This essay shows that Hobbes's thought rests on biblical foundations, casting him in an unfamiliar role — that of an iconoclastic prophet, a Jeremiah. He resembles the later prophets, particularly Jeremiah, in three ways: first by warring against idolatry, reconceived as the attribution of sanctity to mental images, "Phantasmes of the Brain," as Hobbes calls them (Leviathan ch. 45, 449, E.W 3: 651)—as distinguished from limiting such attribution to "graven images" (Deuteronomy 4: 28, Jeremiah 1: 16); second, by viewing iconoclasm, followed by catastrophic intervention, as the path to political regeneration; and third, by being centrally preoccupied with the implications of the biblical idea of a created nature for material, cultural, and political artifice. The essay further shows that the biblical cosmology underlying Hobbes natural and civil philosophy is not, as might be supposed, in conflict with the premisses of his scientific writings, but is harmonious and coincident with it.
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References
1.
Chapter and page references are to Leviathan 1991, followed by citation of the standard edition: The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, edited by Sir William Molesworth (John Bohn, 1839-45), cited hereafter as E. W followed by volume and page number.
2.
One may say, of course, that Hobbes's use of the rhetoric of iconoclasm is just that, a screen employed to subvert biblical text and to convert an audience steeped in the tropes of biblical discourse into rational choice actors. But this interpretation of Hobbes may commit a solecism, imputing to him motives and perspectives more appropriate to later times, and to conclude, overhastily, that Hobbes's iconoclasm is solely rhetorical. See Johnston (1986: 183-84).
3.
The first to suggest that the biblical idea of creation may be of importance in interpreting Hobbes, so far as I am aware, is Oakeshott (1957: iii) who, taking a cue from the introduction to Leviathan, states that the inspiration for Hobbes's thought may be seen to spring from the Genesis epic, wherein civil society like nature, is the product of creative will. Following this lead, Greenleaf suggests that Hobbes's place as the head of a biblically derived tradition of will and artifice be made the basis for further study. (see Greenleaf 1982). Oakeshott's view of Hobbes is also buttressed by Foster (1934, 1935, 1936) who offers that modern science, as expressed in the philosophies of Hobbes, Descartes, Bacon and Locke, rests upon an unstated premise, one that derives from the biblical idea of a created nature. It bears emphasis that in recommending a return to the Bible for an understanding of Hobbes, I mean, primarily, the Old Testament. Hoffert's (1984) study makes the point that Hobbes's frequent citation of the Old Testament suggests an affinity of thought and purpose.
4.
The role of human agency in the production of artifacts is easily seen. Not as easily grasped is the role of artifacts in reconfiguring the identity of their makers. The explanation for this is that the arc of creation is apparent in the former case but in the latter remains unobserved. Be this as it may, the reciprocal effects of artifacts on their makers did not escape the attention of Hobbes and the prophets as this essay will make evident.
5.
See particularly Elaine Scarry (1985: 223-33). Feuerbach's (1989) discovery, that God is man's invention, was in fact considered long before by the later prophets and rejected as idolatrous.
6.
Hobbes has been cast in this role before. Nevertheless, no serious effort has been made to support this linkage. The present essay does make such an effort because it is believed that biblical influence on Hobbes is foundational. For a view which places the emphasis upon Calvinist doctrinal influence see Martinich (1992: 64). Also, see Eisenach (1931: 55-57).
7.
According to Sorell (1986: 26), Hobbes is not saying that natural philosophy fails to contribute to our understanding of the state but rather intends a lesser, auxiliary role. But it remains unclear from Sorell's account what natural philosophy has to contribute to our understanding of the generation of the leviathan state. He acknowledges that the manner of generation of the state may be grasped entirely independently of the natural sciences.
8.
See Foster (1934: 448, 453). Contrast Macpherson (1962: 9-46). Macpherson's search for a natural philosophy which will enable him to account for the physiological and behavioral premises underlying Hobbes's "possessive market" model of society leads him to conclude that these premises originate in modem science, particularly the thought of Galileo. Despite the acknowledged influence of the Bible on 17th century culture, Macpherson never considers the possibility that modem science, itself, may be rooted in a biblical cosmology.
9.
