Thomas Hobbes #1 (His History)

TheGreatBibleReset.com believes that the Mosaic Covenant should be the basis for the criminal justice system to counter the economic reset proposed by Klaus Schwab. The Stuart dynasty in 17th century England brought about a shift from a spiritual to a secular worldview. Thomas Hooker justified divine right of kings in response to the Puritan challenge, while Francis Bacon and Descartes contributed to the shift towards a secular mindset. Samuel Rutherford's Lex Rex challenged the Stuart tyranny but vested ultimate authority in the people rather than God. Thomas Hobbes believed in a strong monarchy and command law, which influenced the British commonwealth men and later the American colonies. Cromwell's reliance on inner voice instead of God's law opened the door for Hobbes. Hobbes' work, Leviathan, was not well received by Charles II, leading to Hobbes' rejection at the restoration. Welcome, everybody, to TheGreatBibleReset.com, where our thesis is that the only remedy for the looming great economic reset of Klaus Schwab is a covenant commitment to make the Mosaic Covenant of Exodus 20-24 the foundation of our criminal justice system. You say that could never happen in pluralistic America. Well, we've got a choice. We can figure out how to make it happen, starting at the local level, or we can continue down our current path of judgment, resulting from our rejection of God's law in our national life. So this week, we're right in the middle of the Stuart dynasty of tyrant kings that ruled for the better part of the 17th century in England, but we've termed the century of revolution during the 1600s. This was a revolution not only of arms, but more importantly, a philosophical revolution in which England and the European continent shifted from a spiritual mindset into a secular worldview. So let's look at the historical context. In 1594, Thomas Hooker had written the first volume of his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity to justify the theory of the divine right of kings to sustain Queen Elizabeth and the Stuart tyrants of the 17th century. This came in response to the Puritan challenge of Don Knox and George Buchanan in England, arising from the Protestant Reformation of Luther and Calvin on the European continent. Because Hooker, for the most part, had rejected the authority of Old Testament law, he then asserted that there were no adequate guidelines for church or civil government in the Bible. The king, therefore, must call upon the natural law for principles of government. The reasoning was fairly simple or simplistic. Since kings are appointed by heredity and thus God alone, they are therefore answerable to none but God alone. At the turn of the century, the Francis Bacon Shakespeare plays served to put a happy face on the Tudor tyranny, and Descartes wrote his Meditations in 1641, rebooting the European worldview from God to the human mind and to science as a starting point for knowledge. Francis Bacon had introduced this idea in his New Atlantis back in the 1500s. Samuel Rutherford responded to the Stuart tyranny with Lex Rex in 1644 to fan the flames of Reformation freedom, but as we have seen, he carried it too far by vesting ultimate governing authority in the body politic of the people rather than in God. Thomas Hobbes interpreted this groundswell of democracy as an ungovernable leviathan only to be controlled by a firm hand. Thus new life was breathed into the move towards centralization by Thomas Hobbes in 1651 in the wake of Oliver Cromwell's brief respite of religious freedom of conscience in the protectorate of 1642 to 1651. Hobbes carried Hooker's theory of divine right based on natural law to its logical conclusion in the theory of command law or positive law dictated by the king, in this case Charles II. These commands are issued in the context of ever-shifting social conditions to ensure positive outcomes in terms of peace and personal security for the unruly masses in the leviathan. Since common law, itself a derivative of natural law, is too vague for any reliable interpretation, our only option remaining is the direct command of the king with positive laws dictated by the social milieu of the moment. To this end he made the equally vague assertion that natural law and civil law contain each other and are of equal extent. From there he went on to conclude that law in general is not counsel but command, which is a sharp departure from the biblical model of king ruling in obedience to the law of God but subject to a council of elders of Sanhedrin and a commons consisting of heads of households. These bodies are not to make law but to assist the king in interpretation and execution of God's revealed law. All of this ran cover for the secular pragmatism of the British commonwealth men or Whigs, James Harrington to a lesser extent John Milton and notably John Locke later in the century and was carried over into the American colonies. Following the Puritan revolution in England under Oliver Cromwell that began in a revitalized Parliament in the regicide of Charles I in 1642 and surged with the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell until 1651. Tragically Cromwell inadvertently opened the door for Hobbes by relying too much on an inner voice rather than the explicit commands of the law of God. He correctly insisted on freedom of conscience in matters of individual religious faith but he failed to distinguish between that and freedom of religion in the public square of a Christian nation which is an assault on the first commandment to have no other gods before me. So Hobbes lived from 1588 to 1679, he was a tutor of English royalty for most of his adult life, he wrote Leviathan in 1651 in defense of royal supremacy in affairs of state. Hobbes had worked long and hard on Leviathan. After Cromwell's stormy rule he believed that his work would at last be confirmed when Charles II was restored to the throne. Hobbes had taught Charles as a youth and was convinced that the king would embrace his message. He argued that the king must rule with a strong arm. This is needful to tame the unruly populace as it exists in a state of nature and so he presented a handwritten copy to Charles shortly after his restoration in 1640. Imagine his dismay that day in court when the king frowned on his labor. In those days the church was closely tied to the crown and so some of Hobbes' dismissive statements about the church were not well received. For instance, quote, the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof, end of quote. So from Hobbes' point of view the reformation in England had produced turmoil and anarchy in the Puritan revolution. Hobbes wrote from exile, ironically the relatively freedom of Cromwell's protectorate permitted publication of a key apology for the royalists. Even more ironic was the royalist rejection of Hobbes at the restoration of Charles II. Charles was offended because his former tutor had not defended his kingly power in terms of divine right. Instead he argued for the alleged protection it gave the citizen. Likewise the court favored Anglicans and Catholics who were upset with Hobbes' attacks on them. So to explore this further you can pick up a free copy, Biblical Analysis of Thomas Hobbes according to other classical authors in the bookstore at kingswayclassicalacademy.com. It's titled Keys to the Classics, A History of Decline and Fall of Western Civilization. Your purchase helps us with scholarships for low income families at the school as does your supplement purchases at boomers-alive.com longevity store. There's a special on highest quality turmeric there where you buy one and get three free. Turmeric is the so-called miracle herb that relieves pain when it strengthens your joints, while it strengthens your joints. It's the natural alternative to knee replacement. So thanks for being here tomorrow and today and tomorrow we'll move on into the teaching, more definition of the teaching of Thomas Hobbes.