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Published in English Philosophy in the Age ofLocke (M. A. Stewart. Ed.) OxfordStudies in the History of PhilosophyVolume 3, Oxford: Clarendon Press,2000, pp. 1-27.
THE POLITICAL PROBLEM OF RELIGION:
HOBBES'S READING OF THE BIBLEi
This article argues that Hobbes's reading of the Bible, contained
in the second half of Leviathan, is a fundamental part of his
philosophy. The goal of Books III and IV is not merely, as was
sometimes suggested, to sustain with the prestige of religion the
political legitimation of the sovereign exposed in Book II, nor is
it, as was also claimed, to discredit religion while seeming to
recognise its authorityii. To the contrary, the second half of
Leviathan seeks to liberate the sovereign's authority from the
necessity of religious legitimation, which is perceived by Hobbes
as a danger to the stability of the commonwealth. The way in which
religion threatens civil authority is described in Book I and may
be called the political problem of religion. Book II, like most
modern political philosophy, simply assumes that the problem does
not exist and maintains that the power of the sovereign rests
solely on the consent of the subjects. Yet given Hobbes's goal to
base his normative theory of politics on a descriptive theory of
men as they are, rather than as they should be, it is clear that,
from his own point of view, purely rational politics cannot exist
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as long as men believe that God gives us the first laws of the
commonwealth. The goal of Books III and IV is to solve this
difficulty by showing that Christianity provides historical and
theological justification for the separation of the two realms of
religion and politics.
The first two sections of this article present the political
problem of religion. Section three gives a quick overview of
Hobbes's argument in Books III and IV, in relation to the first
half of the Leviathan. The next four sections present Hobbes's
solution to the political problem of religion. In the concluding
section I argue that Hobbes was doomed to encounter that problem
and that he offers what is probably its only possible solution.
Finally, I suggest that this problem goes beyond a mere question of
Hobbesian exegesis, and that it exists today as the historical
problem of the origin of modern forms of political organizations.
I
THE POLITICAL PROBLEM OF RELIGION
Hobbes's political philosophy is a science of commonwealths as they
should be on the basis of men as they are. The Leviathan proposes
a normative theory of politics supported by a descriptive theory of
mankind. The division of its first half in two books reflects
this. Book I studies men as they constitute the matter of the
commonwealth. Consequently, in Chapter 13 Hobbes illustrates his
conception of the state of nature with examples taken from the
actual behaviour of individuals in society(P. 186-187)iii. Book II
inquires into the rights and authority of the Sovereign. Chapter
20 accordingly rejects all objections against the absolute power of
the Sovereign which are based on the practice of mankind. "For
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though in all places of the world, men should lay the foundation of
their houses on the sand, it could not thence be inferred, that so
it ought to be"(P. 261). Similarly, Chapter 29, which discusses
the causes of the dissolution of commonwealth, asserts that these
do not lie in men inasmuch as they are the matter of the
commonwealth, but as they are the makers and orderers of them(P.
363). The Sovereign and the political philosopher take men as they
come: violent, egoistic, greedy and religious. On this factual
basis they built perfect commonwealths which are destined to live
as long as mankind. The Sovereign should not try to change his
subjects, nor the political philosopher wish them different than
they are.
Chapter 12 informs us that religion is natural in man, and its
first seeds ineradicable. This in itself does not constitute a
problem. Nonetheless it indicates that the philosopher must take
into account the religious dimension of human existence, at least
inasmuch as it is relevant to his study of politics. The relation
between the two domains is revealed through the fact that in the
commonwealths of the gentiles the laws always received a religious
legitimation(P. 177). The point is driven home when Hobbes tells
us that the religion of the gentiles was a part of their politics,
and the politics of the Hebrews a part of their religion(P. 173,
178). In other words, in all places and at all times religion and
politics were intimately mixed.
Given this, the question arises of why men have always
associated religion with politics. Hobbes's answer is clear. The
marriage of politics with religion stems from their common origin
in fear: the fear of other men in the case of politics, the fear of
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invisible spirits in the case of religion. According to Hobbes,
the force of words is too weak to hold men to the performance of
their covenants and only the fear of other men or religion can
strengthen their contracts(P. 200). There is then, it seems, a
natural convergence of religion and politics. Religion can be used
to make men "more apt to Obedience, Lawes, Peace, Charity and
Civill Societey"(P. 173). This is the basis of what may be called,
the Heathens' solution to the political problem of religion.
The first founders and legislators of the commonwealth of the
gentiles, according to Hobbes, always reinforced the respect for
the law by the terror of religion. They pretended that their laws
concerning religion came not from them but from some God, or else
that they were themselves more than mere mortals so that "their
Lawes might the more easily be received"(P. 177). They took care
to "make it believed that the same things were displeasing to the
Gods, which were forbidden by the Lawes"(P. 177). Finally they
instituted ceremonies and sacrifices supposedly to appease the
anger of the Gods, so that the common people laid the faults of
their misfortune on the neglect of their worship and were thus
rendered "lesse apt to mutiny against their Governors"(P. 178).
The heathens' solution is the exploitation of religion by political
power in view of its own goals and purposes.
Professor Gauthier argued that "Hobbes is best understood as a
Gentile"iv and that his sympathy went towards such a conception of
the relation between religion and the state. Clearly some aspects
of Hobbes's texts suggests this. His erastianism entirely subjects
religion to the power of the Sovereign. It gives him the
legitimacy to declare what is and what is not the word of God and
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empowers the state to regulate the behaviour of the clergy. All of
which conveys the impression that in Hobbes's commonwealth,
religion is again reduced to a part of politics.
Nonetheless, one major difference remains between Hobbes's
erastianism and the heathens' solution. Hobbes never advocated the
divine rights of Kings. For all his rhetoric concerning the
"Mortal God", he never taught than the sovereign should convince
his subjects he is of a higher nature than mere mortals. His power
and legitimacy, according to Hobbes, are grounded in a rational
contract only, that is to say, in politics, not in religion. The
particular characteristic of Hobbes's erastianism, compared to
Hooker's or to that of Marcilius of Padoua, is that the subjection
of spiritual to temporal power never receives any religious
justification, only a political one. The laws of the Sovereign are
purely human laws. By means of their representative, men give to
themselves their own laws. They do not receive them from God, and
religion in no way limits their legislative power. It could be
argued that, from Hobbes's point of view, this is exactly what the
gentiles did. His text clearly suggests that the first founders
and legislators of their commonwealths did not believe in the
religion which they imposed on the people. Why should Hobbes
object to this stratagem?
As far as I can see there are two interrelated reasons to
suspect that he did. The fear of invisible spirits, according to
Hobbes, is irrational. Religion, natural religion at least, stems
from ignorance and it breeds ignorance. Its cause is anxiety about
future time, men's curiosity "of the causes of their own good and
evil fortune"(P. 168). This anxiety, joined with the ignorance of
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these causes, stirs them to populate the universe with invisible
agents and to "stand in awe of their own imagination"(Ibid.). This
fear is thoroughly irrational. It prevents men from discovering
the real causes of the events that befall them. Religion
perpetuates the fear it seeks to appease. The covenant, to the
contrary, is a highly rational exercise. It stems from the
knowledge of the harm which men created equal can inflict upon each
other. The end of subjection is protection, it is to put an end to
fear. The contract is not a cheat or a fraud. The power of the
Sovereign does not, and should not, rest on his ability to decieve
his subjects(P. 204-205). For the Sovereign, to rest his power on
i. I am very grateful to William R. Abbott, Mary Baker, René Girard, PaisleyLivingston, Richard Nutbrown, Lucien Scubla, M. A. Stewart, Robert S. Stewart,and two anonymous referees of Oxford Studies in the History of Philosophy foruseful comments and criticisms on previous drafts of this paper.
ii. In a recent book Hobbes and Christianity. Reassessing the Bible in Leviathan (New York,Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1996), Paul D. Cooke tried to defendboth these theses simultaneously. Not unlike many of Hobbes's contemporarycritics, Cooke claims that while Hobbes on one hand tries to sustain thepurely secular power of the Sovereign with the prestige of religion, at thesame time his aim, on the other hand, is to discredit Christianity, to destroyit while pretending to bow to its authority. Contrary to the claims of this"conspiracy theory", as Cooke himself names it (1996; 37), I will maintainthat Hobbes is trying to free political power from the need of religiouslegitimation and that he seeks a religious justification for the separation ofthe domains of religion and politics.
iii. Quotations and references to Hobbes's Leviathan are given withinbrackets, usually in the body of the text and sometimes in footnotes. Theyrefer to Hobbes's, Leviathan, Ed. C.B. Macpherson (Harmondsworth 1968), pp.729 which reproduces the text of the 1651 original English edition.
iv. David Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan (Oxford 1969), P.206. A somewhatsimilar view is defended in A. Rapaczynski Nature and Politics. Liberalism in thePhilosophies of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau (Cornell University Press, 1987).
