Per Caritatem

In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno make an interesting and somewhat unexpected connection between the structure of Kantian philosophy and culture industry. According to Kant, the transcendental subject constitutes objects of experience. This means that we provide the laws structuring reality. In other words, given that we bring a priori the forms of intuition and the categories of the understanding to the chaos “out there”and thus constitute the objects of possible experience, it turns out that the experience of the transcendental subject is in a sense circular. Here Horkheimer and Adorno see a parallel with culture industry.  For example,Hollywood film producers present us with images bestowing meaning. That is, the producer endows the images with certain structures, thus constituting them as does the Kantian subject. Prior to the film being made, the producer and his colleagues get together and decide what precisely people will want to see. Thus, in our movie experience, we encounter objects of experience pre-constituted by the director and his/her team based on perceived cultural values (in this case, cultural values/interests that sell). So the system of the Enlightenment (a system of theoretical thought) and the “system” of culture come to be self-contained. Consider how this cultural constitution or, in more poststructuralist language, construction of social reality and subjectivities impacts our daily life. From the construction of the “terrorist-other” whom we are supposed to fear and hate to what it is to be “feminine” or “masculine,” we are constantly bombarded with competing discourses, social customs, and practices, all of which shape our perceptions of ourselves, our relation to the other, our roles, the “place” of others, and so forth.

Revisiting the theme of enlightenment rationality as “purely functional,” Horkheimer and Adorno explain that this is a logical end.  Why? Because with the de(con)struction, dismissal and death of a telos connected to rationality, reason becomes functional or instrumental.  As a result, enlightenment does away with difference or alterity. Interestingly, Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s analyses and conclusions are very much in harmony with insights foregrounded by postmodern thinkers like Foucault and Heidegger. Because reason no longer has any goals outside itself, pure reason moves increasingly toward unreason as there is nothing regulating this “emptied out” rationality. (Of course, Foucault would not claim that this is a necessary movement). This is part of the dialectic of enlightenment; it drives its self-critique such that the basis of its own rationality is destroyed. Only after enlightenment has eliminated all, then (according to enlightenment theory), we have acceptable meaning. This is reminiscent of certain—not all of course—expressions of analytic philosophy, wherein philosophy becomes completely irrelevant to human existence.  Here thought is meaningful only after the sacrifice of meaning. The result of this formalization of reason means that since there are no external criteria (but only internal criteria), this hollowed-out rationality can then be used positively or negatively. According to Horkheimer and Adorno, this is the kind of rationality employed for example, in fascism, as well as Marquis de Sade. De Sade, as Horkheimer and Adorno would be quick to emphasize, is not illogical, but rather thinks with amazing clarity and has understood that enlightenment thinking accepts no tradition or external values; thus, it can come up with its own rationality and can eliminate pity, compassion, and the like. So de Sade can set up narratives of dissoluteness, engage in violence against women and others, and at the same time can present a “coherent” system. Examples such as these support the authors’ thesis that with the ushering in of instrumental, hollow enlightened rationality, “pure reason becomes unreason.”

A commenter recently asked a good question related to this post on Fanon.  The person asks whether Kant’s categorical imperative might militate against Carter’s accusation that Kant manifests a “possessive-tyrannical disposition” in his writings.  Since this is a natural question that anyone who has at least some familiarity with Kant might raise, I have decided to post my (slightly edited) response.

