Jendrysik, “Land or Sea Beast”
MPSA 2004
8
understand the divine will.
50
In doing so men succumb to the dangerous idea that they
collaborate with God (or God’s purposes) to effect political change. Holders of these doctrines,
believing that they are touched with divine revelation, feel free to resist and reject the commands
of the state. Given a choice between the commands of God and man, they chose God. In resisting
the commands of the temporal sovereign, they produce war. Men acting out of erroneous
conscience foolishly believe that rebellion against sovereigns deserves God’s approval and
support. Believers in the freedom and efficacy of conscience mistakenly base their resistance on
some kind of covenant with God.
51
The mistaken belief in private judgment (in religious and in secular matters) proves even
more dangerous than divided religious sovereignty to good government. The presumed ability of
all persons to interpret scripture and pretend to a direct communication with God and therefore a
direct understanding of God’s will creates innumerable sects. These sects preach the primacy of
spiritual (or “ghostly”) knowledge over reason. Sects create fanatics, whom Hobbes saw as
insane.
52
Convinced of the rightness of their course and willing to stop at nothing, these fanatics
ended up killing the king. They believe that their rebellion against both the religious and secular
orders secures heaven or salvation.
Deborah Baumgold claims Hobbes saw the civil war as the product of the folly of the
common people and the struggles of ambitious elites.
53
However, Hobbes sees these as
secondary causes. Hobbes points to multiple causes for civil disorder.
54
But the multiple causes
of disorder were rooted in the single cause of divided sovereignty, the failure of sovereignty to
provide a single locus of authority and decision in the state. “The civil war was due to divided
authority and divided authority from ideological disputes.”
55
The lack of sufficient sovereign
power is the first factor that weakened a commonwealth in chapter 29. Hobbes traces this
problem to the failure of early English kings, especially William the Conqueror, to establish the
subordinate role of the church.
56
The problem worsened when English kings attempted to free
themselves from the power of the pope. In doing so, they found new adversaries rising up in the
form of Episcopacy, then Presbyterianism, then Independency and finally in the form of
individual conscience.
57
The last elevated personal opinion to the level of unquestionable belief.
The failure of the sovereign to control and direct the expression of belief resulted in civil war.
Hobbes puts forward a similar view regarding the historical origins of divided political
sovereignty. The Stuarts failed to unite the various parts of their realm, in particular England and
Scotland. Hobbes claims that a union of England and Scotland, as desired by James I, would
have avoided the civil war.
58
In both Leviathan and Behemoth Hobbes finds claims of difference
between English and Scots to be absurd.
59
By uniting the sovereignty of all of Great Britain, the
Stuarts would have been able to treat all their subjects equally, and therefore avoid local
impediments to their power, both religious and secular.
50
Leviathan, III, 23.
51
Leviathan, XV, 109 and XVIII, 122.
52
On the dangerous insanity of religious enthusiasm and its political effects see Leviathan, VIII, 54-9. For an
elaboration on this point see Herzog, Happy Slaves, 73 and 90-6. For discussions of Hobbes’s views on the dangers
of sects see Farr, “Atomes of Scripture,” 175-9; and Sheldon Wolin, “Hobbes and the Culture of Despotism,” in
Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory, ed. Mary G. Dietz (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1990), 20.
53
Baumgold, Hobbes’s Political Theory, 134-5.
54
Ashcraft, “Ideology and Class in Hobbes’ Political Theory,” 249.
55
Lloyd, Ideals as Interests, 232.
56
Leviathan, XXIX, 222.
57
Leviathan, XLVII, 479-480.
58
Leviathan, XXIX, 138.
59
See Behemoth, 33-34.
Convention