss the issues.... [And on the issue of women's ordination] the discussion is still with us, it is still alive, and cannot be stifled [ersticken] by a paper [ein Papier]." So declares Archbishop Stefan Hesse of Hamburg, Germany, in the summer of 2020, where "a (...) paper" refers to an apostolic letter, Pope St. John Paul II's 1994 Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which definitively rules out the admissibility of women to priestly ordination.1 No doubt the archbishop was drawing inspiration from Cardinal Archbishop Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, who a month earlier had opined that arguments against women's ordination were becoming increasingly "weaker" (schwächer).2 In his capacity as president of the German bishops' conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing [End Page 805] of Limburg also pronounced on the issue in even more unabated terms; after insisting in June of the same year that Catholics can "continue to talk about the issue of women's ordination," he went further in an interview with the German magazine Herder Korrespondenz six months later: "There are well-developed arguments in theology in favor of opening up the sacramental ministry to women," he asserted, after declaring his desire for "change" (Veränderung), a change that he opined could begin with ordaining women as deacons before ordaining them as priests and bishops.3 Two years later, Bätzing remained adamant, going so far as to declare to speak in the name of the faith of the entire Church on this issue: "The sensus fidelium, that is, the sense of the faithful," he stated, "has moved on" (geht weiter).4 Since the deposit of faith, of which the sensus fidelium is expressive, does not and cannot "move on," that is, change, Bätzing's appeal to the sensus fidelium marks a curious—if also audacious—move, to say the least.It appears we are destined ever "to think about and discuss" the issue of women's ordination, no matter if the Holy Father himself, in the person of the John Paul II, should seek to quell this discussion in the strongest and most authoritative of terms: "In order that all doubt be removed regarding [this] matter," writes the Polish Pontiff, "I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful" (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis §4).As regards John Paul II's assertion that his judgment is to be "definitively held" by all Catholics, it is worth recalling that, even if one high-ranking German churchman (Hesse) might esteem Ordinatio Sacerdotalis as [End Page 806] tantamount to ein Papier das erstickt, "a paper that stifles," another, Joseph Ratzinger (in his role as cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF], before becoming Pope Benedict XVI), holds up John Paul II's apostolic letter as expressive of the infallible teaching of the Church's ordinary magisterium and as "belonging to the deposit of faith." As such, the letter requires all Catholics, asserts Ratzinger, to offer their "definitive assent" to the Holy Father's pronouncement.5John Paul II and Ratzinger may as well have been talking to the wind. If Archbishop Hesse and his disparaging attitude—dismissing a papal apostolic letter as a paper that "stifles"—serves to indicate what "definitive assent" looks like, and if Bishop Bätzing can find that the deposit of faith (represented by the sensus fidelium), particularly as it concerns women's ordination, is able to "move on," it is no wonder that we find the issue "still alive." And recall Hesse and Bätzing hardly stand alone among German prelates in their willingness to ignore Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, as Cardinal Marx and the much touted German "synodal way" show (the archbishop of Luxembourg, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, could also be added to the list).6 Further, when Hesse asserts, "one must be allowed to think about and discuss [women's ordination]," there is little doubt that, for him and those... (shrink)

This paper takes as its point of departure the rise of online Adoration of the Reserved Sacrament during the widespread suspension of worship in response to COVID‐19. Taking the phenomenon seriously as an instance of the sensus fidelium exposes limitations in the Tridentine formulation of the mode of sacramental presence. Alternative approaches may be developed with reference to the thinking of two post‐Heideggerian philosophers, Marion and Nancy, who in different ways explore the subject's encounter with the divine in (...) the phenomenal world as a double kenosis, without reference to an abstract concept of Being. These accounts together suggest an account of adoration as a kenotic response to divine kenosis and so suggest understandings of Eucharistic Adoration that are not bounded by the constraints of physical materiality. The paper concludes by considering the wider applicability of this approach in a world that is, increasingly, a hybrid of physical and ‘virtual’ phenomena and at a time when US Catholics are believed to be losing their faith in the real presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements. (shrink)

