Testimony of the soul
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 3 anchored passages
testimony of the soul · common senses · natural knowledge of God · the soul naturally Christian
in the texts
Apologeticum
The argument that the human soul, in its natural exclamations, unconsciously testifies to the one true God.
Will you have us prove him from the testimony of the soul itself?
Though it is pressed by the prison of the body, though circumscribed by depraved teachings, though enervated by lusts and concupiscences, though enslaved to false gods — yet, when it comes to itself, as from a surfeit, as from sleep, as from some sickness, and recovers its health, it names God, by this name alone, because it is properly the true God, this one alone.
De Carnis Resurrectione
Natural, popular perceptions of divine truths, useful as testimony but not sufficient for full doctrine.
For some things are known even by nature:
And so the heretics begin at once from there, and build their first foundation there, and afterwards build in between — from that point at which they know minds are easily caught, the agreeable fellowship of the senses.