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Deconstructing Ethical Advocacy

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Deconstructing Mythical Advocacy: The Integration of Religion in the Pious Leviathan Religious worship is a subject of ingenuity and acute controversy in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. In the construction of his commonwealth, his treatment of religion not only serves as an anthropological analysis for the civil sovereign to internalize, but a harbinger as to why it is necessary for religion to be hewn into the living rock of society. What some may deem as sanctimonious or heretical reasoning, Hobbes perceives as sobering truths of human nature; truths that must be illuminated for the sake of social order. The way in which religion is embraced is easier to explain than it is to accomplish. It presents a moral fog whose implications not only challenge …show more content…

In his natural tendency to explain first causes, God is an explanation for man’s good and bad fortune, the causes of natural bodies, and the contents of his temporal, miserable condition. When man cannot explain provenance, or, remember the antecedents and consequences of events, he naturally relies on the judgment and authority of other men whom he trusts or believes are wiser than himself. For Hobbes this behavioral impulse of humanity accounts for the invention of God’s infinite intelligence. When man’s collective or personal analysis of his reality becomes obscure, God becomes the object of possessing this unknown knowledge. While the custody of this intelligence may not reside in the grasp of man, he nevertheless finds reassurance in thinking that God knows the cause behind every material …show more content…

That is to say, God becomes an antidote for the fear of death, poverty and other calamities that plague his mind. God is a substitute for man’s perpetual fear of existence having no inherent meaning. As a result of God’s absolute power being the dictating force behind the believer’s reality, faith in the deity provides intrinsic value and purpose to man’s existence. Instead of having his personal life be governed by potential absurdities or unknown causes, the fear of God’s authority is preferred over the anxiety of the unexplainable. Acts of piety grant man a sense of control over God’s judgement and grace, therefore awarding him an imagined agency of influence over his reality. Thus the believer’s declaration of God’s supremacy is not a dogmatic affirmation of his nature, but rather a humble expression of piety and honor for the being. This dependance on the authority of God to explain the human condition and its attributes, passions and abilities, causes man to respectfully submit to the divine sovereign. To Hobbes this prevents man from seeing the true causality of events, as well as those between consequences and

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