Hobbes: Philosophy of Religion

Prior to 1651, Hobbes was agnostic about the existence of God. Hobbes argued that God’s existence could neither be demonstrated nor proved, so that those who reason about God’s existence will systematically vacillate, sometimes thinking God exists, sometimes not, which for Hobbes is to say they will doubt God’s existence. Because this vacillation or doubt is inherent to the subject, reasoners like himself will judge that settling on one belief rather than another is epistemically unjustified. Hobbes’s agnosticism becomes apparent once (...) we attend to his distinctions between the propositional attitudes one might adopt towards theological claims, including supposing, thinking, having faith and knowing. (shrink)

What motivated an absolutist Erastian who rejected religious freedom, defended uniform public worship, and deemed the public expression of disagreement a catalyst for war to endorse a movement known to history as the champion of toleration, no coercion in religion, and separation of church and state? At least three factors motivated Hobbes’s 1651 endorsement of Independency: the Erastianism of Cromwellian Independency, the influence of the politique tradition, and, paradoxically, the contribution of early-modern practices of toleration to maintaining the public sphere’s (...) religious uniformity. The third factor illustrates how a key function of the emerging private sphere in the early-modern period was to protect uniformity, rather than diversity; it also shows that what was novel was not so much the public/private distinction itself, but the separation of two previously conflated dimensions of publicity – visibility and representativeness – that enabled early-modern Europeans to envisage modes of worship out in the open, yet still private. (shrink)

Leo Strauss’s _The Political Philosophy of Hobbes_ deservedly ranks among his most widely acclaimed works. In it Strauss argues that the basis for Hobbes’s natural and political science is his interest in “self-knowledge of man as he really is.” The writings collected in this book, each written prior to that classic volume, complement that account. Thus at long last, this book allows us to have a complete picture of Strauss’s interpretation of Hobbes, the thinker pivotal to the fundamental theme of (...) his life’s work: the conflicting demands of philosophy and revelation, or as he termed it, “the theologico-political problem.” It is no exaggeration to say that Strauss’s work on Hobbes’s critique of religion is essential to his analysis of Hobbes’s political philosophy, and vice versa. This volume will spark new interest in Hobbes’s explication of the Bible and in his understanding of religion by revealing previously neglected dimensions and motives of Hobbes’s “theology.” At the same time, scholars interested in the intellectual development of Leo Strauss will find in these writings the missing link, as it were, between his two early books,_ __Spinoza’s Critique of Religion_ and _The Political Philosophy of Hobbes_. In addition, this volume makes available for the first time in English a letter, a book outline, an extended review, an engagement with legal positivism, and an account of Strauss’s work on Hobbes by Heinrich Meier, all of which shed light on Strauss’s concerns and his approach to Hobbes in particular, as well as to modern political thought and life. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Part I. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau: Three Versions of the Civil Religion Project: 1. Rousseau's problem; 2. The Machiavellian solution: paganization of Christianity; 3. Moses and Mohammed as founder-princes or legislators; 4. Re-founding and 'filiacide': Machiavelli's debt to Christianity; 5. The Hobbesian solution: Judaicization of Christianity; 6. Behemoth: Hobbesian 'theocracy' versus the real thing; 7. Geneva Manuscript: the apparent availability of a Rousseauian solution; 8. Social Contract: the ultimate unavailability of a Rousseauian solution; Part II. Responses to (...) (and Partial Incorporations of) Civil Religion within the Liberal Tradition: 9. Baruch Spinoza: from civil religion to liberalism; 10. Philosophy and piety: problems in Spinoza's case for liberalism (owing to a partial reversion to civil religion); 11. Spinoza's interpretation of the Commonwealth of the Hebrews, and why civil religion is a continuing presence in his version of liberalism; 12. John Locke: the liberal paradigm; 13. 'The gods of the philosophers' I: Locke and John Toland; 14. Bayle's republic of atheists; 15. Montesquieu's pluralized civil religion; 16. The Straussian rejection of the enlightenment as applied to Bayle and Montesquieu; 17. 'The gods of the philosophers' II: Rousseau and Kant; 18. Hume as a successor to Bayle; 19. Adam Smith's sequal to Hume (and Hobbes); 20. Christianity as civil religion: Tocqueville's response to Rousseau; 21. John Stuart Mill's project to turn atheism into a religion; 22. Mill's critics; 23. John Rawls's genealogy of liberalism; 24. Prosaic liberalism: Montesquieu versus Machiavelli, Rousseau, Nietzsche; Part III. Theocratic Responses to Liberalism: 25. Joseph de Maistre: the theocratic paradigm; 26. Maistrean politics; 27. Maistre and Rousseau: theocracy versus civil religion; 28. Carl Schmitt's 'theocratic' critique of Hobbes; Part IV. Post-Modern 'Theism': Nietzsche and Heidegger's Continuing Revolt Against Liberalism: 29. Nietzsche, Weber, Freud: the twentieth century confronts the death of God; 30. Nietzsche's civil religion; 31. Heidegger's sequel to Nietzsche: the longing for new gods; 32. Conclusion. (shrink)