During the summer of 2006, over four hundred Catholic ethicists from around the world gathered for four days in Padua, Italy. About sixty of the conference papers have become available in two edited collections, Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church: The Plenary Papers from the First Cross-cultural Conference on Catholic Theological Ethics, and Applied Ethics in a World Church: The Padua Conference. As the conference was marked by a distinctive and creative tension—between the diversity which characterized the nationalities and (...) cultural identities of the participants, on the one hand, and the commonness of their religious heritage, on the other—these essays can tell us much about contemporary Catholic ethics in its response to global pluralism. The following develops four reflections. First, the conference papers pursue a style of scholarship that is at once critically creative and ecclesially rooted. Second, the conference raises new concerns about the importance that Christian formation must have in a pluralist world. Third, the participants affirm and defend the ultimate universality of moral goods while also arguing that these goods are expressed and embodied in unavoidably particular ways. Finally, the most important contribution that Catholic ethics can make to public conversations about issues of common concern is through its articulation and defense of key human values. (shrink)

La actual etapa en la recepción del Concilio Vaticano II se caracteriza por recuperar la primacía hermenéutica del capítulo II de Lumen Gentium. De este modo se reconoce el carácter vinculante y permanente del sensus fidei fidelium en la construcción del consensus omnium fidelium. El presente artículo ofrece una profundización de esta eclesiología del Pueblo de Dios a la luz de una reconfiguración sinodal. Esto implicará una renovación de la identidad y la vocación de los sujetos eclesiales, (...) y una reforma de la organización y el funcionamiento de las estructuras. En esta nueva etapa se reconoce a la sinodalidad como dimensión constitutiva de la Iglesia. Sin embargo, esto supone diseñar un nuevo modo de proceder eclesial. En este sentido, proponemos que el reto actual debe enfocarse en la construcción de una eclesialidad sinodal que genere un proceso de sinodalización de toda la Iglesia. Se trata de crear la circularidad entre la escucha, el discernimiento, la elaboración y la toma de decisiones en la Iglesia, ya que la eclesiología del Pueblo de Dios nos enseña que en los procesos sinodales se expresa el sensus ecclesiae totius populi y no solo el sensus ecclesiae de la jerarquía. El presente artículo pretende ofrecer el marco hermenéutico para construir una eclesialidad sinodal, lo cual supone, una relectura y profundización de la Eclesiología del Pueblo de Dios, como la presentaremos en este artículo. (shrink)

This essay examines the strengths and weakness of Newman’s argument in “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine” that the lay faithful throughout history are the guarantors of orthodox doctrine by examining Newman’s understanding of the lay faithful, the sensus and consensus fidelium, and his historiographical methodology.

Der sensus communis vermittelt Apriori und Aposteriori, Intellektualität und Sinnlichkeit, Inter- und Intrasubjektivität. Die Studie analysiert die Bedeutungen und Funktionen des Begriffs in Kants Gesamtwerk, wobei sie Kants Einteilung der Philosophie folgt: Sie untersucht den sensus communis logicus im theoretischen Bereich, den sensus communis aestheticus im ästhetischen Bereich und den sensus communis practicus im praktischen Bereich.

A key element of Plantinga’s religious epistemology is that de jure objections to Theistic belief succeed only if de facto objections to Theistic belief succeed. He defends that element, in part, by claiming that human beings have an innate theistic faculty, the sensus divinitatis. In this paper, I argue that Plantinga’s religious epistemology makes Christian Theism open to a de facto objection due to the characteristics and distribution of religious beliefs in the world. I defend my argument from a (...) potential objection from skeptical theism, before concluding with a comparison to a similar argument. (shrink)

This article addresses the underestimation of Medieval philosophy in the contemporary curriculum by engaging its very origins in the ‘postmodern’ dislocation of philosophy. The leading question is what would be the prospects in the 21st century of reorienting Western philosophy from its idea-historical sources, which would include its ancient traditions and the Medieval exposition, as well as the Renaissance elucidation thereof. Critically engaging the works of numerous ‘postmodern’ philosophers as well as critics of the ‘postmodern’ departure from traditional philosophy, this (...) article argues for the re-establishment of the late Medieval notion of sensus communis, both as common sense and community sense. Against this backdrop, the article reappraises Medieval thought within the context of sensus communis to combat the contemporary dislocation of philosophy, by raising the possibility of the presentation of first-order judgments via sensus communis in a new pursuit for wijsbegeerte. (shrink)

John D. Schaeffer shows how the seventeenth-century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico synthesized Greek and Roman ideas of what "sensus communis" and what ...

