Pierre Manent

An Intellectual History of Liberalism

On the first point, Hobbes's argument is simple but devastating. To believe that God spoke to certain men is to believe that these men speak the truth, it is to believe them. The necessity of a human intermediary means that to believe in a revealed God is to believe men. Now, experience teaches us that men are readily liars, or more exactly, that the elevated idea they have of their wisdom often leads them to believe themselves inspired by God. Besides, those who believe themselves to be inspired most often attract partisans, who call themselves disciples. Thus those inspired by God hold a power whose extent depends on the number of their partisans. We know that the desire for power is men's dominant, primordial desire. Therefore we should not be surprised if many an individual, through sheer desire for power, proclaims himself inspired by God. Does not Scripture itself—the Old as well as the New Testament—insist on this point, that there are false prophets? Indeed, that for one truly inspired prophet, there are a hundred or four hundred false ones? The lesson of secular experience is just as clear: each time that an individual or a group of individuals claims to be inspired by God, those who listen to them must be skeptical: the probability is that they are impostors. The safest action is to recognize as prophets only those who are judged as such by the sovereign. If men are convinced by Hobbes's arguments, it is not very likely that any prophets, true or false, will have many disciples.

There remains the case of those who, instead of simply following the prophets, believe themselves to be prophets. Whether sincere or liars, they are inaccessible to reason. Thus they ought to be left to the sovereign's judgment; he will decide whether they constitute a danger to civil peace. If he judges them to be dangerous, the sovereign will use public force to ensure that they can do no harm. The operation will be easy because, thanks to Hobbes's warnings, they will have hardly any disciples. The claims of the 'prophets' or 'saints' who played such a role in the English Civil War will cease to be a major political threat; they will pose only a simple problem of law and order.

One can wonder here whether Hobbes's triumph here is not too complete and even somewhat imprudent. If every claim of divine inspiration is as radically suspect, is not the very root of Christianity itself in danger? Would one not have to suspect the Apostles and Christ himself? Hobbes asserts that he has no stake in the matter, that he is only reminding us of the vigilance recommended by scripture. Therefore, he accepts that there are (or at least were) true prophets, on whose witness the Catholic church and Protestant confessions are founded. Conceding this—and Hobbes had to concede it if he wanted to avoid suffering the fate reserved for false prophets—a new task faced him. He had to show that scripture itself, exactly interpreted, actually professes Hobbes's own political doctrine: that is, that the civil sovereign is absolute also in religious matters. We shall not follow him in his exegesis. Its conclusion is that it is all the same whether ones says 'Church' or 'body politic composed of Christians': there is no place in the human world for another representative. There is no need for a power other than civil power.