A Brief Discussion on the Basic Spirit of Hobbes's Religious Theology
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was an English materialist philosopher, political thinker, and a renowned representative of the classical school of natural law. He lived during an era frequently plunged into extreme religious turmoil. Immersed in an environment of fierce religious conflict within Britain and across Europe, Hobbes placed immense importance on the subject of religious theology. In his masterpiece Leviathan, nearly half of the text is dedicated to religious issues—specifically in Parts III and IV—and contains over 700 direct citations from the Bible. It is evident that religious-theological thought occupies a vital position in Hobbes’s vast theoretical system. Through this, Hobbes established and constructed his own system of religious-theological thought. On one hand, as a preeminent thinker in the struggle against religious theology, Hobbes not only exposed the falsity of religious concepts but was also determined to shake and overturn the theological theoretical system that constituted the religious worldview. On the other hand, he provided several rational and valuable discourses on the isomorphic unity of religious theology and politics, the rational construction of theology and social order, and the internal logic between religious theology and philosophy.
I. The Exposure and Critique of the Essence of Religious Theology
Hobbes lived during a period of acute economic and political upheaval in Britain. His primary activities and the formation of his theories coincided with the height of the English Bourgeois Revolution; he witnessed both the victory of the revolution and the restoration of the feudal monarchy. Furthermore, the rapid advancement of European natural sciences in this era—such as astronomy, geography, mathematics, and especially physiology—had an extremely significant influence on the formation and development of Hobbes's anti-theological thought. Proceeding from materialist principles, Hobbes launched a critique of the theological doctrine of the existence of spiritual substances, such as God, angels, and souls, propagated by religious theology. He argued that these were contrary to human natural reason; the existence of ideas regarding God and angels in people's minds, and the belief in their existence, stemmed entirely from ignorance of nature. He stated: "And they that make little or no inquiry into the natural causes of things... are inclined to suppose, and feign unto themselves, several kinds of powers invisible; and to stand in awe of their own imaginations... and the seeds of religion [being] cultured and adorned [by the ruling class], they are sufficient to govern others." [1] From this, we can see that Hobbes, to a certain extent, revealed the cognitive and social roots of the emergence of religious theology, arriving at atheistic conclusions.
In a Europe shackled by medieval theology, Christian theology—aimed at demonstrating the existence of God and religious dogma—had always worn the mantle of pseudo-science and, moreover, compelled all other sciences to serve it. Following the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, human thought underwent a massive liberation, and people began to struggle against Christian theology. However, this struggle remained largely incomplete. Hobbes directed his critical fire at the highest institution of Christianity—the Roman Curia. He believed that treating the earthly church as the Kingdom of God was the most sinister intention of the Roman Curia, a total result of the abuse of the Bible, the most absurd of dogmas, and the source of all "spiritual darkness." Additionally, he applied rationalist principles to re-read the Bible. In his magnum opus Leviathan, Hobbes meticulously sketched a picture of the Christian Commonwealth, providing rational explanations for a series of issues such as the soul, prophets, miracles, and the afterlife. For instance, Hobbes provided a materialist explanation of "spirit" and "body" and cited the usage of "Holy Spirit" in the Bible to argue for the consistency between the two. Hobbes maintained that "body" and "substance" are merely different names for the same thing; all substances have bodies. Hobbes’s definition of "spirit" (holy spirit) was: "in common language, it signifieth either a subtle, invisible, fluid body." [2] Much like air. Thus, spirit is simply another "substantial entity." Regarding the issue of "miracles," he said: "In this case, we are not every one of us to make use of his own reason and conscience... but to make use of the public reason, that is to say, the reason of God's supreme lieutenant." [3] In this way, Hobbes reclaimed the power to interpret miracles—the most captivating element of religion—from the hands of the Church and placed it in the hands of the sovereign. Therefore, the decision of whether something should be recognized as a miracle rests with the sovereign of public reason.
In summary, we can see that Hobbes utilized rationalist principles to provide a brand-new interpretation of religious theology and launched a relentless critique of Christianity. Under the social conditions of the time, this undoubtedly played a massive role in intellectual liberation, allowing human thought to be extricated from Christian theology.