6
fear of invisible spirits is contrary to the end of the institu-
tion. It is to exploit the irrational fears of his subjects
contrary to the rationality of the contract. Such is the first
reason.
The second reason why Hobbes rejects the heathens' solution is
because it subjects the authority of the Sovereign to a process of
religious changes which is beyond the reach of his power. To
manipulate men's religious beliefs in order to increase their
respect for the law is a practical solution only if political power
can, at all times, master the course of religious changes.
Essentially, the political problem of religion comes from the fact
that this is not the case.
There are, according to Hobbes, four causes which explain
changes in religion. The first one is when a religion teaches
belief in a contradictory proposition, because it reveals the
ignorance of those who propound such absurd articles. The second
cause is when the clergy or priests act in a way which seems to
indicate that they do not believe that which they require others to
believe. This, says Hobbes, takes "away the reputation of
Sincerity"(P. 180). The third is to be detected of private ends,
as when "the beliefe they require of others, conduceth or seemeth
to conduce to the acquiring of Dominion, Riches, Dignity, or secure
Pleasure, to themselves onely"(Ibid.). The fourth and last is when
the testimony of miracles fails.
These causes, we will now see, are closely related to Hobbes's
conception of faith. As Pocock has convincingly argued, faith,
according to Hobbes, is a system of transmission of authority
through timev. Faith is present whenever a man's discourse does
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not start with one of his own opinions, but with the opinion of
another "of whose ability to know the truth, and of whose honesty
in not deceiving, he doubted not"(P. 132). It contains therefore
two opinions. One bears on the proposition which is believed. The
other relates to the virtue or ability of the person who proposes
it. These two opinions are connected in a specific way. The
proposition is only believed because of the good opinion we have of
those who expound it. Religious beliefs receive their
justification from an opinion concerning the honesty and cognitive
abilities of those who propound them. The causes of religious
changes follow from this. They refer to those actions which tend
to destroy the opinion we may have of someone's honesty or of his
ability to know the truth. "So that I may attribute all the
changes of Religion in the world, to one and the same cause; and
that is unpleasing Priests"(P. 182).
Hobbes never said that the cause of changes in government was
unpleasing Princes, but lack of absolute power. More, he invited
his reader to measure the inconvenience of such an unlimited power
against the deadly consequences of the war of all against all. The
fact is that the structure of faith is radically opposed to that of
political authorityvi. Out of a fear, based on the knowledge of the
harm which men created equal can inflict upon one another, men
covenant to abandon all their rights to one man, or assembly, who
will protect them from their own violence. This contract is
rational. It binds men morally. Given the structure of the
v. J. G. A. Pocock, "Time, History and Eschatology in the Thought of ThomasHobbes" in Politics, Language and Time (Atheneum, 1971), P. 148-201. Seeespecially, P. 163-167.
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contract all responsibility and moral charge rests with the
subjects. They covenant with one another in favor of a third party
who does not contract with them and therefore cannot forfeit his
right. Religious faith to the contrary rests on the good opinion
we have of another. This means, ultimately, on the recognition of
his superiority. For this reason the failing of religious faith in
a man never involves any injustice on his part. The moral burden
of faith does not rest on the believer, but on the priests, or the
clergy, which suscitate and should nurture that faith. While the
subjects have duties and responsibilities to their Sovereign, it is
the Priest who has duties and responsibilities toward the
believers.
The two systems of authority should not be assimilated for
they do not cohere. The Sovereign should not be burdened with the
responsibility of the priest. It curtails his power and subor-
dinates his authority to the changing opinions of his subjects. It
encourages them to think that the failing of their faith relieves
them of their political obligation. Thus it exposes the Sovereign
to an historical process of religious transformations which he
cannot control. "Faith is in its own nature invisible, and
consequently exempted from all humane jurisdiction"(P. 550).
Religion is natural in men and has always been inseparable from
politics. Because the fear of invisible spirits is greater than
other fears, it always had a "party sufficient to Trouble, and
sometimes to Destroy, a Commonwealth"(P. 371). Which is why,
vi. See P. Springborg, "Leviathan and the Problem of EcclesiasticalAuthority" in Political Theory, 3:289-303, (1975) for an opposite conclusionconcerning the relationship between faith and obedience to the Sovereign.
9
according to Hobbes, "If this superstisious fear of Spirits were
taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophe-
cies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty
ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more
fitted than they are for civill Obedience"(P. 93).
The natural alliance of religion and politics constitutes a
permanent danger. Civil power cannot control the religious beliefs
of subjects. It cannot abolish religion, nor can it establish its
legitimacy independantly of these beliefs, at least as long as men
believe in them, for its independant foundation rests solely on the
consent of subjects. Such is the political problem of religion.
It is a necessary consequence of the rejection of the heathens'
solution in a world where men believe that the first laws of the
commonwealth were promulgated by God.
II
ERASTIANISM AND THE NATURAL KINGDOM OF GOD
Hobbes presents his solution to the political problem of religion
in chapter 31, the very last of the second book of Leviathan. This
solution is normative within the limits of pure reason. It defines
the relations that should obtain between religion and the state
according to reason alone, that is to say, in the absence of any
divine revelation. It describes what Hobbes calls the natural
kingdon of God. This kingdom is rationally possible, becauses
there is, according to Hobbes, a rational belief in God which is
different from the irrational fear of invisible spirits.
This explanation of such a rational belief in God is given in
Chapters 11 and 12. It parallels in many ways the account of the
10
natural causes of religion which we saw earlier. Anxiety for the
future disposes man to inquire into the causes of things. This
research leads him from one cause to its cause, and to the cause of
that cause, "till of necessity he must come to this thought at
last, that there is some cause, whereof there is no former cause,
but is eternal, which is it men call God"(P. 167)vii. The
similitude lies in the fact that anxiety about the future is the
common cause of the belief in one eternal Diety and of the
supertitious fear of invisible spirits. Also present in this is
the fact that the appeal to God or invisible spirits reveals our
ignorance. God is a word which one utters whenever he stops his
inquiry into the causes of things.
The difference between these two types of belief is that they
manifest, on the part of the agent, a very different attitude
towards his ignorance. To be superstitious is to invent false
causes for what one does not know(P. 171-176). Worst, it is to
fear and to revere those meaningless imaginings. As a result
superstition is doubly irrational. It hinders the search for truth
and does not reduce, but increases, the anxiety that motivates it.
To acknowledge the existence of one eternal God is not to feign
invisible spirits and to stand in awe of one's imagination, for it
is not to "have an Idea or Image of him"(P. 167) in one's mind. It
is to understand that this first cause though necessary is
unknowable. Thus it is no obstacle to knowledge, but the result of
"any profound inquiry into natural causes"(P. 167).
vii. On the subject of Hobbes's attitude toward the question of thedemonstrability of God's existence in a philosophical context see, A. Pacchi,"Hobbes and the Problem of God" in Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes, Ed. G.A.J.Rogers and A. Ryan, (Oxford, 1988), 171-187.
11
It follows from this distinction that God's kingdom is by
nature a rational commonwealth. It takes no account of revelation
and yields nothing to the absurd opinions of the gentiles. This
kingdom should also be distinguished from the power with which God
commands all of nature. To reign is not simply to overcome by the
sheer exercise of irresistible might. It is, says Hobbes, to
govern with words, "by promise of Reward to those who obey it, and
by threatning them with punishment that obey it not"(P. 396).
Animals and inanimate bodies are therefore excluded from God's
natural kingdom, as well as those who "acknowledge no Word for
his"(P. 396). This means that God himself cannot bypass the
essential structure of political institution. Even though his
right of sovereignty proceeds from his irresistible might, his
kingdom rests on the consent of his subjects.