I assume you have in mind Kant’s formulation of the categorical imperative which states that we must always treat human beings as ends and never as means.  On the surface, of course, this sounds great. However, when you place it within Kant’s larger philosophical schema, it is problematic (at least for the Christian who rejects racism and all forms of racialized essentialism). As Robert Bernasconi has shown, Kant’s hierarchical view of race, in which whites are superior and all other “races” inferior to various degrees, does not sit well with his cosmopolitanism, unless one is willing to admit that the only true, fully autonomous and hence free individuals are a particular group of white males. Also, the Christian claims that humans ought not to be instrumentalized because they are created in God’s image, which is of course a claim based on divine revelation. Neither in prelapsarian paradise nor in the eschaton are human relationships characterized by domination.  Slavery, then can be understood as something that comes about due the Fall.   In his text, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant speaks of the “kingdom of ends,” which refers to the moral universe created by rational humans willing the moral law. (The moral law is willed from “pure reason”). Kant claims that in this moral universe/kingdom of ends, each rational person is equal and sovereign. People are equal in so far as they will the moral law in accordance with reason, and they are sovereign because by doing so, they each contribute to the building of this “kingdom” or “moral universe.” From this idea of a kingdom of ends, Kant comes up with a variation on his first formulation of the categorical imperative. This version reads as follows, “For all rational beings come under the law that each of them must treat itself and all others never merely as means, but in every case at the same time as ends in themselves.”  Here Kant explicitly articulates the sovereignty and dignity of the (rational) individual, and he states that we are always to treat others as ends not as mere means. Again, on the surface this sounds great.  After all in this formulation of the categorial imperative, Kant declares that we must never use other people or treat them as tools for our purposes because to do so is to disallow their participation as equal, sovereign individuals in the moral universe and likewise to deny their dignity. Yet, in Kant’s writings on race he indicates that Indians, Africans and more or less any non-European (white) ethnic group can in fact be used as tools. According to Kant’s estimation, American Indians are “uneducable,” the “race of Negroes can educated, but only to the education of servants,” Hindus are “educable to arts and not to sciences. They will never achieve abstract concepts”; however, “the race of whites contains all motives and talents in itself” (of course he means white males of a certain sort) [Menschenkunde 1781/82].  In short, Kant’s problematic views on race are in serious tension with his cosmopolitanism and his ethical views, and the more I study the literature “from the underside of modernity” the more I believe his position as a whole to be un-salvable.  For an excellent theological critique of Kant’s view of race, see chapter two of J. Kameron Carter’s book, Race: A Theological Critique.

Descartes is often referred to as the “father” of modern philosophy and for good reasons.  In several of his works, Descartes speaks openly of his frustrations with his philosophical predecessors, highlighting the various ways that they contradict themselves and leave one in a state of skepticism and despair.  Although embracing fervently the scientific revolution of his day and hoping to clear away the clutter of the philosophic past, Descartes, despite his own intentions, retains much of the previous tradition.   Like Beethoven, who mediates the Classical and Romantic eras of music history, Descartes functions as a transitional figure mediating the medieval and modern periods.   Many scholars have noted that his Meditations are modeled after the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius.  (Cf. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, “Experiments in Philosophic Genre:  Descartes’ ‘Meditations’.  Rorty discusses the various meditational traditions that Descartes brings together in the Meditations).  Although literary analyses of the Meditations vary and suggest complex, multiple levels at work in the Meditations, it seems safe to say that Descartes’ concern in that work is with certainty (a common quest of the modern period) rather than spiritual growth.  In light of the new scientific discoveries of the 17^th century, Descartes is convinced that he must make a break with the past (Aristotelian/medieval) tradition and build a new, more secure philosophical system on the model of geometry and compatible with modern science.[1] One of the components of his razing project involves the use of methodological doubt.  (As Gadamer highlights in Truth and Method, the search for the “right method” is a common quest of the modern philosophers).  Having shown that the various possible avenues of knowledge can be deceptive or called into question (senses, mathematical knowledge [cf. the evil demon exercise], various authorities etc.), Descartes finally arrives at his indubitable truth, viz., that he cannot doubt his own existence, as doubting presupposes thought and thought presupposes existence.  From this supposed Archimedean point, Descartes attempts to construct a philosophical system that will yield the certainty lacking in views of his predecessors.

Ironically, Descartes, though criticizing past thinkers, continues to rely on ancient and medieval theological and philosophical insights.   We see this especially in Descartes’ various arguments for the existence of God, one of which is a version of St. Anselm’s ontological argument.  In the other arguments for God’s existence, Descartes takes the causal principle as self-evident, viz. there must be at least as much formal reality in the cause of an idea as there is objective reality in the idea itself, where the objective reality of the idea is something like the intentional or representational complexity of the idea. For example, the idea of a computer contains more objective reality than the idea of a plastic screw.  In addition, Descartes even engages in a defense of God’s goodness—a kind of theodicy—by appealing to an Augustinian, Neoplatonic understanding of evil as a privation.   In meditation IV the question arises, if God a non-deceiving God and is all-powerful, why did he create us as beings capable of going astray? In other words, why not make us incapable of erring?   How does Descartes respond to these questions?  He appeals to a traditional Neoplatonic-Augustinian answer!  First, he says that evil is a privation; it is not a thing but is rather the absence of good.  Thus, God does not create evil, as evil is a form of non-being.  Second, God created a diverse universe, which contains beings of various sorts and of varying degrees of perfection depending upon how “close” or “far” they are (ontologically speaking) from God who is all-perfect.

