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1 7 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2beginning of all causal chains, but is “incomprehensible” (140). 3 Hobbes’s ownpolitical principles do not require a god, so this proves no objection to Hobbesunless one argues from a religious viewpoint. Leviathan 31 deals with God’snatural (as opposed to prophetic) kingdom, and is concerned with “whetherGod even has a kingdom in the strict sense of the word by nature, and what,if anything, natural reason can tell us about God’s attributes.” Presupposing(rather than justifying) divine omnipotence, Hobbes justifies God’s right torule on the basis of power: “From God’s irresistible power follows…the rightto treat all men—indeed, all things—at his discretion” (141). God differs fromman in the state of nature in that man is weak and God is not. But if that isso, why would an all-powerful God rule for the sake of the weak? Stauffernotes that Hobbes does not raise this question explicitly; instead, he raisesthe difficulties presented by the sufferings of the good and the prosperity ofthe wicked. A further problem emerges: how does worship benefit God? Perhapsit benefits the worshiper instead. Turning to divine attributes, Hobbespresents an apophatic natural theology, because a positive teaching, in limitingGod, would dishonor God. “As God’s positive attributes are cast asidewith the movement to his incomprehensible infinity, our conception of Godis reduced, it would seem, to a mere ‘I AM,’ the ultimate meaning of whichis mysterious. …In this argument about God’s attributes, Hobbes uses oneelement of the traditional view of God against all of the others.” Hobbes’sargument “operates as a kind of ad hominem critique” of traditional views ofGod (145). His emphasis on the limits of knowledge compels one to realizethat the limits of “natural reason render boastful and groundless all claimsthat reason can disclose the truth about God’s nature; but…these same limitswould seem to leave reason unable to rule out the possibility of a creator Godwhose powers we cannot fathom” (149). Hobbes’s natural theology is less apositive teaching than a critical one, which “cannot stand alone because itdoes not decisively settle the most important questions it raises” (150).Hasso Hoffman’s contribution, “Rousseau’s Happiness of Freedom,”traverses Rousseau’s anthropology and history of civilization in order tohighlight some difficulties with his teaching in the Social Contract. This isonly preliminary. Hoffman’s real quarry proves to be the two different sortsof freedom and happiness available to the citizen and to the philosopher.Focusing on the Reveries, Hoffman writes: “the Walker’s happiness resemblesthe ‘highest’ happiness of the ‘savage’ who aspires to nothing but quiet andfreedom and only wants to ‘live and be indolent’ as the Second Discourse3But cf. 149, where it is acknowledged that De Corpore poses a “serious problem” for the view thatGod as first cause is at the center of Hobbes’s natural theology.