The Laws of Nature Are the Laws of God in Leviathan

The standard interpretation that the laws of nature in Leviathan are not laws because he calls them theorems is mistaken. The theorems, or “dictates of reason,” are the propositions that Hobbes proves. But they need the force of a command to be, as he says “properly called Lawes.” Hobbes uses reason to prove them, and reason is the “undoubted word of God.” The author argues against John Deigh’s ingenious defense of the standard view. Deigh maintains that words in phrases that are technical terms do not retain their meaning outside of the phrase. But if that were true, then “civil laws” and “natural liberty” would not be laws or liberty respectively. Also, if they were not laws, Hobbes’s division of two kinds of law, civil and natural, would be absurd.

Natural Sovereignty and Omnipotence in Hobbes’s Leviathan

According to Hobbes, God is a natural sovereign because of his omnipotence, not because of his goodness or creation. The relation between power and kingship is also expressed in the idea of Yahweh as a warrior god, for example in Deuteronomy and the Book of Psalms. Kings, “mortal gods,” need power to protect their subjects and could only do so if they had properties similar to those attributed to God. In the seventeenth-century, intellectuals sometimes made God the model for human sovereigns, and sometimes the reverse. Since both God and human sovereigns are owed obedience, a troubling question arises: “Should human beings obey God or their sovereign if there is a conflict?” Hobbes has an easy answer. God commands people to obey their human sovereign. Arash Abizadeh’s interpretation that God is a person by fiction is refuted.

Hobbes on Sovereignty by Acquisition in Leviathan

Hobbes describes two ways in which sovereignty comes to exist, sovereignty by institution and sovereignty by acquisition. Sometimes in Leviathan it seems that sovereignty by institution consists of a covenant among all and only the subjects of a commonwealth and that sovereignty by acquisition does not. If this interpretation were correct, then several unfortunate consequences follow: (1) Commonwealths could have two kinds of sovereigns governing the same territory, with different kinds of subjects with different obligations. (2) The kind of commonwealth that occurs most frequently in history, sovereignty by acquisition, would have a less prominent place in his political philosophy and be less clearly described. And (3) sovereignty by acquisition would lack Leviathan’s two most innovative aspects, authorization and representation. The author’s alternative interpretation of sovereignty by acquisition offered here contains the essential features of sovereignty by institution; and the unfortunate consequences are eliminated or mitigated.

Hobbes’s Political-Philosophical Project

The appropriate theory to guide interpretations of Hobbes’s philosophy is both intentionalist and historical. Intentionalism is the search for what he intended to communicate. What he meant to communicate was conditioned by his historical circumstances. Conceiving of his political philosophy as a science on the model of geometry, Hobbes identified its two methods and its goal. The first method consists of beginning with definitional causes and deducing their effects; the second consists of beginning with effects and hypothesizing possible causes. The goal of philosophy is to improve the quality of human life. As for his subversion, he wanted to subvert the mistaken religio-political views that led to the English Civil War, the belief in limited sovereignty, the practice of superstitions, and the pretension that religion should be independent of the sovereign.

Hobbes’s Erastianism and Interpretation

This chapter is a response to Jeffrey Collins, who maintains that Hobbes was Erastian and promoted Independency and irreligious views. The author agrees that Hobbes was an Erastian; the Act of Supremacy made Erastianism law. Hobbes’s support for Independency was hedged at best. Some of his other views are original and non-standard but not intended to be irreligious. The author shows that Collins sometimes omits crucial evidence or draws the wrong inference from the evidence. Hobbes worshipped according to the rite of the Church of England, and his justification for the unity of religion and government was in line with the ideal of ancient Israel taught in the Old Testament. Hobbes argued that Christianity is not politically destabilizing and tried to reconcile Christian doctrine with modern science. The author’s reply to Collins is guided by the idea that interpretation is a form of inference to the best explanation.

Law and Self-Preservation in Leviathan

Quentin Skinner’s principle that a philosopher’s contemporaries have a privileged perspective on his doctrine is tested. This chapter shows that Hobbes’s contemporaries misinterpreted him on many important issues. The examples used to disconfirm Skinner’s principle have to be ones that have strong textual support and are not currently interpreted by scholars today as being ironic, skeptical, or misleading. Thomas Hobbes’s views about self-preservation and law satisfy the criteria. Contrary to the view of his contemporaries, self-preservation is a desire, a physiological condition, not a law or command. The concept of self-preservation is an important part of the definition of “law of nature.” But the definition is no more a law of nature than the definition of an elephant is an elephant. The content of the laws of nature are deduced from the definition of “a law of nature.”

The Interpretation of Covenants in Leviathan

This chapter is a reply to criticisms by Edwin Curley. An important reason that scholars do not agree about the correct interpretation of a text is that they have different networks of beliefs arising from different experiences and different affective states. For similar reasons, evaluations of interpretations will vary. Nonetheless, we can agree about properties of good interpretation, such as conservatism, generality, simplicity, coherence, completeness, and proportionality. But good interpretations may be strong in some virtues and weak in others. If the presence of perceived absurdities or contradictions were good grounds for thinking that the author was not serious in presenting them, then there would be good grounds for doubting that Hobbes took political philosophy seriously. These deficiencies are not signs of insincerity. A similar judgment should be made about perceived deficiencies of his religious views.

Sovereign-Making and Biblical Covenants in On the Citizen

In On the Citizen, Hobbes describes two kinds of covenants. The first are covenants among human beings, most importantly sovereign-making covenants. The second are the major biblical covenants. Hobbes follows the traditional interpretation of biblical covenants, according to which God is a party to them with Abraham, the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, and all humanity. His political theory had the resources to give a single account of both kinds of covenants. He could have said that God accepted the transfer of rights from humans. So, he could have given a unified account of covenants. He does not say why or discuss any relationship that may exist between the two kinds. A significant element common to ordinary sovereign-making covenants and the central biblical ones is faith.

Leo Strauss’s Olympian Interpretation

The author’s thesis is that Leo Strauss’s view is fundamentally mistaken about the foundational concepts of Hobbes’s political philosophy in De cive, namely, Hobbes’s concepts of right, self-preservation, and law. Concerning rights, Strauss’s claim that they are normative is mistaken. For Hobbes, rights exist where no law excludes them, that is, in the state of nature. They contribute to conflict; but no one violates another person’s right in that state. As for self-preservation, it is a desire and does not mean that humans have to use reason. Finally, as for law, Strauss is mistaken in thinking that Hobbes was an innovator in understanding it in terms of will. God’s laws in the Bible are laws because God wills them. And Hobbes’s laws depend primarily on reason and authority.

The Author of Sin and Demoniacs

The view that Hobbes was an English Calvinist is supported by considering his positions on two issues, the author of sin and demoniacs. Hobbes’s debate with Bishop John Bramhall is structurally similar to two other debates in seventeenth-century England between Calvinists and Arminians. Hobbes, along with William Barlee and William Twisse, claimed that God is the cause of evil but not its author. Bramhall, Thomas Pierce, and Thomas Jackson accused the Calvinists of holding that God is not only the cause but also the author of sin. On the issue of demoniacs, Hobbes follows the great biblical scholar Joseph Mede, who had support from important English Calvinists, in holding that demoniacs were madmen, and the idea that they were possessed by the devil was imported from pagan religions.