Probably no doctrine has excited as much horror and abuse as atheism. This first history of British atheism, first published in 1987, tries to explain this reaction while exhibiting the development of atheism from Hobbes to Russell. Although avowed atheism appeared surprisingly late – 1782 in Britain – there were covert atheists in the middle seventeenth century. By tracing its development from so early a date, Dr Berman gives an account of an important and fascinating strand of intellectual history.

Hobbes accepts only one proof for God's existence: God as first cause of nature. Thus, the laws of nature express God's will, nothing else is knowable about God. The state projects God's will because it responds to the deepest natural -- security and prosperity -- by opposing anti-social tendencies. Thus, the sovereign, by right reason, is the public measurer of religion. In private, religion is a matter of faith. Christianity is based on the sole proposition that salvation comes by Christ. (...) That scriptural message was attested to by miracles in the Apostolic era but is now a matter of faith. The contemporary assertion of miracles is suspect; especially, when it is institutionalized and endangers the power of the sovereign. (shrink)

This note discusses the implications of an incorrect quotation that appeared in Ted H. Miller's article, 'Thomas Hobbes and the Constraints that Enable the Imitation of God', from Inquiry 42.2. Although surely inadvertent, this error is significant because the author uses it to support the thesis that Hobbes envisions philosophers imitating God by creating order out of chaos. The correct quotation from Leviathan does not support such a thesis, and the paragraph in Leviathan from which it is taken actually runs (...) counter to it. The correct quotation, taken in its context, and a passage from De Corpore cited by Professor Miller reveal that Hobbes encourages philosophers to imitate God by following the order of creation in contemplation. In other words, philosophers imitate God by imitating the creation. (shrink)

I Propose to re-explore here some aspects of a very shop-worn question: ‘Was Hobbes in any sense an atheist?’ Three centuries ago, Hobbes's personal security in part depended on the way his contemporaries answered this question; today, the validity of several current accounts of his philosophy are similarly bound up with it. These accounts vary extraordinarily, all the way from Polin's confident assertion that ‘ pour qui sait lire entre les lignes, … c'est ľatheísme qui triomphe implicitement ’, to Taylor's (...) equally firm belief that ‘a certain kind of theism is necessary to make [Hobbes's] theory work.’ 1 And now the latest of the Taylorians, Prof. Howard Warrender, has published his book The Political Philosophy of Hobbes , in which Hobbes's statements regarding the place of God are again treated as an essential part of his theory; and the charge explicitly made, that there are no sound grounds for regarding them as ‘the product of confusion or pretence on Hobbes's part’. (shrink)

An explanation of the system of textual references employed in this paper may perhaps be of convenience to the reader. As a rule, references to other works have here been incorporated in the main body of the text, with the aid of abbreviations usually derived from the initial letters of the main words in their titles. Thus "HLL, p. 21." refers to page twenty-one of Thomas Hobbes: Leben and Lehre, by F. Tonnies.

