Religion in the Leviathan the Term Paper

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" (Leviathan, Chapter 12).

This passage speaks directly to man's relationship with God in Hobbes' eyes. The idea that God exists pre-logic erupts into an understanding that faith and fate play such an integral role in Man's life. Whatever we may do to secure our happiness we may do, but fate and faith play a larger role than we would generally care to admit to be the case.

In general, Hobbes philosophy on religion does satisfy a lot of philosophic ends. It points at one true course (Christianity) and also obviates the need to justify religion in the face of logic and philosophy. As in, we do not need to logically defend Christ's birth, the stories of his life and the prophets, and subsequently the parable of his cruxifiction. In fact, we do not even need to defend logically the basic premises of religion or specifically Christianity.

Instead, we can concentrate on philosophy surrounding our politics and metaphysics: Let God and the idea of religion and original birth of man be untouchable and above our rationalization. This is a very neat, clean solution for one of philosophy's messiest question: Whence did we come, and is there is a higher power, a Prime Mover?

Hobbes answers this question with a simple 'yes': There is a Prime Mover, He worked in His mysterious ways before the dawn of Man, and now our job is to sort out the world that he created and we modified.

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Oddly, the plus-points of Hobbes' view are the same reasons his answers fall short in today's times. First, we've come to an understanding globally that there is no true religion. Christianity is as valid as Hinduism, which is as valid as Buddhism, which is as valid as Mormonism, etc. Hobbes said it best when he acknowledges in Chapter 12 that all religions strive to bring peace to mankind and eliminate fear.

However, Hobbes' platitudes stop there. Christianity is the only answer for him. Furthermore, his answer that God existed before man and it is fruitless and unnecessary for us to justify His existence or extend our philosophical thinkings to explaining whence we came and the workings of our Maker (if indeed there is one), is far too simplistic. True, Hobbes is one of our greatest philosophical thinkers, but only in his political work. His conceptualization of religion leaves much to be desired, simply because he gives up in characterizing and explaining God.

So, Hobbes' neatest answer is ultimately his downfall as far as logically describing Man's place in this universe. We may consult him on his ideas of the sovereign and the sovereign's role, but in terms of….....

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