In short, though Descartes wants in many ways to “throw off” tradition, both the form and content of the Meditations show how indebted he was to the past,

Notes

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[1] Descartes does in fact separate himself from the ancient and medieval past when he replaces Aristotelian empiricism with his own version of rationalism.  That is, in Aristotelian empiricism one knows an external object by the process of abstracting a form from it.  In Descartes’ rationalism, one knows an external object by grasping it directly through intellectual intuition—as e.g., the way in which I know myself directly as an immaterial substance, a res cogitans.  With regard to external objects, we grasp these directly as well; however, we know them as something extended, a res extensa. For Descartes, material substance just is extension. Given this identity, Descartes can then explain why mathematics applies to external reality: as a quantity, extension is describable in purely mathematical terms.  Since external objects just are quantities of extension, they are also mathematically describable.

According to Nietzsche in his essay, “On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense,”[1] what we take to be knowledge involves two metaphors.  Here metaphor is understood in a broad sense, namely, as transference.  First, we have a transfer that occurs from a nerve stimulus caused by the external world, which is then translated into an image.  Secondly, that image is then transferred into a sound, that is, it becomes language.  Nietzsche’s point is that we construct our knowledge at a distance from (here at least two steps) the flow of life.  For example, when I look out the window and see a tree, a series of brain and nerve activities occurs, but these neural stimulations bear no intrinsic similarities to the tree “out there.”  Thus, we have the first metaphoric-ization or transference.   Then, having received this stimuli, I translate this information into a word, into language, which provides the second transference. From this picture, Nietzsche concludes that there is no natural connection between what is perceived in the external world and knowledge.  Rather, the relation between what is out there and my claims to know it is purely conventional.  According to Nietzsche, language is not a reflection of essences.    Our knowledge does not reflect the deep structures of reality; rather, it is a mere human construct.

Failure to recognize this state of affairs is, for Nietzsche, one of the central problems with the scientist or rational human being in contrast with the artist or intuitive person. That is, the scientist, who, of course, also constructs metaphors, takes his metaphors to be the truth, the way things really are.  According to Nietzsche, the scientist takes his metaphors too seriously; he ossifies them, whereas the artist recognizes their fluidity and transiency.  To be sure, these metaphors do serve practical and pragmatic purposes.  They help us to affirm ourselves and aid in our self-preservation to some degree.  However, when we forget about their provisional nature, we come to believe that our conceptual edifices are immovable.  When this occurs, the metaphors harden, they ossify-rather, we ossify them, and turn them into columbaria.   (A columbarium is a Roman vault for funeral urns!)  So the rational human being has lost touch with the metaphorical origins of human knowledge and lives his life constructing conceptual systems that display “the regularity of a Roman columbarium” (112).  According to Nietzsche, our (rationalistic) tendency to forget the earthy, metaphorical rootedness of human knowledge, moves us to increasing levels of abstraction-abstractions which we then take to be reality.  These systems of abstractions are likened to a columbarium; they are life-denying and lead to death.  (By the way, I think his critique of the scientist also applies to the philosopher and the theologian).

Clearly, Nietzsche values the flow of life and wants us to remain close to our, so to speak, humble origins.  His warnings against taking our conceptual edifices to be the reality and the one and only way to truthfully describe and explain the world are compelling and worthy of our reflection.  Part of his critique also involves cautioning against pride and calling us to acknowledge our finitude-two points that Christians ought to take seriously.  Yet, as a Christian, there are certain matters, which are central to the Christian narrative and understanding of reality, which Nietzsche fails to consider.  For example, according to the Christian tradition, the created order is now not as it originally was.  In fact, St. Paul, employing a number of earthy metaphors, tells us that creation has been subjected to futility and eagerly awaits its eschatological renewal.

The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (NRSV, Rom 8:19-25).

