Per Caritatem

Given Hobbes’ commitment to materialism and his desire to uphold civil order, he is critical of Christians who rely too much on God’s providence.  According to Hobbes, God does not govern the world supernaturally but only naturally, and this stress on the naturalization of the supernatural is evident in his interpretation of prophecy, miracles and incorporeal beings/entities.  With regard to prophets, Hobbes first clarifies the difference between immediate and mediate supernatural revelation from God.  The prophet of course claims to have been given immediate revelation, whereas one reading or hearing Scripture receives divine revelation mediately via the testimony of the prophets, apostles or others proclaiming God’s word.  Hobbes then raises the question as to how one can know whether a prophet or one who purports to have received immediate divine revelation is speaking truly or falsely.  We recall that Hobbes has already brought to our attention in chapter two in his discussion of dreams, the various ways in which we can be led astray and can come to falsely believe that visions and apparitions actually connect with some extramental reality.  The more rational explanation says Hobbes is to understand these imaginings as caused by the internal activity of our brain and nervous system.  That is, according to Hobbes, given the findings of natural science, instances where individuals claim to have seen visions, ghosts and spirits can now be more reasonably explained by means of natural, not supernatural causes.[1]  For example, Hobbes cites the instance of Marcus Brutus and the claim that Marcus saw a vision of Caesar before battle of Philippi.  However, as Hobbes asserts, this so-called vision was more likely just a dream of that which Marcus feared most (Lev., ch. 2, ¶7).  From this claim, Hobbes then generalizes that this is probably what occurs in many cases where people think that they have seen a vision or ghost.  So not only does Hobbes re-emphasize an idea that he presses throughout Leviathan, namely, that we as human beings really know very little, but he also adds that the human mind (given what we have stated above about dreams and visions) has a tendency toward and often is the source of superstition because of our lack of knowledge of ultimate reality (Lev., ch. 2, ¶8). Returning to the discussion on prophets, Hobbes lays out two criteria found in Scripture that enable us to determine the veracity of a prophet. The first mark of a true prophet is the ability (albeit given by God) to perform miracles, and the second mark is that whatever the prophet proclaims must not go against the established religion (Lev., ch. 32, ¶7).  Neither of these indicators are sufficient on their own, rather both marks must be present to determine the prophet’s authenticity.  Hobbes, of course, cites several passages of Scripture from both the New Testament and the Old to support his claim (e.g., Deut 13:1-5; Matt 24:24).  Two paragraphs later, Hobbes simply asserts that miracles are a thing of the past and no longer occur in our day.  Consequently, we must rely on Scripture alone as the source of divine revelation.[2]  Hobbes states his case as follows: 

Seeing therefore miracles now cease, we have no sign left whereby to acknowledge the pretended revelations or inspirations of any private man, nor obligation to give ear to any doctrine farther than it is conformable to the Holy Scriptures, which since the time of our Saviour supply the place and sufficiently recompense the want of all other prophecy, and from which, by wise and learned interpretation and careful ratiocination, all rules and precepts necessary to the knowledge of our duty both to God and man, without enthusiasm or supernatural inspiration, may easily be deduced (Lev., ch. 32, ¶9). 

At this point, one might want to pose a series of questions to Hobbes.  First, in light of what Hobbes has said in the earlier part of Leviathan regarding our limited epistemological scope, is Hobbes’ suggesting that only the scientist, philosopher or theologian or a combination thereof is adequately equipped to properly interpret Scripture?   Perhaps Hobbes’ claim is simply that one who has a decent education will be adequately equipped to exegete Scripture.  If this is the case, then how do we settle differences in interpretation that will surely arise among these various educated individuals-that is, those not claiming to have immediate revelation, but who come to different conclusions with regard to the same texts of Scripture?  Presumably, Hobbes would respond that this inevitable situation points to the need for a sovereign as the final arbiter of religious disagreements.  This solution, however, seems to be formally equivalent to the very thing that Hobbes criticizes in the Roman Church, viz., a kind of non-thinking deference to papal authority.  In other words, both Hobbes’ position and the Roman Catholic view seem to imply that even among the most educated individuals, certain situations will require (at least to some degree) a kind of fideistic reliance on human authority, whether pope or civil sovereign.  Yet, the Roman Catholic position ultimately rests not simply on human authority, but on the claim that the pope possesses a supernatural charism to speak infallibly when making official (infallible) pronouncements on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. 

Notes

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[1] See, for example, Lev., ch. 2, ¶5-8. [2] It is often claimed that Hobbes is simply appealing to the Reformation principle of sola scriptura.  However, I find this assertion unconvincing for several reasons.  First, as I am attempting to make clear in this essay, Hobbes is not simply engaging in “pure” exegesis (whatever that is), but instead his philosophical and political views strongly inform his interpretations of Scripture.  Secondly, both Protestants and Roman Catholics today have an overly facile and inaccurate understanding of sola scriptura as taught by the magisterial reformers.   For an excellent scholarly study of this topic, see Heiko A. Oberman, Dawn of the Reformation, Grand Rapids:  Eerdman’s, 1992. In chapter twelve of the above-mentioned work, Oberman discusses the early reformers’ understanding of the relation between Scripture and tradition in contrast to the Roman Catholic view.   As Oberman observes, the 16^th century was marked with “bitter polemics concerning the source and norm of the Church’s knowledge of God’s revelation.  Traditionally this is described as the clash of the sola scriptura-principle with the Scripture and tradition-principle” (Ibid., p. 270).  Both Protestants and Catholics were eager to uphold the purity and authority of God’s word, yet each believed that the other’s view was detrimental to maintaining this purity and authority.   The Reformers pointed to ways in which ecclesial traditions had come to distort the Gospel, while proponents of the Counter-Reformation decried the Reformers for breaking with tradition and promoting private interpretations.  “In both cases reliance on human authority is said to interfere with the rule of obedience to Holy Scripture” (Ibid., p. 270).  Oberman then highlights what in my opinion is often glossed over or completely ignored in these kinds of discussions, namely, that the debate before us is not one of Scripture or tradition, but rather a “clash between two concepts of tradition” (Ibid., p. 270).  Oberman distinguishes these two understandings as “Tradition I” (T1) and “Tradition II” (T2).  T1 stands for the “single exegetical tradition of interpreted scripture,” whereas T2 represents the “two-sources theory which allows for an extra-biblical oral tradition” (Ibid.,p. 280).  Oberman argues that the early reformers (Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin, as Richard Muller has noted, could be included as well) advocated T1, whereas T2, particularly from Trent onward, became the official position of the Roman Catholic Church.