"Sentience" is a term of art in Scarry's (1985: ch. 3) interpretive framework. She proposes that the biblical emphasis upon extreme sentience, Israel as a body in pain, takes place within a narrative structure which enacts an important intuition concerning the nature of creation. Pain of sufficient obduracy and intensity deprives us of all artifice, language included, by which the world is known and expressed; it is, therefore, deworlding. But this condition seeks relief in its opposite — the imagination extended into its objects. The imagination, which cannot be conceived apart from its objects according to Scarry, removes us from the condition of pain by seeking extension outward into the object world. While it may offend common sense to view pain as an intentional state, it may be so considered in the context of work, labor, and creation; opposite pain, in this same context, is ranged the imagination, its complementary, intentional state. These intentional states, the body in pain and the imagination extended into its objects, while opposed, are nevertheless, complementary; for while the former is a state of embodiment without the relief of the objects of imagination, the latter is a state of objectification (deriving from the nature of the imagination) without the relief of embodiment. Creation, labor, artifice mediates the tension which exists between these intentional states because through the aversiveness of work we are lifted out of the silent, cellular contraction of the body in pain and into the created world. This is the dynamic which the Old Testament scriptures seek to convey in their narrative treatment of the relationships between Israel, the body in pain, and its Creator, particularly as they relate to wounding and creation.
10.
Freud catches the spirit of this distinctively modern enterprise of Hobbes in a passage which bears comparison with the triumphant listing of the extensions of artifice in Leviathan. He writes: "With every tool man is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning. Motor power places gigantic forces at his disposal, which, like his muscles, he can employ in any direction; thanks to ships and aircraft neither water nor air can hinder his movements; by means of spectacles he corrects defects in the lenses of his own eye; by means of the telescope he sees into the far distance; and by means of the microscope he overcomes the limits of visibility set by the structure of his retina. In the photographic camera he has created an instrument which retains the fleeting visual impressions, just as a gramophone disc retains the fleeting auditory ones; both are at bottom materializations of the power he possesses of recollection, his memory. Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God (Freud 1961: 42-43; cf. Leviathan ch. 13, 89; E. W. 3: 113).
11.
Eisenach (1981: 56). Compare Mitchell (1993a: ch. 2 and 1993b: 79-100). The account offered here contrasts with Mitchell's while remaining compatible in other respects. For example, the dilemma of man's prideful nature is said by Mitchell to wait until St. Paul to receive attention. By contrast, I locate this issue in the later prophets. Similarly, whereas Mitchell says that the dilemma of man's sinful pride remains unresolved prior to Christ's atonement, I believe the ascription of sentience to God in the later prophets anticipates the resolution of the New Testament. In Isaiah God is referred to as crying out "like a woman in travail" (Isaiah 42: 14), in Jeremiah His eyes become "a fountain of tears" (Jeremiah 9: 1) and He speaks of himself as grievously "wounded" (Jeremiah 10: 19). When God takes on the characteristics of human sentience, the narratives of wounding and creation, so characteristic of the Old Testament, are transformed. Christ, whose body is broken for us, reenacts the familiar body breaking narratives centered on pride; at the same time He acknowledges and legitimizes human suffering and redirects artifice, therapeutically, toward its alleviation. Interestingly, the prophets deride the worship of idols precisely because, lacking the properties of sentience, they lack the healing power of God (Jeremiah 10: 5; Isaiah 44: 9-20). A further point of contrast is that Hobbes's stress on man as artificer, tirelessly laboring to overcome the adversities of human sentience, and indeed creating his own identity in history, may address man's spiritual need in ways that go beyond the account which Mitchell provides. Lastly, the limits on political sovereignty arising from the Hobbesian covenant put in doubt the saving role attributed by Mitchell to the state. For a discussion which stresses the limits on sovereignty imposed by the covenant relation see Coleman (1977 and 1974: 57-89). Also see Scarry (1985: 210-21, 230-32).
12.
For example, Johnston states that Hobbes employs biblical discourse as a cloak within which is concealed a very different, modern, and scientific message. He contends that the object of Hobbes's review of important doctrines of Christian teaching in Leviathan (Pts. III and IV) relating to miracles, prophecy, the authority of scripture, the nature of God, the status of the soul, is to subject them to rationalistic criteria which subvert their meaning. The result of this corrosive analysis is that we are transformed into "more rational and predictable being consistent with the thrust of Parts I and II, rather than conformed to Christian orthodoxy. This account turns on a distinction between Hobbes's real and apparent intentions, his esoteric contrast with his exoteric doctrine; it is assumed throughout that Hobbes's hidden agenda is to convert us all into scientific, rational choice actors, a view which commends itself to those who see Hobbes in a similar light (Johnston 1986: 134). And see Curley (1989-90: 162-249); Hampton (1988). For an account which, like Johnston's, presents Hobbes as the progenitor of a distinctively modern idea of "scientific enlightenment" but which, unlike Johnston, views this achievement with foreboding see Kraynak (1990).
13.
Following the eschatological version of history presented by Hobbes in Leviathan (ch. 35), Eisenach allows the existence of a biblical influence on Hobbes only in a weak and epiphenomenal sense. The shortcoming in Eisenach's (and Pocock's) interpretation, according to the view offered here, is that it limits the scope of biblical influence to Christian eschatology, perhaps a consequence of focusing upon Hobbes's place in Protestant, post-Reformation, sectarian controversy. See Eisenach (1981) and Pocock (1973: 174).
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