Hobbes’s Philosophy of Religion

The quality and sincerity of Thomas Hobbes’s religion has been a matter of heated dispute since his own lifetime. Modern scholarship on the question has exploded over the past three decades. It broadly pits those convinced of Hobbes’s atheism (and, by consequence, his insincere, esoteric mode of writing) against those who view Hobbes not just as a theist but as some sort of “nonstandard” Protestant. The former scholars are usually, but not inevitably, influenced by Leo Strauss. The latter scholars tend to be more contextualist in approach, a method most prominently demonstrated in the work of A. P. Martinich. The debate has continued and thickened, but there have been few truly new approaches that might redirect it. A new approach is exactly the welcomed promise of Thomas Holden’s new book Hobbes’s Philosophy of Religion. Holden is a well-known philosopher with an expertise in early modern thinkers and a topical...