Why did Thomas Hobbes's religious arguments change?

What is it about?

Thomas Hobbes's stated views on church-state relations changed throughout his career. Scholars of Hobbes have debated the extent and reason for those changes. In this article, Andrew K Day frames that exegetical debate and elucidates what divides its interlocutors. Day argues that Hobbes's position on the topic of church-state relations did not change because Hobbes's mind did, but because he was liberated by the regicide of 1649 to subordinate religion completely to the state. This is why De cive is tepidly Anglican, while Leviathan is more radically Erastian and anti-episcopal.

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Why is it important?

This article is of historical importance to those interested in the English Civil War, highlighting the criss-crossing battle lines of that conflict. This article is significant for Hobbes studies in that it affirms the importance of interpreting Hobbes's texts as political acts, and further of interpreting these texts in light of Hobbes's theory of obligation. This article also has more general implications for hermeneutics, as Day develops a method of text interpretation that blends biography, history, and political theory.