So there is a sense in which, for the Christian, life and the world as now experienced involves a struggle against the natural world-a natural world, which groans and awaits a final release from its dislocation and disintegration.  In other words, something more than a return to the flow of life or even a recognition of the metaphorical origins of knowledge is needed to overcome the prideful tendencies of which Nietzsche speaks.  According to the Christian narrative, a kind of cosmic redemption is needed-a redemption that not only saves us from our pride but also transforms and renews the present state of creation itself.  This is of course precisely what St. Paul claims Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection accomplished and is accomplishing.  St. Paul doesn’t deny that our life in-between Christ’s advents is a life of eschatological tension both within ourselves and with creation as a whole.

In addition to St. Paul’s use of metaphors, we should also consider the use of metaphor and mythical language in the Genesis creation account.  For example, the author of Genesis speaks of a solid dome upon which fixed stars hang (the raqia).  This mythical description, of course, doesn’t square with contemporary science and our current understanding of the sky, stars etc.  Nonetheless, God chose to condescend to the then-current conceptual categories and to use this mythical language to speak of his creation, as his point was not to give us a scientific account of the universe but to proclaim himself as the Creator.  So perhaps we could say that God himself is more like the artist, who plays with metaphor and recognizes its inherent limitations.  Yet, he is unlike the artist (at least the artist in Nietzsche’s description) in that he is in fact trying to teach us something about reality itself, the reality that he himself brought into being and the reality which he is.

Lastly, perhaps participating in liturgical life provides a way to properly acknowledge our finitude and to combat modernity’s “columbaric” tendencies which Nietzsche so aptly describes.  For example, in the Ash Wednesday liturgy of the Anglican/Episcopal Church, as the priest marks our foreheads with ashes, s/he says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Of course, for those in Christ, there’s more to story. We, who are in Christ, shall be resurrected in glorified bodies).  In addition, participation in the Eucharist reminds us through humble material means (bread and wine) of our need for spiritual nourishment, that is, our need to be nourished by Christ’s resurrection life. Confession of sin reminds us of our weakness, our proclivity to idolatry and our continual, moment-by-moment need for God’s grace and forgiveness.  The preaching of the word keeps us rooted in the Christian story and challenges us to submit to God’s, as it were, “interpretation” of reality.

How fitting on this Easter Sunday to allow Nietzsche to teach us about the power and relevance of the Christ-event.  Whether ancient, stone columbariua or modern, conceptual columbaria, neither are able to contain Christus Victor.  He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Notes

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[1] All citations are taken from an anthology edited by Lawrence E. Cahoone, From Modernism to Postmodernism:  An Expanded Anthology, 2^nd edition, (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003).

Part of Rousseau’s project is to try to create citizens who are both courageous (his “savage man” in the state of nature) and yet tolerant.  In book IV.viii of the Social Contract, Rousseau divides religion into two types:  (1) “religion of man,” “true theism,” or “natural divine right,” and (2) religion of the citizen (p. 127).  The religion of man has no particular ceremonies, rituals or dogmas, whereas the latter is permeated with these and considers all who do not subscribe to its beliefs and practices “infidel” and “barbarous” (p. 127).  The problem of the religion of the citizen for Rousseau is that it makes humans intolerant-what he wants are courageous and tolerant citizens, which is what his “natural religion” hopes to accomplish.  Rousseau also mentions a third type of religion, Roman Catholicism.  The problem with Roman Catholicism according to Rousseau (in a very Nietzschean key) is that it puts “man in contradiction with himself,” and hence promotes man’s alienation by forcing him to be both a citizen of the world and a citizen of heaven (or an other worldly world) (p. 128). 

From one perspective Rousseau’s civil religion shares much in common with Hobbes’ view, as both men find the “two heads” generated by Christianity to be problematic, as they lead to sectarianism.  As mentioned above, the problem with the religion of the citizen is intolerance, so Rousseau must re-fashion this religion so that his chief goal of tolerance is met.  According to Rousseau what is needed for the proper religion are not particular dogmas of faith (excepting those that promote a certain kind of morality useful for Rousseau’s project), but instead this religion must make citizens love their duties.  As Rousseau explains, “[t]here is, therefore, a purely civil profession of faith, the articles of which are for the sovereign to establish, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as sentiments of sociability without which it is impossible to be a good citizen or a faithful subject” (p. 130).  Rousseau goes on to say that this religion does not produce piety or love of God, but “sentiments of sociability” (one can even be banned for unsociability rather than impiety) (p. 131).   In sum, Rousseau gives us a religion quite similar to that which Spinoza espouses in the Theological Political Tractatus in which the only dogmas that are allowed are those that serve morality.  Rousseau, however, makes quite explicit that intolerance has no place in his religion. 