Do human beings ever act freely, and if so what does freedom mean? Is everything that happens antecedently caused, and if so how is freedom possible? Is it right, even for God, to punish people for things that they cannot help doing? This volume presents the famous seventeenth-century controversy in which Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall debate these questions and others. The complete texts of their initial contributions to the debate are included, together with selections from their subsequent replies to (...) one another and from other works of Hobbes, in a collection that offers an illuminating commentary on issues still of concern to philosophers today. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction that explains the context in which the debate took place. (shrink)

On the Definition of Religion in Hobbes’ Leviathan It has long been a controversial topic whether Hobbes was an atheistic philosopher or a sincere Christian. A clear understanding of the issue requires an investigation into Hobbes’ view of religion. This paper tends to provide such an examination. First, it analyses the legal point of view by which Hobbes distinguishes religion from superstition. Secondly, it examines the two elements by which Hobbes defines religion: fear and power. Thirdly, it explores what true (...) religion is for Hobbes. Fourthly, after dealing with Hobbes’ rational theology, it raises certain questions about difficulties and contradictions in Hobbes’ definition of religion and true religion. Fifthly and finally, drawing on the double teaching theory and taking the purpose of Hobbes’ political theory into account, it concludes that there is a double doctrine in Hobbes on the one hand and, on the other hand, Hobbes desires to publicize the esoteric philosophic teaching in accordance with the purpose of his political philosophy, i.e. with the pursuit of a rational and free world state. (shrink)

Peter Geach supports his case that the religion of Thomas Hobbes was both genuine and a version of Socinianism principally by comparing the theological and scriptural sections of Leviathan with the main doctrines of Socinianism and its latter-day developments in Unitarianism and Christadelphianism. He pays particular attention to comparisons with the Racovian Catechism, the theological writings of Joseph Priestley and the Christadelphian document Christendom Astray by Robert Roberts.

This article intends to analyse the Hobbesian version of the Christian dogma of the Trinity as it is observed in the corresponding sections of Leviathan , De Cive and Heresy , and alluded to in other texts (controversy with Bramhall). It shall be important to specify: (a) As a starting point, the exact place of such concept within the general problem expressed by the difference between "political theology" and "theologico-political problem" (C. Altini); (b) The main items of the philosopher's Trinitarian (...) exposition as well as his intention while writing it, according to the "secularist", "theistic" and "Divine Omnipotence" interpretations. (J. Overhoff, A. Martinich, P. Springborg, L. Foisneau, F. Lessay, G. Wright); (c) His relationship with the contemporary orthodox currents (Trinitarian) and heterodox currents (antitrinitarian), as well as with the elements from ancient antitrinitarian heresies (subordinationism, modalism, sabellianism). (shrink)

Hobbes's Leviathan cannot fully save men from the state of nature unless some sense of transcendence is taken into account as an antidote to the fear of death. To supply this transcendence Hobbes retains the Bible, from which he extracts an antidote for politically dangerous human anxieties in order to complete his plan for peace. Holding death at bay through political arrangements is not enough; human beings need a further sense of overcoming--a means of meeting death when it can no (...) longer be thwarted--lest the finality of death be too overwhelming and they seek another foundation than the one based in natural reason which Hobbes has outlined in the explicitly political first half of Leviathan. Though the fear of violent death is the foundation of Hobbes's civil association, the general fact of death remains the threat to political peace and stability. For Hobbes, the fact of natural death is always breeding imaginations in the minds of human beings concerning the ends of their individual lives and creating a susceptibility in them to questions concerning whom they ought to obey. The politically subversive comforts human beings find in imaginings of the supernatural to which their fear of death leads them, are the little sins against the laws of natural reason that lead to anarchy. A religious, transcendent account of the world must be brought in to channel these imaginings if civil association is to be safe. The Bible is such an account, but it also represents a world that is not friendly to independent natural reason and, as such, poses a threat to peace. Hobbes's response to this threat is to reinterpret the Bible to take from it its capacity to divide human loyalties; he transforms it into the substantiation for a new theology that coverts the natural right of self-preservation into divine law. By this reinterpretation Hobbes reassures human beings across the entire range of their fears while instructing them that the divine will is that their loyalties must finally lie in this world. (shrink)