Given this, and given that revelation is not taken into
account here, Hobbes can proceed in a very straightforward way to
the solution of his problem. Since God speaks to men only through
nature and natural reason, the only laws of God of which they can
take notice are the precepts of right reason expounded in Chapters
14 and 15. These are the very articles which incite men to abandon
all their rights to one man, or assembly, in order to gain
protection. Since this covenant binds morally and since "the Law
of Nature and the Civill Law contain each other and are of equal
extent"(P. 314), it follows that there can be no contradiction
between human and divine laws. There is no other word of God than
the commands of the sovereign.
The same reasoning is applied to worship. In his natural
kingdom God gives us no indication as to how we should worship him.
12
In consequence, men have no choice but to take the example of the
way they honor each other in order to discover the way they should
worship God. For honor, according to Hobbes, is those signs of
respect which reason teaches should be done by the weak to the more
potent(P. 399-401). In their private worship men are free to act
as they wish, as long as they show no disrespect to the Divine
majesty. Public worship is different. Seeing that the commowealth
is but one person, the fundamental quality of public worship is its
uniformity. "And therefore, were many sorts of Worship be allowed,
proceeding from the different Religions of Private men, it cannot
be said there is any Publique Worship, nor that the Commonwealth is
of any Religion at all"(p. 405).
Hobbes's solution according to reason alone gives the
sovereign sole power to determine the characteristics of public
worship. It makes him the head of the church. He rules the clergy
as he governs any of his subjects. But it offers him no legitimacy
beyond than the rules of right reason that lead to the contract.
It is a form of erastianism because it subordinates the church to
civil power and sets the sovereign as the highest authority in all
matters temporal or spiritual. Its particularity as a form of
erastianism is that the subordination of the church receives a
political justification only, never a religious one.
Simultaneously it is somewhat strange to speak of erastianism
in this context. The rational sovereign of God's natural kingdom
has very little to say about anything that may be called religion.
He has access to no revelation and takes no part in the illusions
of the gentiles. The church and the clergy are institutions which
apparently have no place here. The only word of God is the laws of
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nature which lead to the constitution of the commonwealth. In
fact, the only reason the sovereign may have to control the various
religious practices of his subjects is if this diversity leads to
conflict.
The natural kingdom of God does not exist. Hobbes has already
told us, in Chapter 14, that there is no covenant "with God without
speciall Revelation"(P. 197). God's natural kingdom is a
commonwealth of no religion at all. It defines a pure politics,
freed from all religious justifications. While God remains silent
and gives us no laws, during God's absence, kings reign. Men give
themselves their own laws.
The natural kingdom of God is a normative solution. It
defines the commonwealth as it ideally should be. In this
commonwealth only the sovereign decides what is right and wrong,
and his legitimacy rests on the sole consent of his subjects, not
on their fear of invisible spirits. Yet by excluding from the
start revelation and the various religious beliefs of men it
circumvents, more than it resolves, the difficulty. It presupposes
the problem solved and postulates that men are as they should be
rather than as they are: superstitious. When it again meets the
religious beliefs of men it becomes erastianism, a solution
designed to accommodate the rigours of a purely rational politics
to the weaknesses of men. This solution, on one hand, avoids
giving the commonwealth a religious foundation, thus making the
power of the sovereign as independant as possible from the
religious beliefs of his subjects. On the other hand, because the
sovereign's legitimacy rests on the consent of his subjects, it is
essential for him to regulate their beliefs as much as he can.
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Yet, in view of the fact that faith is not subject to any human
jurisdiction, this solution must need be unstable. Given that
men's beliefs are not what they should be, they will never accept
the subordination of the church to a purely human authority. The
political problem of religion remains. Until it is solved a purely
human politics is, it seems, impossible.
III
IF REASON FAILS...
The rational solution to the political problem of religion is
presented in the very last chapter of Book II. It is natural to
think that it sets the stage for Hobbes's reading of the Bible.
Hobbes, I think, was well aware that his solution according to
reason alone, perfect though it was, would remain impractical as
long as men believed otherwise. Erastianism is only a solution for
want of anything better: a commonwealth of no religion at all. The
goal of Parts III and IV is to supply to this lack.
Faith, as we have already seen, is a system of transmission of
authority through time. The analysis of the causes of changes of
religion revealed that this system of transmission is indissociable
from a historical process of religious transformation. This makes
for the political problem of religion. As long as the two domains
are joined, the static authority of the sovereign is exposed to to
the dynamic evolution of religious beliefs. But the dynamism of
religion also makes for a possible solution. The historical
evolution of religion, if it led to the belief that God does not
give us any laws, and if it eased men's fears of invisible spirits,
could provide an acceptable answer to the political problem of
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religion. A religion that taught that it is men's lot to give to
themselves their own laws would religiously justify the absence of
religious legitimation of the commonwealth. Within the context of
this separation of the two domains the sovereign could then abandon
his subjects to their fantasies concerning religious beliefs and
practices. Hobbes's interpretation of the Bible, I will argue,
presents revelation as an historical process which brings about a
complete separation of religion and politics.
A certain difficulty in reading these texts follows from this.
Given the structure of this solution, Christianity must necessarily
appear both as a particular example of the political problem of
religion and as the solution to that problem. The difficulty is
compounded by the fact that, according to Hobbes, revelation is not
known, but believed only. As a result the importance and validity of
erastianism is reasserted everywhere in these texts, while a page
later Hobbes argues that Christianity invalidates it. These
apparent contradictions stem from our inability to distinguish what
is known by reason from what is simply believed. For though,
according to Hobbes, we should not believe anything which is
against reason, belief is not knowledge. I may hope that my
beliefs are true, but I cannot know itviii. Hobbes' erastianism is a
solution which he knows by reason, but his interpretation of
Scripture is something which he hopes is true.
Furthermore, Revelation cannot remain confined to the Biblical
text if this solution is to be efficacious. If it did, the
religious solution would suffer from the same flaw as the solution
according to reason alone. A correct interpretation of Scripture
can perhaps justify the complete separation of religion and
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politics, but that is of little help if the sovereign cannot impose
upon his subjects this true interpretation of religion. Revelation
then must in some way reach out to men as they are. As we will seen
this takes place through a process of religious changes that
extends all the way to Hobbes's times and enacts his interpretation
of revelation. The divison of the second half of Leviathan into
two Books reflects this. Book III presents revelation as a sacred
history which constitutes the time frame within which human
institutions take place. It suggests that this sacred history
extends all the way to Hobbes's time. It also shows that
Christianity calms men's fear of invisible spirits and that it
entails a complete separation of religion and politics. Book III
describes Christianity as it ideally should be. Book IV describes
Christianity as it is and as it has been. It inquires into the
reason which prevented revelation from being received, and argues
that the recent history of religous changes in Europe, and in
England in particular, leads to a situation which realizes the true
content of revelation as it is expounded in Book III.
In view of what is the political problem of religion according
to Hobbes, this process of religous changes constitutes a series of
unjust rebellions against rightful sovereigns. That, at least, is
the attitude which political philosophy must adopt towards the
recent events in England. Simultaneously Hobbes's reading of the
viii. Hobbes's real ambiguity towards Christianity results, I believe, fromthe tension within him between these two modes of apprehension. Hobbes theman is torn between what he knows of Christianity, the English civil war, andwhat he hopes will come of it, rational politics. If Christianity appears asa possible solution to the political problem of religion, clearly it alsoexacerbates the problem inasmuch as revelation precludes any regression to theheathen's solution.
17
Bible, I suggest, sees these events as the action of God in
history. If this is the case, and given that revelation is not to
contradict reason, though it may contain mysteries that go beyond
it, reason itself must allow for the possibility of this history
which is both of divine justice and of human injustice.
The second to last paragraph of Book II does just that. It
deals with the natural punishments of God. These, says Hobbes, are
the natural consequences of the breach of the laws of nature(P.
407). Hobbes mentions a few, and among them, rebellion, which is a
natural consequence of negligent government(P. 407). This allows
for a twofold history. Rebellion, which is always human injustice,
can also be divine justice. But these two sides of the same action
must remain separated if Hobbes's political philosophy is to stand.