When we turn to Rousseau’s “Savoyard Vicar,” we also find an account of religion with a moral trajectory-something very similar to the civil religion set forth in Rousseau’s Social Contract. (This is not to identify the vicar with Rousseau; the character is fictional, yet the general account given harmonizes with what Rousseau says in the Social Contract).  In the Emile, we find the vicar promoting a religion that on the surface gives the impression that will plays a prominent role (as in Christianity).  For example, in his discussion of the will, the vicar rejects the modern doctrine of inertia and advocates a more pre-modern view in which the will serves as the source of movement (pp. 272-274).  With the doctrine of inertia, one can then do away with the need for (1) the soul as the cause of motion, and (2) God as the first cause.  By eliminating these two features, one is poised to develop a religion that promotes tolerance (again, cf. Spinoza).  So what the vicar wants to do is to re-insert premodern ideas that speak against the modern doctrine of inertia, all of which give the appearance of the primacy of the will.  However, as we read on, we begin to question the character of the will being presented.   For example, of the vicar’s second article of faith, we read, “[i]f moved matter shows me a will, matter moved according to certain laws shows me an intelligence” (p. 275).  By affirming an intelligence that moves according to laws, the vicar cancels the effectiveness of the will and in essence does away with freedom.  Here it seems that we have a modern notion of movement according to laws of nature which does not require a first cause. 

In article three, we are told (with no argument given) that man is “free in his actions and as such is animated by an immaterial substance” (p. 281).  The idea is that the body (material) is passive and the will (immaterial), which moves the body, is active.  So we have two substances in the vicar’s account.  This then allows the vicar to assert that we have some kind of immortality; however, the vicar is quick to qualify his claims.  “My limited understanding conceives nothing without limits.  All that is called infinite escapes me.  What can I deny and affirm, what argument can I make about that which I cannot conceive?  I believe that the soul survives the body long enough for the maintenance of order.  Who knows whether that is long enough to last forever?” (p. 283).  So the vicar is only willing to go so far-he allows for the possibility of the soul surviving the body, but will not claim that the soul/will is eternal. Having made this move, the vicar can easily promote a religion without eternal punishment, and this, of course, harmonizes perfectly with a religion of tolerance.  Anticipating Kant, the vicar emphasizes the limitations of human knowledge, calls eternal punishment into question, and wants humans to think that they are free and in some sense not simply material beings; yet, he also has to keep things “watered down” such that people will not take this seriously enough to be willing to “force” their views on others.

The complexity of discerning the correct authorial voice in this work is exceedingly difficult; however, as the narrative unfolds, we read a footnote that seems to establish a clear distinction between Rousseau and the vicar.  The footnote reads, “This is, I believe, what the good vicar could say to the public at present” (p. 295).  Overall, the vicar is more hostile to modern skepticism and materialism than Rousseau.   So why does Rousseau have a fallen priest promote this rather ‘thin’ religious teaching?  Here we find a connection between what was said in the Social Contract regarding the legislature as a kind of “god” who via laws re-fashions humans.  Similarly, in the vicar’s discussion, he emphasizes that religion is able to convince people of things which philosophy cannot because of the absence of divine authority in the latter.  Philosophy, of course, is supposed to appeal to reason alone and this, as many in the Western tradition have highlighted, is insufficient to motivate people to obey the law.  So, in contrast to Rousseau, the vicar is crafted as having significantly more hostility toward philosophy and the science of the day which was so shot through with materialism.  Likewise, the vicar’s view is presented as a kind of common sense position with regard to metaphysics and physics, and his real concern is clearly with morality.  This concern with morality is where we see an overlap between the vicar and Rousseau.  In short, the vicar presents a view that although manifesting distinct differences, is quite compatible with Rousseau’s teaching in the Social Contract (as well as the Reveries), however, he, as it were, dresses it up religious garb.