La théorie politique élaborée par Hobbes dans le Léviathan substitue le schème de la représentation à celui de l’Incarnation, hérité de saint Paul et saint Jean, qui avait permis jusqu’alors de penser l’unité d’une communauté. Ainsi, c’est moins l’extension politique du christianisme qui est affectée par cette substitution que sa nature même. L’objet de cet article est de le montrer à travers le cas privilégié de la Trinité, figure protypique de la « communauté » . En redéfinissant la notion de (...) personne à partir de la représentation, Hobbes défait la figure traditionnelle de la périchorèse et rend impossible de conceptualiser le dogme trinitaire. L’obstacle théorique qu’il place au cœur de la Trinité est ici examiné dans son impact sur la controverse socinienne des années 1690, chez William Sherlock, Robert South et John Wallis. Elle révèle alors de manière lumineuse l’état du christianisme après le tournant hobbesien.The political theory developed by Hobbes in the Leviathan substitutes representation for Incarnation as a pattern of civil unity. As a consequence, this substitution alters not so much Christian policy than christianism itself, in its very nature. And it is best illustrated by the doctrine of the Trinity, which used to be a prototype of « community » . Hobbes redefines the concept of a person as an intelligent being that represents itself or another, and thus undoes the traditional conception of perichoresis and makes it impossible to rationalize the Trinity. The theoretical obstacle that Hobbes places in the core of the doctrine of the Trinity is analysed here in its impact on the Socinian controversy of the 1690s, in William Sherlock, Robert South and John Wallis, and it sheds a light on the condition of Christianism after the Hobbesian moment. (shrink)

Notes and Discussions Calvin and Hobbes, or, Hobbes as an Orthodox Christian Three years ago, in the proceedings of an Italian conference on Hobbes and Spinoza, I published an article arguing that Hobbes was at best a deist, and most likely an atheist? In a recent book on Hobbes, A. P. Martinich devoted an appendix to criticizing that article, as part of his case that Hobbes is not merely a theist, but an orthodox Christian, and specifically, that he had "a (...) strong commitment" to the Calvinist branch of the Church of England.' It has been suggested that I respond to Martinich's rebuttal, and I think I should. Martinich's work is arguably the best available book of its kind.3 Pursuing the issues this book raises may help us to see why it is worth our while to be curious about the differences between the English text of Leviathan, first published in 165 x, and the Latin text of that work, first published in 1668. This is a topic generally ignored in English-language discussions of Hobbes and one in which I have a special interest.4 The great virtue of Martinich's book is that he is very precise about what his thesis See '"I Durst Not Write So Boldly' or, How to Read Hobbes' Theological-Political Treatise," in Hobbes e Spinoza, Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Urbino, i4-~ 7 ottobre, 1988 , ed. by Daniela Bostrenghi, intro, by Emilia Giancotti . By 'deist' I understand someone who believes in a personal God, but rejects divine.. (shrink)

