1854-1921. Dutch Reformed Theologian and Churchman. Professor at Free University in Amsterdam.
The natural, universal, and necessary character of religion and the knowledge of God already in ancient times led to the idea that it was increated in humans and innate by nature. It is simply a fact, certainly, that all persons from their earliest youth are conscious of a psychic, spiritual, invisible world as well as of a physical one. Though truth and falsehood, good and evil, right and wrong, and beauty and ugliness are not quantifiable entities and cannot be perceived by the five senses, they are things the reality of which is much more firmly fixed in our consciousness than that of matter and force. Materialism may only take into consideration gravity, temperature, and electricity, but faith, hope, and love, which are very different forces, have nevertheless governed humankind and kept it from sinking into bestiality. Augustine was right when he wrote that the truth of spiritual things is actually much more certain than that of visible things. “Nothing can be more absurd than to say that the objects we see with our eyes have being while the things we discern with our intellect do not, since only a fool would doubt the fact that the intellect is of incomparably higher rank than the eyes.” The truths of mathematics and logic and the principles of ethics, jurisprudence, and religion are indubitably established for everyone. Their natural, universal, and necessary character cannot be denied by anyone. As “innate ideas” they seem to be congenitally a part of human nature.
~Herman Bavinck~
Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation John Bolt and John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 59-60.
!["To master [the works of John Owen] is to be a profound theologian." - Charles Spurgeon
John Owen's magisterial volume 3 on The Holy Spirit is a great place to dive in (link in bio).](https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/c257.0.565.565/19436935_1508797549181404_2209263887809773568_n.jpg "\"To master [the works of John Owen] is to be a profound theologian.\" - Charles Spurgeon
John Owen's magisterial volume 3 on The Holy Spirit is a great place to dive in (link in bio).")
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And surely Calvin is closer here, in his view of natural theology! Later this is part of Common Grace.