THOMAS HOBBES, ONCE MORE

Hobbes does not claim infallibility for sovreign; his argument does not imply that, where sovereign and subject, the sovereign must be right. He admits that a subject cannot get rid of his beliefs merely because the sovereign has condemned them. If then, one or other of his beliefs requires him to do what the sovereign forbids, why should he not do it? Hobbes's answer, briefly, is this: Because by such action he threatens the peace, which is his greatest good in the world. If the subject believes in God, he has better reason for believing that God requires him to keep the peace than that he requires him to act on a belifs which the sovereign, the keeper of the peace, has condemned; he has better reasons for believing this unless God has actually spoken to him and required him to act on the condemned belief. Any man to whom God has not spoken has better grounds for believing that laws of nature are commands of God than that any revealed truth which requires him to disobey his sovereign is what those who teach it say it is: the authentic word of God.
Casalino Pierluigi, on Dec 24th, 2013