Gertrude Himmelfarb. The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenment. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2004

As contrasts to the origin and nature of Government, Hobbes and Locke posit competing views to the nature of humanity, authority, and political community. Hobbes, writing amidst the great struggle of the English civil war but in the safety of Parisian life, wrote in defense of the monarchy in England. He argued that society is nothing more than a collection of selfish individuals who must be kept from devolving into such absolute chaos that a concentration of power is the most philosophically reasonable justification for the sovereignty of a king. (Kirk 271) Locke on the other hand wrote his primary treatises on government after the civil war and culmination of the Glorious Revolution in 1688; and, after the publications of Hobbes. Ultimately, power rests within the grasp of the common people. Those who are governed ought to compose that Body of those who govern them. The people may delegate their power to a body of parliament, but under conditions of tyranny may use their strength to lawfully oppose such tyranny. (Kirk 284)

Hobbes’ Leviathian, i.e. the absolute authority of the state, is predicated on his understanding of human nature. Although Hobbes is quick to divorce almost all of Christian authority from the affairs of politics, he is certainly influenced by Reformation thought regarding the nature and humanity of man. People are by nature bent on anarchy and chaos, and would live by the sword against each other because of a savage and selfish nature. True, men are depraved, but Hobbes does not account for the role of common grace and the restraining influence of that grace on the evils of man.

In one great and terrible blow Hobbes reduces almost all Christian thought to mere rationalism and secularism. The classical and Christian tradition of natural law becomes merely a set of rules man has evolved over time to maintain order and peace with one another. Christian kingship is no longer necessary even if kingship in general is necessary. These principles have no divine or eternal origin. Even though Hobbes is consistent with Reformation’s low view of human nature, he completely substitutes the Leviathan for the Christian understanding of grace and the body of Christ.

Since the idea of the body of Christ no longer exists for Hobbes, he can have no view of any transcendant power that unifies human nature into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The very foundation for understanding any transcendant view of human nature, and thus community life, is eradicated. The application and reason to understand and apply the biblical command to love is rooted in the idea that there exists something greater than the individual which motivates an individual to think less of himself and more of someone or something else, thus forming a basic link or connection to the second thing and creating in effect a third thing. When government is a necessary beast, existing on a basis of practical despotism, government becomes a negative, not a positive, thing. Its role is divisionary, separatist, and keeping one person from another, because the assumption is that the activity is a violent activity. The individual is the only thing that can exist for Hobbes, and that individual’s motives to move about arise out of self-interest and fear.

This concept influenced the founders and continues to influence America today more than anybody has yet realized. In colonial America there existed such conditions ripe for the propagation of individualism.

1. Locke argues that reparation and restraint are the only two justifications for one man doing harm to another, what he calls punishment. (272). Is such punishment diminishing of Christ’s punishment that he took on the cross? Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

2. Should punishment be a role of government? Discipline yes, punishment no?

3. Given Christ’s command to turn the other cheek, scripture’s admonishment for self-sacrifice, and love of neighbor, do we indeed have a “Right to reparation” and Locke claims? (273)

4. Is the invention of money a boon or a blessing to the furtherance of an economic state? Locke argues that it allows us to increase our stores beyond what is necessary…and thus creates property more than can be used, and desires to accumulate more than can be used. Is this helpful or hurtful to living in a harmonious state?