why do you suppose we're here?
Thomas Hobbes, Hobbes’s namesake, didn’t believe in “Divine Providence.” He believed everything had a logical, natural explanation, and that men had a tendency to apply God to anything they couldn’t answer. John Calvin, meanwhile, believed that everything was ordained by god, that all things were predetermined and followed a plan. This is basically a microcosm of how they differ. Calvin is asking “why,” for what purpose, and Hobbes responds with an answer, but it is a reason. They have starkly different views on the metaphysical nature of the universe.
And:
I would call Calvin’s view ‘predestined’ rather than ‘predetermined’, although the essence is accurate.
They arguably had more in common than set them apart tho. For example, both saw humans as inherently selfish and corrupt by nature, therefore requiring external sources of stability, the state and the church respectively, for civilization to thrive.
- Jonas Fiebrantz