Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) is the founding text of modern political philosophy and one of the most significant engagements with biblical theology in the history of political thought. Taking its title and dominant imagery from the biblical monster of Job 41, and devoting its second half to extensive biblical exegesis, Leviathan demonstrates that Hobbes regarded the Bible not as an inconvenient embarrassment to be marginalized but as a central resource - and a battlefield - in the construction of a theory of absolute sovereign power.
The Thinker and His World
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was born in Malmesbury, England, educated at Oxford, and spent much of his career as a tutor and intellectual companion to aristocratic families. His political philosophy was formed in the crucible of the English Civil War: watching the monarchy overthrown, the king executed, and the country convulsed by religious faction, Hobbes became convinced that the only alternative to the 'warre of every man against every man' was an absolute sovereign power that could not be contested on religious grounds.
Leviathan was written in Paris during Hobbes's exile after the fall of the monarchy and published in 1651 - a year before Cromwell established the Protectorate. It is divided into four parts: Of Man (a materialist psychology and epistemology), Of Commonwealth (the theory of sovereign power), Of a Christian Commonwealth (extensive biblical exegesis), and Of the Kingdom of Darkness (a polemic against Catholic and Presbyterian claims to independent spiritual authority). The division reflects Hobbes's understanding that the two greatest threats to sovereign power were the papacy and the Protestant claim of individual conscience.
Biblical Texts Engaged
Job 41:1, 24, 33 - 'Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?... His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone... On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear' - provides Hobbes's central image for the sovereign state. The Leviathan is the great sea monster of Job 41, described as invincible and without equal on earth, over which only God has mastery. By adopting this name for the sovereign state, Hobbes is making several simultaneously theological and political claims: the sovereign has a power over citizens analogous to the divine power over the Leviathan; the state is an 'artificial man' of overwhelming force that inspires the awe necessary to sustain social order; and the biblical imagination of an absolute power over chaos is the proper model for political theory.
The frontispiece of Leviathan - one of the most famous images in the history of political philosophy - depicts a giant figure composed of multitudes of smaller human figures, crowned and holding a sword and a crozier (ecclesiastical staff), looming over a peaceful landscape. The image is a visual commentary on Job 41: the Leviathan is terrifying but necessary for peace.
Romans 13:1-2 - 'Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed' - is the biblical text Hobbes uses most consistently to ground political obligation. For Hobbes, Paul's command of political submission is not a contingent piece of Pauline advice but a permanent theological principle: legitimate authority is to be obeyed, and resistance is sin.
Genesis 9:6 - 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image' - grounds Hobbes's account of the natural law: even in the state of nature, before the establishment of a sovereign, there are certain absolute prohibitions (against murder, against destruction of the conditions of peace) that follow from the divine creation of human beings as rational animals capable of social life.
Core Argument
Hobbes's argument proceeds in three stages. First, the state of nature: without a common power to restrain them, human beings are in a condition of permanent war - not because they are evil but because their equal capacities and scarcity of resources create a rational incentive to preemptive violence. The famous description: 'the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.'
Second, the covenant: rational calculation leads human beings to create a social covenant, in which each surrenders the right to self-government to a sovereign power in exchange for security. The sovereign is constituted by the covenant but is not a party to it: subjects cannot withdraw their consent or resist the sovereign on grounds of conscience, justice, or religion.
Third, the biblical theology: in Books III and IV, Hobbes argues that Scripture, properly interpreted, supports this conclusion. The Kingdom of God described in the Old Testament was a theocracy - a direct rule by God through the law - that ended when Israel demanded a king (1 Samuel 8). After Christ, the Kingdom of God is not of this world (John 18:36): it is a future eschatological reality, not a present political reality. Until the Second Coming, Christians owe obedience to the civil sovereign in all temporal matters, and the claim of Church or conscience to override civil authority is a form of usurpation.
Intellectual Context
Hobbes was engaged in a three-front battle: against the natural law tradition (he denied that there is a pre-political moral order that limits sovereign power), against the papacy (he denied that the Pope has any political authority over secular sovereigns), and against the Protestant claim of individual conscience (he denied that individual scriptural interpretation can justify resistance to the sovereign). All three battles required biblical as well as philosophical argument.
Reception and Critique
Hobbes was attacked from all sides. Royalists found his materialism and his view that sovereignty derives from popular consent rather than divine right too radical. Republicans found his conclusion - absolute sovereignty - insufficiently liberal. Churchmen of all denominations found his biblical exegesis subversive: he was widely suspected of atheism, though this charge is disputed by modern scholars.
Locke, Hobbes's most important successor, accepted the social contract framework but argued for natural rights that constrain the sovereign and for the right of revolution when the sovereign violates those rights. The Lockean tradition - rather than the Hobbesian - became the dominant strand of liberal political philosophy, but Hobbes's analysis of the state of nature, the security dilemma, and the problem of collective action remains foundational in international relations theory and game theory.
Legacy
Leviathan established the social contract as the foundational concept of modern political philosophy and the state as the primary unit of political analysis. Hobbes's materialist psychology, his legal positivism, his analysis of the state of nature, and his account of sovereignty have all had enduring influence across political philosophy, legal theory, and international relations.
Key Passages
'During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man.' (Leviathan, Chapter 13)
'The only way to erect such a Common Power... is, to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men... This is the generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortal God, to which wee owe under the Immortal God, our peace and defence.' (Leviathan, Chapter 17)
Contemporary Relevance
Hobbes's analysis of the security dilemma - how rational actors in conditions of uncertainty can be driven to violent pre-emption - remains the foundational framework for international relations theory and nuclear deterrence policy. His account of how religious claims can destabilize political order speaks directly to contemporary debates about religious terrorism, sectarian conflict, and the limits of religious liberty.