Thomas Hobbes on Religion

For his widespread image as an "atheist," Thomas Hobbes has been regarded as a purely secular thinker, highly critical of all religion. And most scholars have ignored the second half of Leviathan, which could be characterized as another Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Recently, though, situation has been changing. Hobbes scholars, particularly those writing in English, can be divided into two groups; those who insist on a traditional secular interpretation, which has its origin in the highly influential works of Leo Strauss, and those who propose a religious interpretation, which could ironically be called revolutionary, originally inspired by "Taylor-Warrender Thesis." But I think this conflict of two interpretations is raised upon a wrong presuposition, which means that both sides seem to consider it indispensable to decide whether Hobbes was personally an atheist or a sincere Chiristian, in order to understand his system of philosophy, particulary his theological-political thought. My point is that, on account of their adherence to the presupposition, they both miss what Hobbes intends when he deals with religious matters. The question that urged Hobbes to the problem of religion, I believe, was this; Why religion, particularly Christianity, as superstition might do, should cause miserable wars and intolerant conflicts among people who would have faith to the same God. And his theological-political thought must be understood to be a struggl to solve this question. From this point of view, I examine the arguments Hobbes develops in Parts 1 and 3 of Leviathan, to show why Parts 3 and 4 were its essential parts, and exactly what he criticized about Christianity and what he did not. In the end. what is suggested is that, contrary to the traditional view, his political theory and critique of religion, including his Biblical exegeses, had the ultimate aim to liberate people from becoming tools in the power struggle between the political and the ecclesiastical, and to enable them to live purely inner, or "religious," if they please, lives in peace