Reply to Professor Martinich The editor of this journal has invited me to reply to Professor Martinich's reply to my reply to his reply to my article, on the condition that I should be brief. I shall try to be very brief. Our discussion has probably reached a point at which we can expect dimin- ishing returns. I shall try also to avoid even the slightest hint of irony, though I am not sure I can succeed in that. I am (...) surprised that Prof. Martinich, who sees so little irony in Hobbes, should find so much in "Calvin and Hobbes." I did think his definition of "orthodoxy" was plausible, taking the term "plausible" in the sense of "having an appearance or show of truth, reasonableness or worth" . That's also, of course, perfectly consistent with thinking the criterion of the creeds too weak. The Church of England, from the time of Elizabeth, has made acceptance of the Nicene and Aposdes' Creeds one of the 39 Articles which define membership in that Church. But Martinich exaggerates when he says that that was the criterion of orthodoxy used by the Church. The 39 Articles cover many other issues as well, including God's incorpo- reality. As a somedme member of that Church, I wonder if Martinich has given thor- ough consideration to all that it requires of its adherents. I welcome Martinich's clarification of his use of the term "Calvinist." It was silly of me to think that he intended it to imply.. (shrink)

This paper considers three accounts of the relationship between personal immortality and materialism. In particular, the pagan mortalism of the Epicureans is compared with the Christian mortalism of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. It is argued 1) that there are significant similarities between these views, 2) that Locke and Hobbes were, to some extent, influenced by the Epicureans, and 3) that the relation between (im)mortality and (im)materialism is not as straightforward as is commonly supposed.

In this work we will try to demonstrate the presence and the role that God has in Thomas Hobbes's political philosophy. We consider that this religious belief, that it is the system's equilibrium, guaranties that the Hobbesian political project does not fall into revolutionary or totalitarian excesses. Thus, we shall analyse the arguments of the existence of God that are introduced by the philosopher Malmesbury with the objective of proving that reason does not necessarily lead to atheism, but that such (...) faculty requires the Revelation intervention to be able to channel it into a peaceful and lasting life. (shrink)

In this work we will try to demonstrate the presence and the role that God has in Thomas Hobbes's political philosophy. We consider that this religious belief, that it is the system's equilibrium, guaranties that the Hobbesian political project does not fall into revolutionary or totalitarian excesses. Thus, we shall analyse the arguments of the existence of God that are introduced by the philosopher Malmesbury with the objective of proving that reason does not necessarily lead to atheism, but that such (...) faculty requires the Revelation intervention to be able to channel it into a peaceful and lasting life. (shrink)

This is a short (1,000 word) introduction to Hobbes's materialism, covering (briefly) such issues as what the relevant notion of materialism is, Hobbes's debate with Descartes, and what Hobbes's arguments for materialism were.

This paper discusses the materialist views of Margaret Cavendish, focusing on the relationships between her views and those of two of her contemporaries, Thomas Hobbes and Henry More. It argues for two main claims. First, Cavendish's views sit, often rather neatly, between those of Hobbes and More. She agreed with Hobbes on some issues and More on others, while carving out a distinctive alternative view. Secondly, the exchange between Hobbes, More, and Cavendish illustrates a more general puzzle about just what (...) divided materialists from their opponents. Seemingly straightforward disagreements about whether incorporeal substances exist turn out to be more complex ones in which the nature of those things is disputed at the same time as their existence. (shrink)

In the early years of the eighteenth century Leibniz had several interactions with John Toland. These included, from 1702 to 1704, discussions of materialism. Those discussions culminated with the consideration of Toland's 1704 Letters to Serena, where Toland argued that matter is necessarily active. In this paper I argue for two main theses about this exchange and its consequences for our wider understanding. The first is that, despite many claims that Toland was at the time of Letters to Serena a (...) Spinozist, we can make better sense of him as a sort of Hobbesian materialist. The second main point concerns reasons for materialism, and in particular a story Locke tells in the Essay about materialists' motives. Toland defends his materialism by arguing that matter is active, and argues that matter is active by using a conceivability argument. But this is not the crude conceivability argument that Locke suggests motivates materialists. This (together with reflecting on some of Hobbes's arguments) suggests that we might well tell a Lockean story about reasons for early modern materialism, but not Locke's story. (shrink)