Thomas Hobbes is best known for his political theory of the Leviathan and to a lesser extent for his theories on empiricism. Both Hobbes’ political and empirical theories are founded on his belief that there exists nothing but matter. There is nothing but material bodies in motion, Hobbes believed.
This radical materialism had an interesting effect on Hobbes’ religious beliefs. He believed in God, did not question Christianity, though he, like many in his day, was critical of religious institutions. But that meant that he had to believe that God is made of matter, which he did. He reasoned that either something is matter or it is void. God could not be immaterial because immateriality is nothing. God exists, therefore God must be material. Of course, God is a different kind of matter than what rocks, plants, trees, and our bodies are made. Hobbes saw it as a rarefied matter, like a very fine mist, but still matter.
Not surprisingly, Hobbes’ theory met with great criticism in his time. Not just from religious authorities but from other philosophers and intellectuals. The idea that there is nothing but matter was not intellectual palatable and seemed to contradict common sense, especially the human mind. The preferred notion was from Hobbes’ contemporary, Descartes, who reasoned that there were two types of substance–mental and material. Mind and consciousness has no extension in space and thus could not be material. The same argument for a material God would have to made for a material mind and not surprisingly, Hobbes felt that mind was nothing but matter. But if mind is matter then what is consciousness? Would that lead to us denying the existence of consciousness?