Die Abhandlung widmet sich der Explikation des Gemeinsinns in der dritten Kritik Immanuel Kants. Dabei zeigt sich, dass Kant die Exposition des Gemeinsinns deutlich von der Rolle des ,sensus communis' in der Deduktion der reinen Geschmacksurteile unterscheidet. Auf den ersten Blick könnte der Eindruck entstehen, dass der ,sensus communis' lediglich eine exkursartige, randständige Bedeutung in der Kantischen Philosophie einnähme. Bei näherer Betrachtung zeigt sich aber, dass er Implikationen aufweist, die in deren Kern führen: Untersucht werden insbesondere das Verhältnis (...) von Gemeinsinn, reflektierender Urteilskraft und Moralmetaphysik sowie Gemeinsinn und Subjektivität . Schließlich ist zu fragen, ob und inwiefern die Statik der Kantischen Vernunft-Konzeption im Lichte der dritten Kritik in der Richtung einer Selbstkonstitution der Vernunft 'verflüssigt' werden kann. (shrink)

Homosexuality is not easily accepted in the Catholic Church. There are at least three major schools concerning the attitude towards homosexuality based on their respective theological methodologies (scientia fidei). The first school is encapsulated in the Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), which rejects homosexual persons and same-sex sexual relationships. The second school is put forward by John J. McNeill (1993), a moralist who embraces homosexual persons and same-sex sexual relationships. (...) The last one is represented by the document of Amoris Laetitia (2016), which accepts homosexual persons but disapproves of same-sex sexual relationships. These three major schools refer to the interpretation of the document Persona Humana article 8 (1975). A survey of 566 respondents was conducted from the 8th to the 15th of November in 2022. The results show that 74.2% of respondents have a form of acceptance in accordance with Amoris Laetitia, 14.5% with the Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, and 5.5% with the thoughts of John J. McNeill. Our study concluded that accepting homosexual persons and rejecting homosexual acts is the reference for ad experimentum moral decisions in the context of the Archdiocese of Jakarta in 2022. Abstrak Homoseksualitas tidak begitu mudah diterima dalam Gereja Katolik. Setidaknya ada tiga aliran yang berbeda sikap terhadap homoseksualitas berdasarkan pandangan teologi (scientia fidei) masing-masing. Aliran pertama terwakili oleh dokumen Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986) yang menolak pribadi homoseksual dan hubungan seksual sesama jenis. Aliran kedua diwakili oleh seorang moralis bernama John J. McNeill (1993) yang menerima pribadi homoseksual dan hubungan seksual sesama jenis. Aliran ketiga terwakili oleh dokumen Amoris Laetitia (2016) yang menerima pribadi homoseksual namun menolak hubungan seksual sesama jenis. Ketiga aliran besar ini mengacu pada penafsiran dokumen Persona Humana artikel 8 (1975). Sejak tanggal 8 sampai dengan 15 November 2022 kami melakukan survei terhadap 566 responden. Hasil survei menunjukkan sebanyak 74.2% responden memiliki bentuk penerimaan sesuai dengan Amoris Laetitia; sebanyak 14.5% responden memiliki bentuk penerimaan sesuai dengan dokumen Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons; dan sebanyak 5.5% responden memiliki bentuk penerimaan sesuai dengan pemikiran John J. McNeill. Kami menyimpulkan bahwa sikap menerima pribadi homoseksual dan menolak tindakan homoseksual merupakan rujukan keputusan moral ad experimentum dalam konteks Keuskupan Agung Jakarta di tahun 2022. Kata-kata Kunci: Homoseksualitas, Persona Humana, Amoris Laetitia, John J. McNeill, sensus fidei, scientia fidei. (shrink)

