THE GOD OF THOMAS HOBBES
2008; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 51; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1017/s0018246x08007103
ISSN1469-5103
Autores Tópico(s)Religion and Society Interactions
ResumoABSTRACT Hobbes seems to have believed in ‘God’; he certainly disapproved of most ‘religion’, including virtually all forms of Christianity. This article disentangles the link between his ‘God’ and his ‘religion’; and in so doing illuminates what Stuart writers meant by ‘atheism’. Hobbes agreed with Sir Francis Bacon that ‘atheism’ was typically caused by bad religion (that is, by ‘superstitions’ designed to serve the interests of the clergy). The Hobbesian theory of language rules out the possibility of proving God's existence, but Hobbes seems to have believed in a Designer to whom a prudent man would offer worship. He also thought that commonwealths require revealed ‘religions’, which are shared systems of belief that rest on ‘faith’ in those who first proclaim them. Religions decay when ‘faith’ is undermined by the misconduct of ‘unpleasing priests’, especially if they enjoin ‘belief of contradictories’. Leviathan is anti-atheistic in seeking to undermine priestcraft and eliminate such flaws by reinterpretation of the Bible. Hobbes probably lacked ‘faith’. But he defended liturgy and ceremony even in the circumstances of the early 1650s; the religion that he favoured was a de-clericalized Anglicanism.
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