Near the end of the “Savoyard Vicar,” we are told in a footnote that “fanaticism is more pernicious than atheism” (p. 312); thus, we must at all costs avoid religions that promote intolerance.  In spite of that, Rousseau also admits that there are certain aspects of “fanaticism” that are worth keeping (e.g., courage).  Yet, Rousseau is of course concerned to control the fanaticism of the modern soul. Thus, in Rousseau’s account, humans in the state of nature are painted as good (contra Hobbes), and they are free, that is, not dependent on others (no conflicts with sovereigns here).  Hobbes, in contrast, attempts to control the nastiness of humans by stressing their fear of death.  That is, according to Hobbes, humans naturally fear death and this fear itself breeds fanaticism in religion.  Rousseau presents a decidedly more optimistic of humans in the state of nature and emphasizes (e.g., in the Reveries) the “sweetness of existence”-even in the midst of persecution.  For Rousseau, the state of nature represents a “wholeness” that is the antithesis of the alienation that comes with society and its vanity, and this picture of integrated man (this is man who has his place in the whole of nature and has not elevated the part over the whole, as is the case according to Rousseau with dogmatic rather than “natural” religion) is the polar opposite of what we find in fanaticism. 

 

Lastly, we have Hobbes discussion of miracles.  In this section, as in the previous ones, Hobbes begins by defining his terms and then interacts with various biblical texts.  As Hobbes explains, miracles arouse wonder and admiration in humans for two reasons: (1) they are exceedingly rare and unusual events, and (2) they are thought to be done by the immediate activity of God.  However, if we were able to come to a natural explanation of what was thought to be a miracle, we would of course be forced to abandon our original belief.  This tendency to mistakenly call something a miracle is due to our ignorance of natural causes and is in fact what Hobbes claims to be the case the majority of the time.  To support his claim, Hobbes cites examples of how the ancients, who were ignorant of the causes of solar and lunar eclipses, interpreted such occurrences as supernatural works of the gods. After engaging a few Old and New Testament examples in which miracles are discussed (e.g., Moses’ miracles performed in Egypt, and Christ’s inability to perform miracles in his own country), Hobbes concludes that the purpose of miracles is to bring about or confirm belief in God’s elect (Lev., ch. 37, ¶5-6).  This examination of the nature of miracles and their use, then leads Hobbes to the following definition of a miracle:  “A Miracle is a work of God (besides his operation by the way of nature, ordained in the creation), done for the making manifest to his elect the mission of an extraordinary minister for their salvation” (Lev., ch. 37, ¶7).[1]  This definition implies that a miracle is an effect of God’s immediate activity and not an effect that comes about through the secondary causality of the prophet (e.g., as a result of the prophet’s virtue/power).  Hobbes goes on to say that if it were the case that the miracle was effected through power given the prophet by God (that is, through secondary causality), then we could not call this a miracle, as it would have been produced naturally and not by God’s immediate causality.  As Curley observes in footnote 15, this conclusion nullifies the miracles performed by Moses and the prophets since the power by which they performed their miracles was given by God (Lev., ch. 37, ¶10).[2]  One then wonders which, if any, miracles according to the biblical account remain standing.[3]  Likewise, does not this naturalization of miracles not point in the direction of a something more akin to a deistic conception of God, which of course, harmonizes well with Hobbes’ mechanistic view of the world, as well as his continual insistence that God does not providentially interact with the world?

Given what we have seen thus far, it seems fair to conclude that Hobbes does not engage Scripture in a purely objective way (whatever that is). Rather, as I have attempted to highlight throughout this essay, Hobbes’ philosophical and political convictions drive his hermeneutical endeavors.  For Hobbes, the traditional understanding of prophecy, spiritual beings, and miracles serve to reinforce God’s providential workings and presence with his people and thus undermine the authority of an earthly sovereign.  Moreover, the doctrine of providence, according to Hobbes, results in a kind of intellectual and perhaps even moral laziness wherein people depend too much on God.  However, in the end it is not clear how Hobbes’ own position can escape at least to some degree the same kind of intellectual and moral errors of which he accuses traditional orthodoxy given the political requirement that individuals must give absolute obedience to the sovereign who stands as God’s representative until the Kingdom of God on earth is restored at Christ’s Second Coming. 

Notes

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[1] Italics and other font emphases are in the original. 

[2] As Curley explains, “[i]f all works done by a power given by God are natural, and hence, not miracles (as the English version implies), this seems to deny the status of miracles to the works performed by Moses and the prophets” (Lev., ch. 37, n. 15). 

[3] Perhaps only God’s creation ex nihilo would count as a miracle.  Given that I have not completed my reading of Leviathan, I hold this conclusion loosely.