In the literature on Hannah Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, two sorts of claim have been made by different interpreters. First, there is Beiner’s observation that there is a shift in Arendt’s thoughts on judgment, which has led to the idea that Arendt develops two distinct theories of judgment. The second sort of claim concerns Arendt’s use of Kant’s transcendental principles. At its core, it has led to the critique that Arendt detranscendentalizes — or empiricalizes — Kant, by linking (...) Kant’s judgments of taste to an empirical sociability. In this article, I argue against both of these claims. Early fragments of Arendt’s on judgment make clear that she develops only one theory of judgment. It is only that it is not until later in her life that she fully elaborates it. Nor does Arendt confuse Kant’s idea of enlarged thinking with an actual dialogue with others. In fact, Arendt introduces an interesting interdependence between judgment and speech, or communication. I develop my argument by first outlining the problems Arendt hoped to resolve via judgment. Through my reading of the Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, I show how Arendt interprets Kant’s Critique of Judgment not as his theory of aesthetic judgments, but as an answer to the more general question ‘How do I judge?’ I also clarify the difference Arendt draws between common sense and community sense. With community sense, Arendt uncovers a foundation not only for men as political beings but also for the idea of humanity. This finding is often overlooked in the literature. I conclude with another Arendtian distinction that is often overlooked, that between spectators and the solitary philosopher. (shrink)

La base conceptual de lo que sería más tarde desarrollado por las vanguardias artísticas fue colonizada por alemanes de pensamiento romántico e idealista, cuya dimensión utópica puede ser fácilmente reconocida en el «antiguo programa del idealismo alemán» (1796), un texto que consagró un pensamiento idealista, que clamó por una nueva racionalidad o una mitología de la razón de Hegel, la intuición intelectual de Schelling y la Humanidad de Schiller. Aunque este proyecto de emancipación desarrollado más tarde por la vanguardia ha (...) perdido su credibilidad para nosotros, todavía tenemos que investigar en qué medida el arte de hoy puede mantener una función social. Este artículo señala algunos conceptos idealistas a la luz de una filosofía del arte, y fue creado siguiendo las líneas esbozadas en la Crítica del juicio de Kant, que han contribuido a la historia de la «avanzada» del arte. (shrink)

Giambattista Vico first published his masterpiece The New Science in 1725, but it did not receive much attention from the academic world until the middle of the twentieth century. The last fifty years of academic research have witnessed a so-called “linguistic” and “cultural” turn which has revived our interest in this great Italian thinker. Looking at the Vichian scholarship of the recent past, it seems that Vico’s theory of poetic wisdom has gained a great deal of recognition and deservedly so, (...) but his concept of sensus communis is yet to be fully appreciated. The present article thus tries to discuss the constructive and imaginative function of language and culture not just through the notion of poetic logic but also in relation to that of common sense, which hopefully can shed some light on the perennial debate over the criterion of truth and aesthetic judgement. (shrink)

Prvi deo rada sadrzi pokusaj analize Kantovih pojmova svrhovitosti i harmonije i, u izvesnom smislu, njihovog medjusobnog odnosa, kao i odnosa sa osecanjem zadovoljstva. Toj analizi ce se pristupiti uz osvrt na Saftsberijev uvid u, danas tako nazvane,?second order affections?, i njihov znacaj u drustveno-politickoj filozofiji. Zakljucno ce se ovaj prvi deo rada baviti Kantovim shvatanjem sensus communis-a, i pokusati da ukaze na neke njegove specificnosti, koje omogucuju da se o njemu ne govori kao o empirijskom faktu. Drugi deo (...) rada pokusace da ukaze na polozaj sensus communis-a u Kantovoj politickoj filozofiji i situaciji, i neke implikacije koje bi se iz toga mogle izvesti. (shrink)

Although some philosophers accept an atomistic view of sense impressions, most acknowledge that we are aware not merely of isolated disparate sense data, but of concrete sensible wholes. One of many philosophical problems faced by these philosophers, however, is to explain how these distinct simultaneously presented sensible aspects are subjectively and objectively cognized as belonging to the same particular object. The traditional Thomistic solution is the sensus communis. Recently, however, the validity of that response has been called into question. (...) As a result, the purpose of this paper is to sketch the positions involved in the debate, present St. Thomas’s account of the sensus communis, and argue that both the commentary tradition and a recent critic have overlooked an important aspect of that account. (shrink)

