The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 05 (of 11)

In Short

This volume captures a formal philosophical dispute between Thomas Hobbes, the materialist philosopher, and John Bramhall, the Bishop of Derry. Through a series of exchanges, the two men contest the nature of human agency, the reliability of divine foreknowledge, and the moral justification for punishment. The text endures as a primary document of Enlightenment-era thought, illustrating the friction between cold, mechanical naturalism and traditional religious belief. By stripping away theological jargon in favor of logical scrutiny, the work serves as a foundational inquiry into why humans believe they are in control of their own lives.

The Story

The dialogue begins with an established disagreement regarding the nature of liberty and necessity. Hobbes, known for his mechanistic view of the universe, argues that all events—including human volitions—are the product of a necessary chain of causes. He contends that if an action is the result of a sufficient cause, it is by definition necessary. To Hobbes, freedom is merely the absence of external physical obstacles; if a man wants to walk and is not tied to a chair, he is "free," even if his desire to walk was itself predetermined by prior events.

Bishop Bramhall, viewing this position as a dangerous threat to morality and religion, enters the fray to defend the traditional concept of free will. He argues that if every action is necessitated by a prior, unbreakable chain of causes, then human responsibility disappears. If a person cannot choose otherwise, how can they be held accountable for their sins or praised for their virtues? Bramhall insists that humans possess a genuine dominion over their own wills, capable of choosing between paths regardless of prior influences. He seeks to reconcile this freedom with the existence of divine foreknowledge, arguing that God’s ability to foresee the future does not force that future to happen.

As the debate progresses, the tone becomes increasingly combative. The two men spar over the definition of terms, the interpretation of Scripture, and the mechanics of deliberation. Hobbes consistently pushes back against the Bishop’s appeals to "School-divine" logic, which he views as empty, confusing language meant to obscure the truth. He maintains that even when a man deliberates, he is merely weighing the immediate pressures of pleasure and pain, which inevitably dictate his final choice.

Bramhall counters by accusing Hobbes of promoting a "fatalistic" worldview that renders prayer, repentance, and civil law useless. He argues that if a person were merely a cog in a machine, they could not be truly guilty of crime. He uses analogies—such as a watchman seeing people from a tower—to explain how God might know the future without actively causing it. The two men trade barbs about each other’s intelligence and honesty, with Hobbes repeatedly dismissing the Bishop’s complexities as "paralogisms" and the Bishop labeling Hobbes a "new pretender" who lacks the wisdom of his ancestors. By the end of the volume, neither party yields. They leave the reader with a clear record of two opposing ways of seeing the human condition: one that views us as participants in a grand, determined design, and another that insists upon the sanctity of human choice as the bedrock of a moral life.

How It Unfolds

The initial challenge The dialogue opens with a formal exchange of letters where the Bishop challenges Hobbes’s assertion that all events have necessary causes. He sets the stage by arguing that such a belief destroys the possibility of moral culpability.

Defining the terms Both parties spend significant space clarifying what it means for an action to be "voluntary" versus "free." Hobbes argues that voluntary actions are simply those we do because we want to, while the Bishop insists that true freedom requires the power to have chosen otherwise.

The role of causes They transition to a technical debate regarding "sufficient causes." Hobbes asserts that if every condition for an action is met, that action must occur, whereas the Bishop introduces the possibility of contingent causes that allow for multiple outcomes.

Divine intervention The argument deepens as they tackle the problem of God’s role in human affairs. The Bishop attempts to protect the idea of divine justice and prayer against Hobbes’s claim that God’s will is the ultimate, unchanging cause of all things.

Final arguments The exchange closes with a series of animadversions, where each man critiques the other’s specific logical deductions. They finalize their positions, with the Bishop appealing to universal human experience and Hobbes doubling down on his materialist, causal framework.

The People

Thomas Hobbes serves as the sharp-edged proponent of scientific materialism. He is driven by a desire for clarity and logical rigor, viewing the world as a complex machine governed by physical laws. He stands in opposition to what he considers the "obscure" and "fanciful" language of traditional theology. He ends the dialogue firmly committed to his belief that everything—even the human will—is subject to necessity.

John Bramhall, the Bishop of Derry, acts as the defender of traditional moral and religious order. He is motivated by a deep fear that Hobbes’s philosophy will lead to atheism and a breakdown of societal virtue. He views himself as the protector of "old truths" inherited from his ancestors. Throughout the debate, he attempts to anchor his arguments in the dignity of the human soul and the justice of a God who punishes sin.

These two figures remain locked in a fundamental conflict. Hobbes is the detached analyst who views the Bishop’s reliance on moral concepts as a failure of intellect, while the Bishop is the passionate moralist who views Hobbes’s materialism as a failure of the heart. Neither man moves closer to the other; instead, they define their respective poles of seventeenth-century thought, leaving the reader to decide whether human freedom is an objective reality or a comforting illusion.

In Its Own Voice

"If I be not free, yet I ought not to be blamed, since I do it not out of any voluntary election, but out of an inevitable necessity."

The Bishop summarizes the logical impasse of Hobbes’s position, suggesting that if all actions are fated, then moral blame loses its meaning.

"The question is not now of the elective power, in actu primo, whether it be an essential faculty of the soul, but whether the act of electing this or that particular object, be free and undetermined by any antecedent and extrinsical causes."

The Bishop pinpoints the core of their disagreement, pushing Hobbes to address whether a specific choice is truly free from prior influence.

"Does J. D. think, that no action can please me or him, or the commonwealth, that should proceed from necessity?"

Hobbes questions the Bishop’s assumption that an action must be free of prior causes in order to be considered good or worthy of praise.

What It's Really About

The central theme is the tension between deterministic science and moral agency. The work probes the question of whether a universe governed by cause and effect can accommodate the concept of human choice. Underlying the debate is a profound anxiety about the consequences of one's philosophy: if Hobbes is right, does the concept of "sin" evaporate? If Bramhall is right, is the physical world governed by unpredictable and inexplicable forces? The text investigates the foundations of responsibility, asking whether punishment is a tool for correction or an inherently unjust act if the offender had no choice. It challenges the reader to consider if their sense of "freedom" is a logical conclusion or merely a subjective feeling that collapses under the weight of rigorous, skeptical inquiry into why we want what we want.

Why Read It Today

Readers interested in the history of philosophy, the origins of the Enlightenment, or the enduring "nature versus nurture" debate will find this text invaluable. It reads less like a modern textbook and more like a live, intellectual boxing match. The language is the formal, rhythmic English of the seventeenth century, which can be challenging to those unaccustomed to the era’s academic prose, but it is remarkably direct and devoid of modern padding.

The book feels like sitting in on a conversation that never truly ends. You will find yourself weighing the Bishop’s emotional and ethical appeals against Hobbes’s cold, unyielding logic. It is a rewarding experience for anyone who enjoys seeing a problem stripped down to its barest components. The arguments regarding the influence of "outward objects" on our decisions feel startlingly contemporary, touching on themes of behaviorism and psychological conditioning that continue to dominate modern discourse.

Be aware that the tone is often biting; these men did not respect each other’s viewpoints, and their mutual disdain makes for a lively, if occasionally abrasive, read. The length is substantial, and the theological references require patience. However, if you are drawn to the history of ideas and want to see how the modern conception of the "autonomous individual" was first tested and interrogated, this volume provides a front-row seat to one of history’s most significant intellectual skirmishes.