II. Philosophical Thought Based on the Opposition to Religious Theology
In medieval and early modern Europe, the contradictions between reason and faith, and between philosophy and theology, were always the primary contradictions in the ideological realm. Under the medieval situation of Christian spiritual dictatorship, faith stood above reason, and philosophy was the "handmaid of theology." Regarding philosophy, Hobbes believed: "Philosophy excludes history, both natural and political, though they be most useful (nay, necessary) to philosophy; because such knowledge is but experience, or authority, and not ratiocination. It excludes all knowledge acquired by Divine Inspiration, or Revelation, as not derived to us by Reason, but lent and bestowed in a moment by supernatural grace." [4] From Hobbes's perspective, we can see that he viewed philosophy as an all-encompassing, comprehensive scientific system, the aim or goal of which is to provide for the welfare of humanity. He placed particular emphasis on causal relationships and their characteristics. The world faced by philosophy—whether the natural world or the world of man and nature—is composed of causal relationships; nothing exists without a cause, and there is nothing that can be known only on the basis of eternal teleology or faith. We can conclude that Hobbes’s view of philosophy excludes theology. The proposition that "philosophy excludes theology" is the most distinct hallmark and fundamental principle of Hobbes’s atheistic system. Hobbes stated that by "excluding theology," he referred to the doctrine of the eternal, unbegotten, and incomprehensible God. Philosophy excludes the doctrine of angels; philosophy excludes all knowledge gained through divine inspiration or revelation; philosophy excludes astrology and all such forms of divination; and philosophy also excludes the doctrine of divine worship. [5]
However, Hobbes’s philosophical thought also possessed its own deficiencies and even conspicuous loopholes. This was related to his viewing of problems through the lens of bourgeois human nature theory rather than a scientific historical materialism; it was also related to the construction of his theory itself, as well as the era and interest class to which he belonged. In his theory of human nature, he universalized the ugly nature of self-interest and insatiable greed, thereby simplifying human nature, which is inherently complex. In his epistemology, he clearly affirmed that all human knowledge originates from sensory experience, yet he severed the organic links in the cognitive process. Regarding the thought of causal relations that he most esteemed, he also denied the objectivity of cognitive content, thereby falling into his own logical confusion. All of these were rooted in his mechanical materialism, which he himself found difficult to overcome. The mechanist tendency is the most prominent feature of Hobbes's philosophy, reflected throughout all his philosophical thought.
Broadly speaking, the proposal of Hobbes's materialist philosophical thought marked a major step forward in the struggle of materialism against idealism and religious theology in Western Europe, particularly in Britain. Proceeding from empiricism, Hobbes examined human social problems without seeking help from God. His atheism and his opposition to the divine right of kings contained materialist elements and held great progressive significance for opposing the traditional religious-theological worldview. However, we see that Hobbes’s philosophical system discarded dialectical elements and carried a distinct mechanical quality; he applied the perspective of mechanical motion to view everything occurring in the objective material world. This led to a denial of qualitative change and development in things, which exerted a certain negative influence on the subsequent development of European philosophy.
III. The Isomorphic Unity of Religious Theology and Politics
Hobbes’s political theory discarded traditional Western modes of political thinking and truly established political science upon modern natural empirical science, possessing a clear pioneering quality that was subsequently utilized, inherited, and developed by later political thinkers. In Leviathan, Hobbes preliminarily revealed the essentially isomorphic relationship between politics and religion. Why can it be said that religion and politics have an isomorphic relationship? Because both are "based on fear as their foundational theory; the former is fear of some unknowable power, while the latter is fear of the absolute power of the sovereign." [6] Furthermore, both religion and politics represent a form of submission to power (or force). Recognizing this isomorphic relationship between politics and religion is a crucial starting point for understanding Hobbes’s entire religious thought. In constructing his theory of state politics, Hobbes argued that government is not created according to divine will but through contract; nor is sovereign power divinely ordained, but rather transferred and entrusted by the people. This clearly stripped the mysterious religious cloak from state power. However, his political principles did not entirely break away from theological modes of demonstration. Influenced by the objective environment of the time, he, like previous political thinkers, used religious theology as a basis to argue his theory, resulting in a mixture of theological thought. This indicates that Hobbes’s thought still possessed the limitations of his era. What was unique, however, was that Hobbes identified the political nature of religion. He believed that based on the isomorphic relationship between politics and religion, religion is necessarily political and must be cultivated, utilized, and served by politics. Becoming a part of politics serves as a convenient tool for the ruling class to enslave the people and as a vital spiritual pillar to maintain their rule. In other words, religion is not merely a matter of the soul and faith but a political task—a politicized religious system. We note that Hobbes had his own rational explanation for the origin of religion, and in the face of actual religion, he sought to understand it comprehensively from a political perspective.
Hobbes advocated social contract theory, in which divine power is subordinate to sovereign power, unifying the two so that religion serves actual society, thereby assuming, in a sense, the role of a modern civil religion. Leviathan was born within this very theological framework. Thus, it is necessary to explore Hobbes’s motivation for involving religious issues so extensively in political science. Some believe there are significant elements of defending Christianity; besides his obvious political goals, his theological concepts were an attempt to respond to the challenges posed to religion by the new science of Copernicus and Galileo, and to prevent the abuse of religion for political purposes. He sought to show that religious content could be harmonized with the new science and to prove that religious theology could not be legitimately used to undermine the stability of a government. Others, however, believe that in the name of natural justice and human rights, Hobbes constructed a conspiracy against true Christianity, and that those who believe Hobbes’s treatment of religion was candid have been deceived by him.