If any person can pretend to be the executioner of divine
retribution it is evident that the edifice of the commonwealth,
patiently elaborated in Book II, must fall. That is why Hobbes
says, concerning the natural punishments of God, that they are
imbedded in "so long a chayn of Consequences, that no humane
Providence, is high enough, to give a man a prospect to the end"(P.
406). This suggests that the natural punishments of God cannot be
known. Reason allows for them. It computes their possibility, but
no man can know that he is the instrument of divine justice. It
follows that God's justice can never be invoked to legitimate human
actions. A man may believe that he reads the punishments of God in
a series of events, but he cannot know if what he believes is true.
If this interpretation is correct, we should expect to find
three converging lines of argumentation in Hobbes's reading of the
Bible. First, arguments to the effect that revelation, understood
18
as God's initiatives in history, extends beyond the Biblical text,
all the way to the present. Second, arguments showing that
Christianity lends no support to the fear of invisible spirits, a
fear which, because it "is greater than other fears, cannot want a
party sufficient to Trouble, and sometimes, to Destroy a Common-
Wealth"(P. 371). Finally, revelation should appear as a sacred
history that brings about a complete separation of religion and
politics. In the next section I will deal with two first lines of
argumentation. In the following two sections I will present
Hobbes's conception of the historical unfolding of revelation from
Adam's fall to the end of times.
This interpretation is, at least in the second line of
argumentation identified above, akin to David Johnston's analysis
in The Rhetoric of Leviathanix. Johnston sees Hobbes engaged in a
politics of cultural transformation directed against those features
of the imaginative world of his contemporaries which were
antagonistic to the establishment of a political authority based on
rationality. There are nontheless major differences between his
interpretation and the one proposed here. Johnston fails to
perceive the political problem of religion as such. He attributes
the origin of this politics of enlightenment on Hobbes's part to
the fact that his political argument is drawn from a model of human
behaviour which approximates reality less than perfectly.
Leviathan, according to him, corresponds to the moment in Hobbes
intellectual maturation when he takes notice of this discrepency,
and should be read as a political act, as Hobbes's attempt to
change the world, rather than as his theory. To the contrary,
Hobbes, I argue, is looking to Christianity as a means through
19
which men are changed and made adequate for purely rational
Commonwealths. Natural religions, according to him, constitute a
particular political problem inasmuch as the fear of invisible
spirits is the only passion which cannot be translated into the
language of rational interestx, a difficulty which is brought to
the forefront by the experience of the English revolution. Since
the Sovereign and the political philosopher must take men as they
are, rather than as they should be, Hobbes cannot without absurdity
propound -in the sense of prescribe to the sovereign- a politic of
cultural transformation, simply because the will of the sovereign
has no power over the beliefs of his subjects. A politics of
enlightenment, conceived as the political will to rationalize or to
eradicate religion is subject to the same difficulties as the
heathen's solution to the political problem of religion. Hobbes
was well aware of these difficulties.
IV
REVELATION AND THE FEAR OF INVISIBLE SPIRITS
At the beginning of his study of revelation Hobbes reasserts the
importance of natural reason in this research. There may be
mysteries of revelation which are beyond our reason, but none that
go against it, says he(p. 409-410). He then distinguishes two ways
in which God may speak to man: directly or indirectly. If God
ix. D. Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan (Princeton 1986), pp. 232.
x. On the reduction of passions to rational interests in Hobbes see, A.O.Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests, (Princeton, 1977); P. Dumouchel,"Hobbes: la course à la souveraineté", in Stanford French French Review,X:153-176 (1986) and P. Dumouchel, "Voir et Craindre un lion", in RueDescartes, 12-13:92-105, (1995).
20
speaks to a man directly, that is by an immediate revelation, the
problem arises of why any other person should believe him. Hobbes
answers that we are not obliged to believe this man. If this
"prophet" happens to be my sovereign, "he may oblige me to
obedience, so, as not by act or word to declare I beleeve him not;
but not to think any otherwise then my reason perswades me"(P.
411). The point is important and leads to two apparently
contradictory consequences. First, it entails that no pretence of
direct divine revelation ever obliges in itself. Given this we
have an obligation only to our earthly sovereign. Only he can make
a doctrine law or decide what is and what is not the word of God.
Second, it reaffirms something which we saw beforexi, that faith is
not an obligation. Even my sovereign cannot force me to believe.
Hobbes's distinction between the "authenticity" and the
"cannonicity" of Scripture follows from this. Because cannons are
rules of life, and because the only rules of life which men are in
conscience forced to observe are laws, the question of the
cannonicity of the books of Scripture properly posed is: "By what
Authority they are made Law"(P. 425). Hobbes answers that they can
be made law only by the sovereign who has sole authority to
legislate. He will then limit his inquiry to those books of the
Bible which are recognized as Holy Scripture by the Church of
England(P. 416).
The question of the authenticity of the books, is to the
contrary not political and falls within what today is usually
called "critical editorial practice"xii. Hobbes tries to answer
such questions as: Who is the author of the book he is reading?
xi. See above section 1.
21
When was it written? Was it compiled from older sources? If yes,
which ones? Is the text corrupted? How can we discover that it
is? etc. Clearly all of these relate to the question of the
authority carried by Scripture. They relate to the credence
Hobbes can give to this text.
Hobbes's critical analysis leads him to challenge the common
belief that Moses is the author of the Pentateuchxiii. He mentions
numerous passages which refer in the present tense to events that
happened after Moses death, and others that refer to earlier
sources which are now lost. Hobbes concludes that the books of
Moses were written long after the time of the events they report.
When the same method applied to the other books of the Old
Testament similar results are found. The New Testament, to the
contrary, was written by the Apostles soon after Christ's Passion.
Nonetheless, the Church did not receive it as their writting before
the council of Laodicea, in 364 a.d. At that time, according to
Hobbes, so great was the ambition of the doctors of the church that
they no longer recognized the supreme authority of the civil power
in spiritual and temporal matters. Yet he believes that they did
not falsify the Gospels, though they were in their hands only,
"because if they had an intention so to doe, they would surely have
made them more favorable to their power over Christian Princes, and
Civill Sovereignty, than they are"(P. 423) Hobbes therefore sees
no reason to doubt of their authenticity.
This method of textual analysis relates to Hobbes's conception
of faith. His sovereign may force him to accept certain books as
xii. See A.M. Hjort, "The Interest of Critical Editorial Practices" inPoetics 15:259-277 (1986).
22
the only ones which contain revelation, but he cannot force him to
think otherwise than his reason persuades him. Hobbes questions
the ability of the text to affirm without contradiction that Moses
was the author of the Pentateuch. He also questions the honesty of
the ecclesiastics. He concludes accordingly. This method is a
rational criticism of belief attentive to the two criteria of
faith: ability to know the truth and honesty in not deceiving.
Simultaneously, given that those are the qualities which
"unpleasing priests" lack, it is isomorphic to the process of
religious transformation described earlier.
As Pocock has rightly pointed out, I believe, Hobbes's
approach involves a historization of revelationxiv. The text which
we consider sacred was not delivered once and for all in a time
past, and since then transmitted from generation to generation by
more or less faithful scholars. To the contrary the text as we
know it was composed through a process of rewriting of earlier
sources by a succession of anonymous compilers. In a sense, it is
the process of transmission which writes the text. Revelation not
only records historical facts, it is historically written.
Revelation is not a text which existed prior to the process of its
transmission. Rather, the sacred text is the result of this
process.
This means that Hobbes is in a position which is similar to
that of the "original" anonymous compilers. He is the interpreter
of an older source which he has recieved from a tradition. His
xiii. According to A. P. Martinich, Hobbes "is especially noteworthy forbeing the first European to argue in print that Moses could not have been theauthor of the entire Pentateuch. See A. P. Martinich The Two Gods of Leviathan (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1992) p. 312.
23
interpretation adds to this tradition just as the ancient
interpreters modified older sources which are now lost. The only
possible guaranty of such a tradition is not its conformity to some
original message, which does not exist here, but the belief that it
is in the hand of God. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by
those accidents, which guide us into the presence of them that
speak to us; which accidents are all contrived by God Almighty; and
yet are not supernaturall"(P. 366). Hobbes therefore is justified
in accepting as the word of God only those books which are
recognized as such by the Church of England, the religion in which
he happens, accidentaly, to have been born. All of this suggests
that revelation, the sacred history reported in the text, extends
all the way to Hobbes and to his times. This impression is
confirmed when we remember that Hobbes's method of interpretation
is isomorphous to the history of religious changes narrated in the
Bible. An interpretation which is reinforced when we remember that
Chapter 36 informs us that the word of God is also taken for the
effect of his word(P. 454). To interpret the Bible is to be part
of a history of religious transformations which reaches out to the
present.
