Hobbes and the meaning of Religion: a study in methodology

2019

Throughout centuries of scholarship written on Thomas Hobbes, the question of the English philosopher’s religion has always been one of the most attractive and debated issues. Since the 17th century many of his readers, such as Bishop John Bramhall, strongly doubted about his orthodoxy, wondering if Hobbes was not some kind of hidden atheist. Even in 20th century, scholars of Hobbes deeply debated this issue, but many interpreters often focused only on theological and theological-political issues in Hobbes’ philosophy, without carefully considering the relationship between his religious ideas and Hobbes’ so-called “philosophia prima”. This article intends to directly address this relationship, firstly, by analysing the different aspects of religion, examined by Hobbes, such as the anthropological analysis of the religious phenomenon, and the foundations of the dual “Kingdom of God,” natural, and prophetic. Secondly, these elements will be compared with the philosophical foundations of Hobbesian thought, present in particular in De Motu, Loco et Tempore (or Anti-White) and in De Corpore. This analysis intends to highlight some fundamental contrasts that make the interpretation of Hobbes’ religious thought decidedly problematic, and lead us to develop some considerations about the possible presence of Hobbes in a history of early modern atheism.

Hobbes Studies, 2013

The relationships between politics and religion have always been the focus of Hobbesian literature, which generally privileges the theme of the Christian State, i.e. the union of temporal and spiritual power in a sovereign-representative person. This essay presents other perspectives of interpretation, which analyze the relationships between politics and religion in Hobbes’ works by using specifically metaphysical and theological categories – liberty/ necessity, causality, kingdom of God, divine prescience, potentia Dei etc. – which allow us to reconsider the nature of political power (and the relevance of modern technology for the contemporary politics). The core of Hobbes’ argumentation concerns the theoretical status of determinism (i.e. the relationships between liberty and necessity) with regard to the reduction of «potentia» to «potestas» not only in political philosophy, but also in metaphysics and theology. In many passages of Hobbes’ works, then, it is possible to understand the role of God’s idea in the natural and political philosophy: God’s idea as first cause or as omnipotence is only a reassuring word useful to describe the necessary, mechanical and eternal movement of the bodies and useful to justify the materialistic determinism in anthropology and politics. Body and movement are the necessary fundaments of the universe which find in itself - without reference to the category of «possibility» in politics and in physics - the motives and the reasons of his own structure and function (from causes to effects).

