Abstract

This book presents a new interpretation of the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy of religion. I argue that the key to Hobbes’s treatment of religion is his theory of religious language. On that theory, the proper function of religious speech is not to affirm truths, state facts, or describe anything, but only to express non-descriptive attitudes of honor, reverence, and humility before God, the incomprehensible great cause of nature. The traditional vocabulary of theism, natural religion, and even scriptural religion is preserved intact, but only as a system of natural and conventional signs of honor, as we laud the ‘infinite,’ ‘wise,’ and ‘good’ cause of nature, and speak of it in conventionally-approved scriptural terms—not in an attempt to describe it, but only as a way of expressing our veneration. The proposed reading undercuts the most influential alternative interpretations, revealing that Hobbes is neither an atheist, nor a literal-minded theist with a realist conception of the traditional divine attributes. At the same time, understanding Hobbes’s non-descriptivist approach to religious discourse helps us to see why so many have found either an atheistic or a realist-minded theistic interpretation attractive. The book advances a comprehensive analysis of Hobbes’s highly original philosophy of religion, including both his treatment of natural religion and his treatment of revealed religion and scripture. It also connects his philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and theory of human nature to his engagé religious politics, including his views on religious toleration, sectarianism, religious education, ecclesiology, and the religious function of the civil state.