Values should be placed on the fact that religious theology occupies a certain position in Hobbes’s political thought. He used theological ideas as a basis to argue his theory, yet it was precisely he who liberated political science from religious entanglement, making a decisive contribution to the secularization of political science theory. Based on the theory of human nature, he formed a systematic theory of the state and sovereignty through the rigorous demonstration of terminology such as the state of nature, natural law, and the social contract. Simultaneously, by reinterpreting religious theology in a rationalist manner and using empirical science as a theoretical foundation to establish a political theory independent of society, he played an epoch-making role in the development of Western political thought.
IV. The Rational Construction of Religious Theology and Social Order
Reason was the most fundamental idea of the Enlightenment. In this era, thinkers used reason as a weapon, knowledge to dispel ignorance, human nature to confront divinity, and human rights to oppose divine power, in order to establish a rational society and cultivate rational human beings. Hobbes viewed the state and the social order it represents as the result of human beings’ deliberate reflection and use of rational capacity, thereby denying the theory of the theocratic state. He said: "Man... hath a privilege... to search out the causes of my events... and besides that... to reduce the consequences he finds to general rules, called theorems, or aphorisms." [7] These theorems or aphorisms are clearly what Hobbes calls reason, yet they were not naturally produced; rather, they were established through opposition to theocracy.
Hobbes provides a thorough exposition of reason within his philosophy, primarily through the following points. First, reason is a faculty unique to human beings, and all people possess equal rational capacity. Throughout the long European Middle Ages, the dominant religious-theological thought held that God and universal spirits governed everything human. This fundamentally erased human creative capacity. Hobbes, by contrast, advocated for the exercise of human initiative and creativity; moreover, he viewed individuals as equal rational subjects, thereby negating feudal hierarchical concepts [8] protected by divine right.
Second, reason is the investigation of the causes of things, and the state of nature is the cause of the existing state. When exploring the causes behind the emergence of the state, Hobbes excluded factors such as heavenly mandate [9], divine will, and history, instead treating a hypothetical yet self-evident "nature" as the cause of the existing state and society. He was firmly convinced that by proceeding from the state of nature, one could understand the entire process of the formation of the state and social order. Knowledge of this cause—the state of nature—enables people to better arrange the present and concern themselves with the future in the most advantageous manner.
Finally, reason, as a capacity for weighing and selection, is the foundation and driving force for the construction of social order. Hobbes believed that the first component of the rational capacity for constructing social order is reason’s discovery of a possible path to escape the state of nature—namely, the laws of nature, which function as "precepts" or "general rules." [10] Natural law is binding upon the internal conscience of man; it is a normative code of conduct and a moral principle followed by the state when formulating legislation. The second component is that reason inspires people to enter into a covenant [11], allowing an individual or a collective to possess absolute authority to manage society and guarantee order. Through the covenant, the state is authorized to organize the will of the people and employ the power and means granted to it in a manner conducive to the peace and common defense of all. The third component is reason’s optimistic attitude toward its own capacity for choice. Hobbes argued that this capacity for choice is manifested in two main aspects: first, in reason’s discovery of the necessary means to escape the state of nature—the covenant; and second, in the fact that people can rationally choose that authoritative "personhood" or sovereign to whom all their rights will be granted.
In summary, Hobbes’s design for a rational social order is established under the guarantee of absolute authority. The divinity that originally shrouded the state was dismantled, and the state became an institution designed by rational men using rational methods. By deriving the natural laws of the state from reason and experience rather than from theology, and by denying the decisive role of the divine in social order, he achieved a transformation of great historical progressive significance. However, we must also recognize the limitations of reason and avoid a blind faith in its capacities. Social development is not a purely natural process; the construction of social order is closely linked to social traditions, customs, and culture.
Ultimately, as a great thinker whose ideas spanned political science, philosophy, and anti-religious theology, Hobbes represented the highest theoretical achievements of his era. In opposing religious theology, he exposed its essence and launched a fierce critique, greatly liberating people’s minds. Furthermore, his philosophical system, built upon the foundation of opposing religious theology, touched off a new philosophical revolution. These contributions laid an important theoretical foundation for subsequent thinkers to enrich and develop his ideas from various perspectives.
Notes:
① Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, trans. Li Sifu et al., (Beijing: Commercial Press, 1985), 270, 309. ② Ibid., 306, 354. ③ Teaching and Research Section of the History of Foreign Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Peking University, ed., Selected Original Works of Western Philosophy (Vol. 1), (Beijing: Commercial Press, 1982), 386. ④ Ibid. ⑤ Ibid. ⑥ Sun Xiangchen, "On the Tension Between Theology and Politics in Leviathan," Journal of Fudan University (Social Sciences Edition), no. 3 (2005). ⑦ Hobbes, Leviathan, 30. ⑧ Li Qingjun, "Hobbes: Reason and Social Order," Jianghai Academic Journal, no. 6 (2004).