23-3, 2019

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a significant political theorist who could be regarded as the founder of social contract theories. Hobbes’s philosophy is worthy of attention in the history of political thought due to his definition of natural state, the reasons of the formation of civil society, authorization and political obligation. Specifically, he focused on the rationalization of political obligation to the sovereign in order to strengthen monarchy in the given era. Meanwhile, he could not exclude the concept of God due to the conditions of the century. Therefore, he preferred integrating the concept of God into his political philosophy by means of moral laws and moral obedience after he had introduced the idea of social contract theory. Furthermore, in contrast to previous thinkers, he gave God a secondary role in the maintenance of political and social order. Excluding the idea of God and the obedience of unwritten laws gave rise to discussion about Hobbes’s rejection of the existence of God although he did not accept these accusations. In this paper it is argued that, Hobbes was an atheist and he used religion only as a political instrument for the sake of the social order. In other words, this paper clarifies the idea that Hobbes used religion and the fear of God as a tool in order to force individuals to obey written laws under a sovereign. In order to indicate the rightness of this argument, his main ideas stated in De Cive and Leviathan are analysed and the place of religion and God in his theory is examined in this paper. Summary: Thomas Hobbes had lived in the seventeenth century England in which the social and political order was under threat and the obligation to the sovereign was in need of justification. The developments in natural science and the alterations in philosophical thought that made rationalization significant, led to question the power of the sovereign and free will of the individuals in the given period. Therefore, the questions concerning God, religion and political obligation had been emerged. The prevalent philosophy of Hobbes was to reject Aristotelian teleology, and he aimed to replace it with a mechanistic view. His insistence on modern natural science made him to defend that political philosophy also should be grounded in mechanistic approach. Briefly, he eliminated the preliminary role of God from his political philosophy. However, he did not reject the existence of God while arguing this. In his books that are analysed in this paper; De Cive and Leviathan, Hobbes stated that individuals were important as parts of the society but naturally they were not political beings. Therefore, they needed to enter into a political association in order to survive. In other words, the weakness of humankind necessitated the establishment of political society. Although a human being was not naturally political, a political association was not against to human nature. Hobbes insisted that a civil society as an artificial product needed to be established for the sake of the individuals. In the absence of civil law and a common authority namely a coercive power, human beings were under threat. Under these conditions, a human being was in need of focusing on his/her self-preservation alone and she/he would try to achieve it at all costs. Therefore, in order to prevent such a state of war, individuals chose to leave their unlimited freedom and enter into a society under a sovereign. Actually what provided human security was not the existence of a political society; rather it was a coercive power. For Hobbes, coercive power was a requirement to make individuals live in a peaceful environment. Put another way, individuals needed to be frightened from a power to form a society firstly and to keep the society alive secondly. Without the concept of fear, Hobbes would have never been successful in finding a ground for coercive political power in his political theory since the element of fear is required when private interests of the individuals conflict with the common good. At this point, he used the concept of God in his theory. In this paper it is argued that the concept of obligation to make selfish human beings ideal subjects was left incomplete without the role of religion in Hobbes’s theory. The subjects chose to enter into political establishment due to fear and the need for security. Such a need, for Hobbes, should have been supported with the fear of God. However, he did not use the fear of God and the existence of moral obligation in the state of nature. Rather, he inferred the existence of God, when he needed to find a solid basis for political obligation to maintain the political order. Hobbes clarified natural laws, moral laws and divine laws in his books. For him, natural laws were moral laws, and they could be considered as the divine laws as well. Therefore, all were same and all were given by God since God gave reason to every human being and people could derive those laws through their reason. Till that point, there was room for moral obligation both in state of nature and in civil society. However, Hobbes surprisingly added that human beings in the state of nature did not have moral conscience and they were not obliged by moral laws. For Hobbes, natural laws/ moral laws or God’s laws whatever we call them, could become laws if and only if they were commanded by a civic sovereign. Although he had accepted that there would be moral laws in the state of nature, he added that there could not be moral obligation before human entered into a society. When there was a coercive power that pushed human beings to keep the covenant, natural laws as the commands of God turned to be obligations. This means that moral principles were meaningless without a political power. Moreover, it could be stated that the dictates of reason and God’s laws were distinct for Hobbes and this idea make us think that Hobbes was not a believer at all. However, he needed the power of religion for providing a basis for obligation. That is the reason why he aimed to use God as an instrument in his theory. He also seemed to limit the absolute power of the sovereign and form a basis for obligation theory. In other words, rather than making a religious justification of God’s existence, he led the sovereign to use religion as an instrument for political and social order. What Hobbes tried to do was to indicate that Leviathan is made up of the individuals, and people had to obey the sovereign due to their authorization and consent. He based his political theory on the will of the subjects rather than God. People entered into a civil society and refrained of their freedom in order to get protection from the sovereign. Therefore, they needed to obey the sovereign since they gave consent to be a part of it. In other words, obedience of the subjects is justified through the power of the sovereign which was limited by God at the same time. It is argued in this paper that, Hobbes tried to restrict the sovereign by introducing Divine Will, while in fact he guaranteed the absolute power of the sovereign without making it accountable, neither to an earthly nor to a divine power. In order to defend this, his arguments in De Cive and Leviathan were analysed in detail.

 Hobbes asserts that political power no longer needs to be founded on religious charisma (as argued by Machiavellians and libertines), because this power can be justified only by covenant, that is by the consent of people deciding voluntarily, on the basis of an utilitaristic calculation of benefits, to subject themselves to a sovereign. In the sections of Elements of law natural and politic, De cive and Leviathan dedicated to religion, Hobbes demonstrates that the sacred history corroborates his political theory. He uses skilfully chosen literal quotations to demonstrate that the power of Abraham and Moses, who ruled over their people as divine lieutenants, and even that of Yahweh as king of Israel, were based on a special covenant. In Hobbes's reading, the figures of Moses and Christ no longer proceed as a pair, as in the cliché of the religious imposture theory: the figure of the prophet Moses is strongly politicised, whereas Christ makes no new laws to administer earthly justice, but teaches the way of salvation. Religion loses the political centrality of a founding element of human society and is referred to an individual, internal and psychological dimension. Religion and sacred history occupy the central space in the writings of those free thinkers of the 17th century who, from René Pintard onwards, have been identified as «erudite libertines» 1. These authors-such as François La Mothe Le Vayer, Gabriel Naudé, Hector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, Pierre Gassendi, or the anonymous compiler of the clandestine treatise Theophrastus redivivus-, heirs to the naturalism of Pietro Pomponazzi and the political theories of Niccolò Machiavelli, present religion under two aspects: as a product of the passions and credulity of man, and as a utilisation of this product by astute politicians that have deceived men in order to build new societies and empires on a solid base 2. The phenomenology of religion delineated by the libertine critique starts from an attentive analysis of belief-formation mechanisms, makes interesting references to mass psychology and reformulates the Averroistic and Renaissance idea of religion as imposture and instrumentum Regni. What it constantly reconfirms is the essentially practical, non-theoretical dimension of historic religions, serving as educators of peoples about good conduct and born to satisfy a need for order and stability.

