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The Religion of Thomas Hobbes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Peter Geach
Peter Geach
Affiliation:
Professor of Logic, The University of Leeds
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Extract

In G. K. Chesterton's story The Doom of the Darnaways, Lord Darnaway put on the spines of dummy books in his library such empty designations as The Snakes of Ireland and The Religion of Frederick the Great: I too might appear to have chosen a non-subject for this paper. My coming to the contrary conclusion was the unwitting work of the man whom Balliol College employed to give us tutorials in political philosophy. I soon noticed that his interpretation of Hobbes seemed to be based on a few chapters of Leviathan; desiring to get material for probing questions, and allured by Hobbes's style, I quickly devoured the whole of Leviathan. This reading left me with an abiding respect for the moral and political philosophy of Hobbes; his religious views, at this time, I found curious rather than impressive, but already I had no doubt that they were not mere hollow professions thinly cloaking an immoralist atheism, but were considered opinions sincerely held.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 1981 , pp. 549 - 558
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

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