Hobbes and the reduction of justice

Abstract

In view of Bishop Bramhall’s objection that the thesis of the necessity of all things results in the destruction of divine justice and goodness, Hobbes argues that divine power justifies all his actions and that his goodness is nothing more than his power to make himself loved. It is this reduction of the divine omnipotence and its articulation with the Hobbesian rejection of final causes that will be addressed in this paper.