In five pages the sensible approach Hobbes takes to religion and morality are examined in a consideration of Leviathan. Two sources are cited in the bibliography.
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should people live their lives morally if there were no threat or promise of an afterlife? As far as religion is concerned, the reason why man behaves, or should, is
due to the consequences that can only be doled out by the Creator. That said, in examining Hobbes Leviathan, one sees a reasonable explanation for morality that in no way
supports blind obedience to any church, but rather views man as the ultimate manifestation of Gods love. Endowed with reasoning ability, man is not seen as a being apart from
God who can reason, but rather as a being like God who can reason. Morality then is something that is intrinsic, not due to nature, but as something God-given. While
simplistic, Hobbes is able to resolve the old argument about whether or not morality comes from God or man. In The Leviathan Hobbes says: " For seeing
all formed religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person, whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to
labour to procure their happiness, but also to be a holy man to whom God Himself vouchsafeth to declare His will supernaturally, it followeth necessarily when they that have the
government of religion shall come to have either the wisdom of those men, their sincerity, or their love suspected, or that they shall be unable to show any probable token
of divine revelation, that the religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and (without the fear of the civil sword) contradicted and rejected" (PG). It begins
to become clear as one reads the various parts of the work that Hobbes relies solely on religion, faith and things that are purportedly intrinsic in man, and not on