The second line of argumentation is to be found mainly in Book
III, Chapters 34 and 38, and again in Book IV, Chapters 45 and 46.
Especially in Book III, Hobbes sets out to define some of the terms
found in the Bible. The terms spirits, angels, and inspiration, he
tells us, are not used to refer to individual beings, but to denote
the action of God metaphorically. To be imbued with the spirit of
God is to be disposed to obey him. Angels are usualy conceived of
xiv. (Pocock 1971) pp. 163-169, 189-193.
24
as messengers of God, yet it does not follow, according to him,
that they are individual beings, spirits. Rather, the term refers
to the way God may supernaturally raise in a man a vision or a
dream in order to communicate his will. Thus, angels are not
"reall Substances, but accidents of the brain"(P. 435), there are
no ghosts(P. 434).
A similar strategy is applied to the words "satan" and
"devil". These, according to Hobbes, are not used to refer to
individual persons, as proper names do. They mean in the original
Greek, the enemy or the accuser(P. 488). They are "Appellatives"
used to designate all those who oppose the kingdom of God(P. 488,
627-628). Therefore, Hobbes concludes, they should not be left
untranslated, as they usually are, because it seduces people "to
beleeve the doctrine of Devills; which was the Religion of the
Gentiles"(P. 488). The Christian text, properly read, lends no
support whatsoever to the belief in invisible spiritsxv.
Further, God punishes us no more than our earthly sovereign
can. The soul, according to Hobbes, is a material substance, and
is not of its own nature immortal(P. 482). When a man dies, his
soul dies with him. He will be resurrected body and soul at the
end of times, but there is no purgatory in betweenxvi. There is no
hell either. That is to say, there is no lake of fire where the
damned shall suffer eternal torments. What was lost by Adam's fall
was an eternal life here on earth. Redemption is the promise that
we will recover that eternal life. Those who will be damned at the
ressurection will die again, and after that "shall die no more"(P.
490). Death is the only punishment that God inflicts upon
unbelievers. It follows that we should not fear God more than we
25
fear the civil authority. As we shall see later on, we should fear
him even less, for God, though he does not punish us more than our
sovereign can, offers us a promise which no Leviathan can.
V
THE DISSOLUTION OF GOD'S KINGDOM
Hobbes's interpretation of Adam's fall is, I believe, the key to
his reading of the Bible. He deals with it no less than four times
in Leviathanxvii. The first two descriptions stress the political
consequences of the Fall, the last two, its eschatological
implications. According to Hobbes, the term "Kingdome of God" as
it is used in Scripture refers to a "Kingdome properly so named"(P.
442). From the beginning of creation God had particular subjects
whom he commanded by voice. Such was the way he reigned over Adam.
When Adam disobeyed, he "took upon him to be as God, judging his
own sense, his punishment was a privation of the estate of Eternall
life"(P. 443). The first mention of the Fall, Chapter 20, reports
xv. A similar interpretation of these passages is found in (Johnston 1986),pp. 142-184.
xvi. About this 17th century heresy called "mortalism" and its relationshipto Hobbes see: N.H. Henry, "Milton & Hobbes: Mortalism and the IntermediateState", in Studies in Philology, Vol 48, (1951), 241-270; M.H. Nicolson, "TheSpirit World of Milton and More", in Studies in Philology, Vol 22 (1925), 432-452; G. Williamson, "Milton and the Mortalist Heresy", in Studies inPhilology, Vol 32 (1935), 553-579. In The Two Gods of Leviathan (New York,Cambridge University Press, 1992), A. P. Martinich argues that Hobbes was anorthodox Christian. But in the section (pages 262-266) of his book dealingwith mortalism he fails to mention that it was a heresy, a minority view whichwas severely punished. According to Christopher Hill The World Turned UpsideDown (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1972, p. 179) the Blasphemy Ordinance ofMay 1648 imposed the death penalty on Mortalists. Hardly the stuff out ofwhich orthodox Christians are made.
26
that the devil tempted Eve and told her that if they ate of the
tree of knowledge, they would become as Gods, knowing both good and
evil. "Whereupon having both eaten" says Hobbes "they did indeed
take upon them God's office, which is judicature of Good and Evill;
but acquired no new ability to distinguish between them aright"(P.
260).
The two consequences of the Fall, death and that men take upon
themselves the judicature of good and evil, clearly are related.
The rejection of God's kingdom leaves us with the responsibility of
determining what is right and what is wrong. But since we have
acquired no new ability to distinguish between them, this leads to
a state of war of all against all. Given that we are now mortal,
we must erect, for our protection, a "Mortal God" to whom we confer
the sole right of deciding what is right and what is wrong(P. 234,
311-318). To be condemned to death is to be condemned to the
Leviathan. God doomed mankind to what Adam desired, the judicature
of good and evil. Adam's fall has condemned us to political
philosophy.
The Fall then explains the existence of human political
institutions. God punishes us with death as enemies, expulses us
from his kingdom and abandons us to ourselves. The Fall is the
beginning of God's silence when he ceases to govern us with his
voice. It is equivalent to his natural kingdom where he gives us
xvii. There are four different but complementary interpretations of thispassage in Leviathan, Book II, Chapter 20, (P. 259-260); Book III, Chapter 35,(P. 443); Book III, Chapter 38, (P. 479-481); Book IV, Chapter 44, (P. 636-637). Yet, according to the computer analysis of the text of Leviathan by L.Roux & H. Gilibert, Le Vocabulaire, la phrase et le paragraphe du "Leviathan"de Thomas Hobbes, (Saint-Etienne 1980), p. 132, the word 'Adam' occurs only 35times in the whole book.
27
no laws. We may want to submit to his power, but this desire to
submit is of no avail as long as he refuses to answer our call.
Adam's fall is also the beginning of revelation. It is the
sacred history of God's renewed dialogue with man and of man's
responses to the divine initiatives. Then, says Hobbes, God spoke
to Abraham and made a covenant with him. But God spoke only to
Abraham, not to all of the people of Israel, why then were they
forced to take his word as the word of God? Abraham, according to
Hobbes, exerted a paternal dominion over his family. Therefore
"their wills (which make the essence of all Covenants) were before
the contract involved in the will of Abraham"(P. 500). The people
of Israel did not covenant directly with God only indirectly. It
is through their prior tacit contract with Abraham that they were
obliged to take as God's laws what he commanded in God's namexviii.
After the escape from Egypt, Moses renewed the covenant with
God. Yet Moses had "no authority to govern the Israelites, as a
successor to the right of Abraham"(P. 502). Where did his
legitimacy come from? "It could not be the commandement of God
that could oblige them [the Israelites]; because God spoke not to
them immediately, but by the mediation of Moses.... His authority
therefore, as the authority of all other Princes, must be grounded
on the Consent of the People, and their Promise to obey
him"(Ibid.). It is difficult to carry the secularisation of
political power any further. The right of Moses to govern the
Israelites, according to Hobbes, did not and could not come from
God, it had to be founded on the consent of the people. It is not
religion which legitimizes politics, but only politics which can
make religion law, and that, even in the kingdom of God!
28
Given that God speaks only indirectly to his subjects, we
should not be surprised to learn that the divine kingdom itself is
exposed to the religious vissicitudes that threaten human
sovereignty. When the people of Israel asked Samuel to make them a
King that would govern them like all the nations, they deposed the
government of God(P. 508). God said to Samuel to listen to the
people, "for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected
me, that I should not reign over them"(Ibid.). Yet, Hobbes tells
us, God consented to it.
As we saw earlier, Hobbes's conception of the kingdom of God
entails that God himself, inasmuch as he wants to govern men as
subjects, rather than to overrule them with his might, cannot
circumvent the essential structure of the political institution:
the consent of the people. His interpretation of scripture
suggests that the problem should be seen the other way around.
