An Analysis Of Hobbes' Theory Of Religious Criticism

The critique of religion, from ancient Greek to Roman, have already existed, butthe critical thought of religion before Hobbes is not mature and it’s not thoroughenough. Hobbes inherited the past critical thought of religion and at the same time, hecriticized religious theology completely, in addition, he also advocated to reserve thereligion which is conducive to vindicate the rule of the sovereign and the ultimatepurpose is to maintain peace and order. This article mainly from the four partsexplores Hobbes’ critical theory of religion, The first part analyzes the background ofHobbes’ critical theory of religion, which introduces the era background in which hewas, and then explores the theoretical basis of religious criticism, which was analyzedfrom the two sides of the natural science foundation and theoretical origins. Thesecond part explores the purpose and the theoretical foundation of philosophy ofHobbes’ religious criticism. By exploring its purpose, we can get that the purpose ofHobbes’ religious criticism is his political philosophy, and the ultimate goal is tomaintain peace and order; and Hobbes’ philosophy is its an important theoreticalfoundation to critique the religious theology thoroughly. First, the article discusses theobject of his study of philosophy, and the philosophy is the knowledge of the causalrelationship, thus the philosophy eliminates the religious theology; second, the articleexplores object theory, and the matter is the only tangible entity and the only trueexistence, then God, the Holy Spirit, angels can not be the invisible presence, whichdeprived the theology give them all the sacred cloak. Hobbes also believes in all theknowledge from feeling, and the thing can be felt by the senses that is real existence,thus the "God" either does not exist or becomes mundane and just like everyone else.The third part mainly focuses on the main contents of Hobbes’ critique of religion,which is the main part of the article. Firstly, the article analyzes the Hobbes’ study onthe origin of religion. Hobbes found the psychological mechanism of religion cameinto being, though he can completely negate the existence of religion, but he had to see the reason for the existence of religion, and he argued that in theory thoroughlycriticized religious theology, but in practice, he was in favor of retaining the religionfor a Stabilizing regime. Secondly, the article analyzes Hobbes’ critique to religioustradition, and religious theology is the heathenism which distorts the Bible, then theReligious traditions also distort the original meaning of the Bible. He argued that weshould explain the Bible from the Bible itself, then he critiqued the Holy Spirit andthe angels,the Kingdom of God, the religious right and "the Dark Kingdom" from theBible itself. Hobbes’ critique to the religious traditions on the one hand critiqued thereligious theology thoroughly, on the other hand had established the absolute authorityof the sovereign.Hobbes began to turn to critique the Bible after completing thecritique to traditions.This is a very unique way of religious critique. The core of theBible is the revelation, Hobbes firstly criticized the knowability and credibility ofrevelation, then he ruled out the possibility of the revelation, finally, he critiqued thecore of the revelation——miracle so thoroughly that he negated authority of the Biblecompletely. The last part of the criticism focused on the influence to later criticaltheory of religion and its success and failure. Pointed out that the criticism had animportant impact on the Religious criticism of Spinoza, Hume, Feuerbach and Marxand provided important lessons for modern society dealing with political and religiousissues, of course, criticism has its limitations.