Editing Thomas Hobbes (section)

==Religious views==

The religious opinions of Hobbes remain controversial as many positions have been attributed to him and range from atheism to orthodox Christianity. In ''The Elements of Law'', Hobbes provided a cosmological argument for the existence of God, saying that God is "the first cause of all causes".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Duncan |first=Stewart |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |year=2021 |chapter=Thomas Hobbes |access-date=6 April 2022 |chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117210624/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/ |archive-date=17 January 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Hobbes was accused of atheism by several contemporaries; Bramhall accused him of teachings that could lead to atheism. This was an important accusation, and Hobbes himself wrote, in his answer to Bramhall's ''The Catching of Leviathan'', that "atheism, impiety, and the like are words of the greatest defamation possible".<ref>p. 282 of Molesworth's edition.</ref> Hobbes always defended himself from such accusations.<ref>{{cite book|last=Martinich|first=A. P.|title=A Hobbes Dictionary|location=Cambridge|publisher=Blackwell|date=1995|page=35}}</ref> In more recent times also, much has been made of his religious views by scholars such as Richard Tuck and [[J. G. A. Pocock]], but there is still widespread disagreement about the exact significance of Hobbes's unusual views on religion.

As Martinich has pointed out, in Hobbes's time the term "atheist" was often applied to people who believed in God but not in [[divine providence]], or to people who believed in God but also maintained other beliefs that were considered to be inconsistent with such belief or judged incompatible with orthodox Christianity. He says that this "sort of discrepancy has led to many errors in determining who was an atheist in the [[early modern period]]".<ref>{{cite book|last=Martinich|first=A. P.|title=A Hobbes Dictionary|location=Cambridge|publisher=Blackwell|date=1995|page=31}}</ref> In this extended early modern sense of atheism, Hobbes did take positions that strongly disagreed with church teachings of his time. For example, he argued repeatedly that there are no incorporeal substances, and that all things, including human thoughts, and even God, heaven, and hell are corporeal, matter in motion. He argued that "though Scripture acknowledge spirits, yet doth it nowhere say, that they are incorporeal, meaning thereby without dimensions and quantity".<ref>''Human Nature'' I.XI.5.</ref> (In this view, Hobbes claimed to be following [[Tertullian]].) Like [[John Locke]], he also stated that true [[revelation]] can never disagree with human reason and experience,<ref>''Leviathan'' III.xxxii.2. "...we are not to renounce our Senses, and Experience; nor (that which is undoubted Word of God) our naturall Reason".</ref> although he also argued that people should accept revelation and its interpretations for the same reason that they should accept the commands of their sovereign: in order to avoid war.

While in Venice on tour, Hobbes made the acquaintance of Fulgenzio Micanzio, a close associate of Paolo Sarpi, who had written against the pretensions of the papacy to temporal power in response to the [[Venetian Interdict|Interdict]] of [[Pope Paul V]] against [[Republic of Venice|Venice]], which refused to recognise papal prerogatives. James I had invited both men to England in 1612. Micanzio and Sarpi had argued that God willed human nature, and that human nature indicated the autonomy of the state in temporal affairs. When he returned to England in 1615, William Cavendish maintained correspondence with Micanzio and Sarpi, and Hobbes translated the latter's letters from Italian, which were circulated among the Duke's circle.<ref name="Sommerville-1992-256"/>