Hobbes Studies, 2019

Hobbes surely spent the ten years (1641–1651) of greatest significance for his philosophical career on the Continent, in France, above all, in Paris. It was during this period that he published De cive; wrote the De motu, loco et tempore; produced a draft of the entire Leviathan as well as most of De corpore. His complicated relationship with Descartes has been studied closely, and Mersenne’s role has become clearer. There remains however the task of more carefully delineating the contours of Hobbes’s relations with the circles of “learned libertinism.” The Libertinism which will be dealt with here was not only French, instead of English, but also “theoretical” and “intellectual” rather than practical, and nothing at all sexual, contrary to the common usage of that word in the current language. French Libertinism was a philosophical trend aimed at promoting a non-conformist approach to religion, history, morals, and even politics.

RESUMO No texto a seguir, pretendemos apresentar uma proposta de interpretação da obra de Hobbes a partir de sociobiologia. Apesar de poder chocar alguns em primeiro lugar como um anacronismo ou errado, ler o filósofo da Mamelsbury a partir de uma perspectiva sociobiológica pode lançar luz sobre alguns aspectos particulares do seu argumento, em especial os referentes à construção da natureza humana e sua influência sobre a modulação do estado de natureza e sobre a justificação da autoridade e obrigação política. Portanto, Hobbes procede como um sociobiólogo, já que ele nos oferece um conto sobre o surgimento da moralidade de onde ela não existia antes e se move de lá para uma compreensão específica da autoridade política. ABSTRACT In the following text we aim to present a proposal of interpretation of Hobbes's work from sociobiology viewpoint. Despite the fact it may strike some at first as an anachronism or straightforward wrong, reading the philosopher of Mamelsbury from a sociobiological perspective, can shed light on some particular aspects of his argument, particularly those referring kriterion,

Philosophies, 2022

This paper re-examines the dispute concerning Hobbes’s religious beliefs in light of his natural philosophy. First, I argue that atheistic readings of Hobbes can be more plausibly defended provided interpreters make use of a methodological unity thesis. Second, I suggest that theistic readers of Hobbes have good reason to favor the autonomy thesis. I conclude by highlighting how a re-examination of the theism dispute motivates reconsideration of the role of Hobbes’s natural philosophy and scientific methodology vis à vis politics. Maintaining the unity thesis as a methodological device can shed important light on the politics and methods of Leviathan. More importantly, this analysis motivates consideration of De Corpore in any serious study of Hobbes.

The paper aims to investigate the epistemology of Hobbes’ civil science, focusing in particular on two issues: his phenomenalist and nominalist theory of knowledge and his arbitrary voluntarist theology. These two elements concur to establish Hobbes’ political theology.

Religions, 2023

This study identifies common perceptions between Thomas Hobbes’ approach to religion with that of Critias the sophist. Despite the distance that separates the social environments within which each of these authors lived and wrote, in their political philosophy we can spot a shared set of concerns, whose importance transcend the historical and political contexts in which the authors lived and wrote: in the state of nature, where no organized commonwealth (or civil society) exists, capable of repressing the innate greed of men and women, savagery and conflict reign supreme; life is threatened by violence and extreme aggression. It is only the state of society that guarantees stability and good life. For both thinkers, belief in immaterial spirits protects the state of society; belief in God promotes obedience to civil law and guarantees human co-existence. In Critias’ mind, religion is a necessary means to avert aggression, even when the State’s executive powers are unable to punish offenders, using all necessary tools to prevent hostility and conflict. While civil law is the hallmark of peace and stability, belief in a transcendent entity that influences collective and individual modes of living, is an important addition to the pursuit of social peace. A few centuries later, Hobbes (influenced by the misery of the English Civil War) developed viewpoints that also highlight the role of religion in defending social peace. Nonetheless, in Hobbes’ mind religion could safeguard stability only (A) when ecclesiastical authorities submit to the judgment of an omnipotent Sovereign and (B) when the coercive mechanisms of the State suppress religious pluralism, prohibiting different interpretations of the Bible, which Hobbes himself considered one of the main causes of conflict.