Inspired by Alvin Plantinga, many philosophers of religion accept the existence of a sensus divinitatis, a cognitive mechanism that produces religious beliefs. In this paper I will argue that there are no good reasons to accept the existence of a sensus divinitatis and hence its existence should not be affirmed. Plantinga gives two arguments for its existence, one empirical and one from the nature of God. I will argue that the first argument fails because God’s nature makes it (...) more likely that he lets himself be known through other means. In order to criticize the second argument I rely on recent empirical data on religious cognition and argue that it does not lend support to accepting the existence of a sensus divinitatis or a similar cognitive mechanism. (shrink)

In Ordinatio I, 39 Scotus distinguishes two ways in which the distinction between sensus compostionis and sensus divisionis can be made: According to the first way the „composition and division“ relates to two different (sensus divisionis) or one and the same (sensus compositionis) instants of time; according to the other the distinction is made between an assertion of compossibility of the contradictory predicates in one and the same instant of time (sensus compositionis) and an assertion (...) of actuality of the one and possibility of the other of the contradictory predicates in one and the very same instant of time (sensus divisionis). The author presents a formal logical analysis of all these various senses of modal propositions and shows how Scotus strictly separated modality from temporality, and contingency from mutability. (shrink)

One of the foundational concepts for Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theological anthropology is his notion of ‘openness to the world.’ Openness to the world, according to Pannenberg, is essential to human identity in that one’s identity is established in their openness to the world, to the other, and, ultimately, to God. I aim to bring Pannenberg’s openness to the world into dialogue with the concept of the sensus divinitatis as articulated by John Calvin and further developed by Alvin Plantinga. The question (...) driving this paper is whether or not Pannenberg’s openness to the world can rightly be understood as the sensus divinitatis, and, if so, what might be some benefits of it. I conclude that Pannenberg’s understanding of openness to the world is a fruitful way of understanding the sensus divinitatis and a fruitful way of arguing for and explaining humanity’s innate knowledge of God. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga's notion of sensus divinitatis ("sense of divinity") refers to a human cognitive faculty designed to produce theistic beliefs that have warrant (positive epistemic status). While most of Plantinga's commentators focus on whether introducing this notion really helps to defend the rationality of theistic beliefs, the genetic aspect of the operation of the sensus divinitatis is often overlooked. This paper is devoted to fill this gap. On the basis of Plantinga's opus magnum titled Warranted Christian Belief, I (...) distinguish three different interpretations of how sensus divinitatis creates theistic beliefs. I also analyse the ways in which human sin impairs the proper functioning of this sense of divinity in each of these interpretations. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende compreender o ser da Igreja inserido na história enquanto mistério de comunhão. Os textos bíblicos do AT manifestam a entidade teológica denominada Igreja que encontra o seu sentido pleno nos textos do NT. Os escritos de Inácio de Antioquia nos remetem a afirmação de que a eclesiologia se funda sobre a cristologia. A eclesiologia de São Irineu de Lião é caracterizada pelo tema da recapitulação e da tradição. Encontramos, também, em Cipriano uma eclesiologia da unidade. Em (...) Santo Atanásio a origem da Igreja está na pessoa do Logos. Na Escolástica temos uma passagem de uma compreensão mística para uma compreensão jurídica da Igreja. O Concílio Vaticano I é considerado o ponto de transição da teologia pós-tridentina para uma nova eclesiologia. A compreensão Trinitária da Igreja do Concílio Ecumênico Vaticano II afirma que a orientação do agir eclesial pressupõe a natureza intrínseca do ser da Igreja visto que é somente compreendendo a si mesma que a Igreja compreende a sua vocação na história humana. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga theorizes the existence of a sensus divinitatis – a special cognitive faulty or mechanism dedicated to the production and non-inferential justification of theistic belief. Following Chris Tucker, we offer an evidentialist-friendly model of the sensus divinitatis whereon it produces theistic seemings that non-inferentially justify theistic belief. We suggest that the sensus divinitatis produces these seemings by tacitly grasping support relations between the content of ordinary experiences (in conjunction with our background evidence) and propositions about God. (...) Our model offers advantages such as eliminating the need for a sui generis religious faculty, harmonizing the sensus divinitatis with prominent theories in the cognitive science of religion, and providing a superior account of natural revelation. (shrink)