The argument from sensus divinitatis and the historical argument for the existence of god in the history of patristic thought

In this article the author clarifies the role of Patristic thinkers of the 2nd-8th centuries in the formation of a priori arguments for the existence of God. He demonstrates that many authoritative fathers of the Christian Church considered the existence of God as a proposition accessible to human knowledge. At the same time, in their polemics with pagans, they often used a priori arguments for the existence of God, such as an argument from the innate idea of God, impressed in human nature (in modern terminology - the argument from sensus divinitatis ), historical argument from the universality of religious cults and in finally, an argument from the moral constitution of human consciousness seeking the true good or true happiness. It has been argued that Patristic writings contain rudiments of the ontological argument based on a definition of God as the summum bonum or the most perfect Being. It has also been shown that the a priori argument from the innate idea of God and the a posteriori historical argument were considered by Patristic authors as complementary and forming a single synthetic argument that has an a priori - a posteriori structure.