Since the Fall it is human institutions which caricature the divine
kingdom. The commonwealth rests on consent, but on a consent which
has been wrought out of fear. God consents to the rebellion of his
subjects, in Adam and in the Israelites, because he "never
accepteth forced actions, (which is all the Law produceth) but the
inward conversion of the heart"(P. 592).
The consequence of this rebellion is a history of civil strife
and disorder which leads to the division of the commonwealth of the
Hebrews, to its destruction and to their captivity. The people of
Israel, according to Hobbes, had no design to abandon the worship
of God. They simply despaired of the justice of the sons of
Samuel(P. 501)xix. Therefore they did not allow their Kings to
depart from the religion of Moses and "took occasion as oft as
29
their Governours displeased them, by blaming sometimes the Policy,
sometimes the Religion, to change the Government, or revolt from
their Obedience at their pleasure"(P. 509). "So that they always
kept in store a pretext, either of Justice, or Religion, to
discharge them selves of their obedience whensoever they had hope
to prevaile"(P. 510)xx.
The Fall and the election of Saul are, according to Hobbes,
events of a similar type. They repeat the same tale of man's
rejection of God's kingdom. In both cases the fault is identical.
It is to take God's office upon ourselves, to assume the judicature
of good and evil. In both cases God consented to it. Yet, God
gave us no new ability to distinguish between them properly, so
that we are condemned to death and to the Leviathan. And because,
since the Fall, God has spoken to the Hebrews and given them laws
through Moses, their rejection of his kingdom has also condemned
them to the political problem of religion, and consequently to the
destruction of their comonwealth.
VI
xviii. Professor F. C. Hoods in his book The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes(Oxford 1964), p. 263, argues the commonwealth is possible only if the laws ofnature have already been received as God's laws through revelation(P. 253).According to the passage we have just analysed, revelation can be received aslaw only through the already existing obligation to the sovereign. Inconsequence, it seems that under Hoods's interpretation neither thecommonwealth nor revelation are possible.
xix?. Once again, "unpleasing priests" are the cause of religious changes.
xx. Compare to the passage in Book II, (P. 370-372).
30
THE MISSION OF CHRIST AND THE POWER OF THE ECCLESIASTICS
The mission, or office, of Christ, according to Hobbes, is to be
understood in relationship to the Fall and the rejection of God's
kingdom. It is a threefold office and to each part of this mission
corresponds a particular time period in the history of mankind.
One, Christ has a mission as Saviour and Redeemer(P. 512). This
first part of his office is to recover the eternal life that was
lost by Adam's sin(P. 479). According to Hobbes, this eternal life
is, it should be noted, exactly the one which we lost. It is an
eternal life here on earth. The elect shall not ascend to
heaven(P. 480-495). They shall live here on earth and shall be
secured against "all Evill, comprending Want, Sicknesse, and Death
itself"(P. 490). To this first part of his office corresponds the
time of his first coming, from his birth to his death on the Cross.
The second part of his mission corresponds to the fact that
salvation is conditional on some acceptance on our part. Hence
Christ has an office as a Counsellor or Teacher(P. 512). As such
his mission is to renew the covenant that "had been cut off by the
Rebellion of the Israelites in the election of Saul"(P. 515). What
is asked of us, in order to recover eternal life, is to assent to
the rule of God. To gain eternal life is to enter the kingdom of
God just as its rejection condemned us to death. To this part of
Christ's mission corresponds all the time from his ressurection to
the time of his second coming. The third part of Christ's mission
is to reign as King over the elect after judgement day. He will
reign under God, as God's lieutenant, as Moses did(P. 518-519). To
this last part of his mission corresponds a time period which is
situated after the resurrection of the dead.
31
The second part of Christ's mission then continues today.
Since Christ is no longer with us, it is carried on by the Church
and by the ecclesiastics, the followers of the Apostles. It is
from the point of view of the duties and responsibility of that
mission that Hobbes sets out to establish what power Christ left to
his ministers(P. 521). Now what was the nature of the submission
which Christ demanded from us? He required that we should submit
to the kingdom of God and renew the covenant that was broken at the
election of Saul, but not that we submit to him here in the
present. Rather we are asked to acknowledge the promise of a
kingdom to come in the future.
Therefore the power of the ecclesiastics, according to Hobbes,
is only a power "to proclaim the Kingdom of Christ, and to perswade
men to submit themselves thereunto"(P. 525). The duty of the
ecclesiastics is to make men believe and have faith in Christ.
"But Faith hath no relation to, nor dependance at all upon
Compulsion, or Commandement... Therefore the Ministers of Christ in
this world, have no Power by that title, to Punish any man for not
Beleeving or for Contradicting what they say"(P. 526)xxi. According
to Hobbes the precepts of Christian religion are not laws because
"our Saviour hath denyed his Kingdome to be in this world"(P. 527).
The time between the election of Saul and Christ's second comming
is a time when men are condemned to give to themselves their own
laws.
The precepts of Christian religion are counsel. In Chapter
23, Book II(P. 303), Hobbes has already established the distinction
between laws and counsel. He nevertheless feels obliged to repeat
it here. A law, according to Hobbes, is distinguished from a
32
counsel in "that the reason of the Law, is taken from the designe
and benefit of him that prescribeth it; but the reason of a
Counsell, from the designe, and benefit of him, to whom the
Counsell is given"(P. 588-589). The distinction is essential.
When I give an order to someone, what I am aiming at is a good for
myself. When I give counsel, what I aim or pretend to be aiming at
is a good for the person I counsel. Christianity is counsel and
not law because to accept the promise of salvation is not in God's
interest, but in my ownxxii.
Because of this difference between the aim of counsel and that
of law, a man is never obliged to do what he is counselled(P. 303;
550). It follows that the books of the New Testaments are "only
good, and safe advice, which every man might take, and refuse at
his own perill, without injustice"(P. 531). God consented to the
rebellion of the Israelites and he has given us no new laws, only
advice. He has given us no new laws, because he accepts only "the
inward conversion of the heart; which is not the work of Laws, but
of Counsell, and Doctrine"(P. 592). Christianity is not law, and
as we will see, should not be made law.
[A] Christian King, as a Pastor, and Teacher of his
Subjects, makes not thereby his Doctrines Laws. Hexxi. Numerous passages support this conception of ecclesiastical power. See,for example, (P. 527, 541, 542, 543, 550, 551, 591, and 592).
xxii. In The Two Gods of Leviathan (New York, Cambridge University Press,1992), Professor Martinich is somewhat perplexed by Hobbes's used of thisdistinction in relationship to God. He concludes that if would follow from itthat God's commandement benefit Him, which he adds, "is obviously absurd foran orthodox"(p. 132). But then, maybe this is a further sign that Hobbes isnot an orthodox Christian and that he seriously meant what he often repeated,that God commands are not laws, but only safe counsel, which any man may athis own peril disregard.
33
cannot oblige men to beleeve; though as a Civill
Soveraign he may make Laws suitable to his Doctrine,
which may oblige men to certain actions, and sometimes
to such as they would not otherwise do, and which he
ought not to command; (P.591).
Hobbes said at the beginning of his reading of the Bible that
though it is not determined in Scripture "what laws every Christian
King shall constitute in his own Dominions; yet it is determined
what laws he shall not constitute"(P. 415). Though he can
transform his interpretation of Scripture into law, the sovereign
should not do it. He should not for theological reasons, because
God never accepts forced actions which is all that the law
produces. He should not for political reasons, because he cannot
force men to believe. Christianity entails a complete separation
of religion and politics, because Christ's kingdom is not of this
world, and because the precepts of Christian religion are counsels,
not law.
This conclusion is reinforced by the last chapter of the third
book entitled "Of what is NECESSARY for a Man's Reception in the
Kingdome of God"(P. 609). This whole chapter is an eloquent
statement of Hobbes's latitudinarism. All that is necessary in
order to be saved, according to Hobbes, is faith and obedience to
the laws(p. 610). Since Christ has given us no new laws, the laws
we should obey are political only. This obedience to the
sovereign, if it were perfect, Hobbes tells us, would be sufficient
to save us. It is only because we are all disobedient through
Adam, and by our own transgressions, that we need faith and
remission of sins(P. 610). The sovereign therefore, and he alone,
34
answers to the question: what should I do? Christianity, as
religion within the limits of pure reason according to Kant,
answers to the question: what can I hope? I can hope for eternal
life and the remission of sin.
