John Calvin On the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation it is a little odd that we are still talking about Calvin's sensus divinitatis . For one thing, the sensus appears only at the beginning of the Institutes and is somewhat dismissed by Calvin as being inadequate for saving anyone. The sensus is also a species of innate idea. But ever since John Locke's Essay forced a retreat by nativists, talk of innate knowledge of anything has remained largely a niche activity. More recently, however, some philosophers of religion have proposed interpretations of Calvin's sensus that do not entail innate ideas and thus do not fall foul to Locke’s criticisms. Although much of the discussion of nativism has focused on the source of innate knowledge or its justification, I will focus on the nature of the sensus . Just what is it? There are two questions at hand. First, what did Calvin mean by a sense of the divine? In the first section, I will argue that, given Calvin...