The metaphysics of Hobbes are not that of Christianity, as he views the end of virtue to be self-preservation through a stable political order. Even so, he is worth reading, as Peter Berkowitz explains:
Accordingly, Hobbes’s mechanism and materialism produce a sharp break with classical political philosophy and Christian faith. For that the world is more than matter in motion is crucial to the thought of both Plato and Aristotle and of biblical faith. Plato and Aristotle argue that the human soul has an incorporeal form or structure; that reason, which can discern that form or structure, outranks desire; that the desires themselves are subject to rank ordering by reason in accordance with the soul’s structure; and that a life in accordance with the soul’s structure or permanent form is the greatest good. And biblical faith, which also conceives of the soul as immaterial, proclaims that God is an immaterial presence in history issuing commands to, imposing punishments on, and offering redemption for, a fallen humanity. But this dramatic break with his predecessors reflects only a part — albeit an important part — of Leviathan. Notwithstanding the reductive implications of his mechanism and his materialism, Hobbes also articulates in the Introduction severe limits to understanding morals and politics in terms of physics and geometry. These limits challenge the ambitions of today’s political scientists to achieve a thoroughly scientific understanding of politics and exhibit important continuities between Hobbes and his pre-modern predecessors.
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