According to Hobbes, the only article of faith necessary in
order to be received in the kingdom of heaven is to believe that
"Jesus is Christ".(P. 615). On this Christ has built his Church
and from it are derived all other articles of faith. To believe
that Jesus is Christ, according to Hobbes, is to believe that he is
the Messiah sent for the remission of our sins and who will return
at the end of time to reign over the elect. It is to believe in
the promise that constitutes the essence of Christianity. Hobbes
supports this interpretation with a passage taken from St Paul's
first Epistle to the Corithians, Chapter 3, verse 11 to 15. There,
Paul says that no man can lay a different foundation than the one
which is laid: Jesus is Christ. He adds that whoever shall build
upon this foundation shall see his edifice tried on the day of
judgement, and that though his construction may be lost, he himself
shall be saved. Men should not kill each other over every little
point of interpretation. God himself does not ask so much from us.
He forgives our false interpretations, if only we are ready to
submit to his kingdom. Sovereigns should not make their inter-
pretation of Scripture law, the ecclesiastics should not ask them
to do so. As Hobbes will say Chapter 46, it is against the law of
nature to force men to accuse themselves of opinions(P. 700).
Hobbes reads the Bible as a sacred history which assigns us
our place in the world. We live in the time of Christianity, a
period which comes after the Fall and the rejection of God's
35
kingdom and before Christ's return. During that time, God gives us
no laws. He abandons to us the judicature of good and evil. But
he gives us a promise of eternal life and of a kingdom to come.
This promise should ease our anxiety about future time, because it
is a promise to be relieved of all evil and of death itself. In
order to inherit that promise, we should obey the civil authority
and submit to God's future rule. Hobbes's reading of the Bible is
his philosophy of historyxxiii. Christianity defines the time within
which purely rational political institutions become possiblexxiv.
VII
GOD'S PUNISHMENTS REVEALED
The last book of Leviathan, entitled "Of the Kingdome of Darknesse"
inquires into the reason which prevented this true interpretation
of Scripture from being recieved. Hobbes lists four causes of the
spiritual darkness in which we live. He dedicates one chapter to
the study of each of the first two causes and studies the last two
in the third chapter of Book IV. The first cause is the
misinterpretation of Scripture. The main error here is to believe
that the Church here on earth is the Kingdom of God and that the
Pope is its sovereign(P. 630). The other major errors relate to
the soul, hell and purgatory. As we have seen before it is to
believe that the soul is naturally immortal, that it will suffer
eternal torments in hell after the judgement and that in the
36
meantime it expiates its sins in purgatory.
The second cause of spiritual darkness is from "DAEMONOLOGY,
and other Reliques of the Religion of the Gentiles"(P. 657). The
main mistake in this case is the belief in the existence of
invisible and immaterial spirits. Hobbes argues that these beliefs
were carried over from the religion of the gentiles who retained
some of their original ceremonies at the time of their first
conversion(P. 659-681). With a very keen historical and
anthropological sensibility Hobbes suggests origins in the Greek
and Roman religions of the antiquity for the canonization of
saints, the procession of images, the use of holy water, exorcisms,
and many other ceremonies of the Roman Church. He ends that
chapter by saying that he does not doubt that it is possible to
find many more of these "old empty Bottles of Gentilisme, which the
Doctors of the Romane Church, either by Negligence, or Ambition,
have filled up again with the new Wine of Christianity, that will
not faile in time to break them" (P. 681). The third cause of
spiritual darkness is by mixing Scripture with the "vain and
erroneous Philosophy of the Greeks"(P. 629). The fourth is by
adding to this mixture uncertain traditions and history. In both
these cases the error is essentially an attempted supression of
reason.
xxiii. A point which as also been argued by A.J. Pocock "Time, History andEschatology in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes", in Politics, Language and Time(Atheneum, 1971), P. 148-201.
xxiv. P. Manent, Naissances de la Politique Moderne (Paris, 1977), pp. 119-131, has similarily argued that, according to Hobbes, Christian revelationentails a complete separation of religion and politics during the time whichelapses between Christ's death and his second coming.
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The last chapter of Book IV is entitled "Of the BENEFIT that
procedeth from such Darknesse and to whom it accrueth"(P. 704). As
we may suspect, this benefit goes, according to Hobbes, first to
the Church of Rome, but also to "all those besides that endeavour
to settle in the mind of men this erroneous Doctrine, that the
Church now on earth, is that Kingdome of God mentioned in the Old
and New Testament"(P. 708). Hobbes then proceeds to sketch the
history of the growth of spiritual darkness from the beginning of
the Church to his times. He stresses that in this history
Christian Princes can be considered as accessories to their own
damage. "For without their Authority there could at first no
seditious Doctrine have been publiquely preached"(P. 709). Yet,
once the process had begun, once men were influenced by the fear of
invisible spirits, "there was no humane remedy to be applyed", and
we should wait for the remedies of God who never fails "in his good
time to destroy all the Machinations of men against the
Truth"(Ibid.).
This history begins with the humbles virtues of the Apostles
which the people believed out of reverence, says Hobbes, and not
obligation. Then as the number of Christians increased the
Presbyters assembled to decide what should and should not be
taught, and decided to excommunicate those who would not obey them.
This, says Hobbes "was the first knot upon their Liberty"(P. 710).
The second knot was when the Presbyters of the major cities and
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provinces took the names of Bishops and got an authority over the
parochial presbyters. Finally the Bishop of Rome claimed an
authority over all the Bishops and over the emperors themselves.
This, says Hobbes, was the "third and last knot, and the whole
Synthesis and Construction of the Pontificall Power... "And
therefore the Analysis, or Resolution is by the same way; but
beginning with the knot that was last tyed"(P. 710). First the
power of the Pope was destroyed in England by King Henry VIII and
by Queen Elizabeth. The second knot was untied when the
Presbyterians obtained in England the putting down of the power of
the Episcopacy. "And almost in the same time, the Power was also
taken from the Presbyterians. And so we are reduced to the
Independancy of Primitive Christians to follow Paul, Cephas, or
Apollos, every man as he liketh best"(P. 711).
The meaning of these texts is, I believe, clear. Hobbes
presents recent English history from Henry VIII's break with Rome
to the latest events in the Civil War as leading to a situation of
religious toleration which is entirely consistent with his
interpretation of Christianity. In the same breath he describes
this situation as allowing for the existence of purely rational
political institutions. He even suggests that this historical
process of religious transformations is in the hand of God who
"never faileth in his good time to destroy the Machinations of men
against the Truth"(P. 710) and further suggests that it is the
effect of the word of God in history, of the new wine of Chris-
tianity breaking the old bottles of gentilisme. Hence we are
reduced to the independancy of the primitive Christians, to a time
when sovereigns can prevent the spread of spiritual darkness(P.
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709).
Christianity solves the political problem of religion.
Revelation reaches out to men as they are. It changes them in a
way in which neither the Sovereign nor the political philosopher
can. On one hand, it religiously justifies the sovereign's sole
authority to decide what is right and wrong. On the other hand, it
calms men's anxiety about future time by answering the question:
what can I hope? That is why, historically, it can perform a
complete separation of the two domains of religion and politics.
Yet, if no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect
of the end of divine punishments, it is clear that Hobbes cannot
know this. He can only believe that his interpretation of the
Bible is true and that he perceives the action of God correctly in
the "disorders of the present times". This is why he wrote, in the
ultimate paragraph of the last chapter of Leviathan:
But who knows that this Spirit of Rome, now gone out,
and walking by Missions through the dry places of China,
Japan, and the Indies, that yeeld him little fruit, may
not return, or rather an Assembly of Spirits worse than
he, enter, and inhabite this clean swept house, and make
the End thereof worse than the Beginning?
This interpretation, which gives major importance to the
precise moment at which Leviathan was written during the English
Civil war differs, in various ways from what may be called the
'interventionist' interpretations of Hobbes. A few years ago
Professor Quentin Skinner argued that Hobbes's Leviathan
consituted, among other things, a political intervention within the
40
engagement controversy taking place in England in the years 1649-
1651xxv. According to him, Hobbes was rightly seen by the de facto
theorists supporting Cromwell as propounding a theory of obligation
which corroborated their own conclusions. According to the present
interpretation Hobbes's contribution to that debate might also have
been motivated by the fact that at least some of the Independants
supported a form of toleration which he considered indispensable to
the establishment of purely rational politics. Recently Mark
Whitaker suggested that Hobbes's intervention in English
revolutionary politics was addressed to what he saw "as a political
moment of extraordinary significance and possibility" and that its
"political focus can be best described as that of the
incompleteness of Reformation"xxvi. Clearly there is much agreement
between Professor Whitaker's interpretation and mine. His claim
that for Hobbes the fact that the English Revolution was unresolved
was inseparable from the fact that the Reformation was still an
incompleted historical process, is from my point of view correct
and essential to a proper understanding of Leviathan. But to this
we must add, that for Hobbes the incompleteness of Reformation
should also be construed as the incompleteness of Revelation. In
1651 Hobbes believed that this process was nearing its conclusion
as he hoped that the Protectorate would lead to the establishment
of permanent toleration. In consequence, contrary to what Whitaker
argues, there must be major differences between Hobbes's reading of
the Civil war in Leviathan and in Behemoth. Clearly, by 1668, the
Restoration politics and particularly the 1661 Clarendon Code must
have had shattered Hobbes's hopes for tolerationxxvii.
The main difficulty I see with 'interventionist'
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interpretations of Leviathanxxviii is that they rest on an
understanding of political intervention which, I believe, has no
place within the context of Hobbes's science of politics. As a
result they entail a contradiction between the content of the book,
especially the content of its first half, and the political act
which it is, in some way, deemed to perform. My claim is that an
historicist, as opposed to a purely historical interpretation which
replaces Hobbes's vision of the English Civil war within the
context of his theology, or philosophy, of history avoids this
pragmatic paradox.
VII
CONCLUSION
Parts III and IV are not accidental additions to what we came to
consider as the core of Hobbes's doctrine, nor do they constitute a
xxv. See Quentin Skinner, "The ideological context of Hobbes's politicalthought", in Historical Journal 9 (1966), 286-317; "Conquest and Consent:Thomas Hobbes and the engagement controversy", in The Interregnum, the Questfor Settlement, Ed. G.E. Aylmer, (London, 1972), 70-98; "The context ofHobbes's theory of political obligation" in Hobbes and Rousseau, Ed. M.Cranston and R.S. Peters (London 1972), 109-142.
xxvi. M. Whitaker, "Hobbes's view of the Reformation", History of PoliticalThought, 9 (1988), p. 45.
xxvii. Richard Tuck Philosophy and government 1572-1651 (Cambridge, 1993) supportsthis point. Tuck's own analysis of these texts on toleration is in many wayscomplementary to this one. His explanation of Hobbes's stance as linked tothe position adopted by exiled Queen's court in Paris is well documented andconvincing, but Hobbes's personal motivation, whatever it might have been,does not itself constitute an interpretation of these texts and of their placein the general economy of Leviathan.
xxviii. I also consider Johnston (1986) as propounding a variant of the'interventionist' interpretation.
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second, historical and prophetical, book loosely connected to the
first half of Leviathan, as both Pocock and Eisenach seem to
believexxix. Leviathan is only one "Discourse of Civill and
Ecclesiastical Government, occasioned by the disorders of the
present time"(P. 728). Parts III and IV are logical sequels to I
and II. They address a problem which is set out in Part I and the
solution is the basis for the value of Part II. Between
Christianity and Hobbes's political philosophy exists a different
type of relation than what has usually been suspected. Neither one
of opposition, as postulated by Leo Straussxxx, nor one of
foundation, as advanced by Hood and Warrenderxxxi, but rather one of
meta-foundation, where Christianity appears as the condition of
possibility for atheism in politics, for a commonwealth of no
religion at allxxxii.
Hobbes was well aware that religion was a form of social, or
political, organization. He was also aware that by recommending
the establishment of a purely rational politics he was proposing
something entirely different from what had existed historically.
The essence of this rational politics, according to him, is that
men, through their representative, give to themselves their own
xxix. Pocock (1971); E.J. Eisenach, The Two Worlds of Liberalism. Religionand Politics in Hobbes, Locke, and Mill (Chicago 1981), pp. 1-70.
xxx. Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Chicago 1952).
xxxi. (Hood 1964).; H. Warrender, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: HisTheory of Obligation (Oxford 1961).
xxxii. In many ways the closest interpretation of the relationship betweenHobbes's philosophy and his conception of Christianity which I could find inthe literature is S. R. Letwin, "Hobbes and Christianity", in Deadalus, 105:1-21 (1976).
43
laws. Its foundation is therefore solely the consent of the
subjects who agree to the law by which they are governed. The
experience of the English civil war, and the role played by
religious factions in that event, confirmed his belief that a
purely rational commonwealth was absolutely necessary if men were
to live in peace. Yet it also convinced him that this most needed
solution was unavailable as long as men believed otherwise. Hobbes
was doomed to encounter the political problem of religion.
Book III and IV propose what is probably the only possible
solution to this problem for those who think that politics must
take men as they are, rather than as they should be. It is a
historical and religious solution. As Hobbes clearly saw, only a
change in religious beliefs can make possible purely secular forms
of political organization. In this Hobbes appears as a
philosophical predecessor of the socio-historical theses of Max
Weber and R.G. Tawneyxxxiii. A predecessor who perceived, before it
existed, the conditions which made possible a new world of
politics.
This interpretation also suggests that human political
institutions caricature the kingdom of God. According to Hobbes,
the legitimacy of the commonwealth rests on the consent of the
subjects and on the involvement of their wills in the will of the
sovereign(P. 500). Because of this subjects can never accuse their
sovereign of injustice(P. 232; 217-222), given that, for Hobbes,
xxxiii. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,(London 1976); R.G. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, (London1938). Hobbes also appears as someone who has written a chapter in whatMarcel Gauchet has defined as the political history of religion. See M.Gauchet, Le Désanchantement du Monde, (Paris, 1985).
44
everyone wills a good for himself. Thus, it is clear that the
nature of the contract is to ensure a convergence between what
Hobbes calls counsel and what he names command. If that
convergence were always realized no coercion would ever be
necessary and political institutions would be perfectly rational.
Decisions of the Sovereign would express the will of each
individual subject perfectly. God never accepts any forced
actions, which, according to Hobbes is all the law ever produces.
To enter the kingdom of God is to gain eternal life. Therefore, it
is to enter a commonwealth where men, perhaps, covenant out of fear
of death, but where fear and coercion have no place once the
kingdom is instituted. The kingdom of God is the only perfectly
rational commonwealth, the only one that rests on the pure consent
of its subjects, because God can wait and choose his subjects.
This tends to indicate that Hobbes's conception of a rational
commonwealth could have a theological origin, probably in
Calvinismxxxiv. If this were the case, Hobbes would be doubly
justified in considering Christianity as the condition of
possibility of a purely rational politicsxxxv.
xxxiv. About the relationship between Hobbes and Calvinism, see (Pocock,1971) and the articles mentioned in Note 13. See also W.K. Jordan, TheDevelopment of Religious Toleration in England, Vol 4, Peter Smith, 241-320,and R. Tuck, Philosophy and government 1572-1641, (Cambridge, 1993).
xxxv. Professor R. Girard has recently proposed an interpretation ofChristianity's historical role that is somewhat similar to Hobbes's. FromGirard's point of view, Hobbes's only failing is that he never managed torelate the fear of invisible spirits to the harm which men created equal caninflict upon each other, and hence to the origin of politics. According toGirard, it is precisely this connection which is revealed by Christianity, andthat is why it makes possible a purely rational politics. See R. Girard,Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, (London, 1987).
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Leviathan gains in consistency and coherence when its second
half is taken into account. Hobbes writings on religion are no
less important to a proper understanding of his politics than is
his natural philosophy. Critics who find the key to Hobbes's
political philosophy in his reflection on natural sciences, and
rest their case on the internal consistency of his thought, should
perhaps remember that this very consistency speaks forcefully in
favor of the importance of his interpretation of Scripture. "For
it is not the bare Words, but the Scope of the writer that giveth
the true light, by which any writing is to bee interpreted; and
they that insist upon single Texts, without considering the main
Designe, can derive no thing from them cleerly"(P. 626).
Paul Dumouchel, Université du Québec à Montréal
NOTES:
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