1. Epicurean philosophy offered happiness to all human beings.

It taught that the greatest obstacle to an individuals acquisition of happiness was Epicurus, followed by the Roman poet Lucretius centuries later, tried to offer a way for humans to be happy by teaching them how to remove the major obstacles to their happiness, which are superstition about the gods and the fear of death. 2. The Epicurean system tried to help people to attain happiness by persuadingthem about the nature of the physical world. What did Epicureanism believe about the nature of the world? The problem for Epicurus was to find a way of explaining the natural phenomena of bodily movement out of infinitely small divisions. It means that the only things in the universe are atoms and the empty spaces they move in. Atoms are unchanging "beings", but they have no other property than their shape. They don't self-move, they only jostle about. Therefore, there is nothing called a "soul" as a principle of movement. 3. Another effort at bringing human beings happiness was that of the early Christians. St. Paul is one of the leaders of the early Christian church. He believed that God wascalling out people from the normal world in which they lived, creating a new, perfect community, the Ekklesia (the called out community). What kind of world, in more specific terms, were people being called out from, and what kind of community were they being called into? This world is like the body of the faithful individual in Christ: undyingly alive (through the spirit that is forward-looking and looking forward to its new body in the new world), and livingly dead (in a mortal body). In the new world, what keeps order is not law, but the perfect life and perfect knowing of the spirit. In the new community: men worship shadows and images. Their own shadows are cast on the walls, and they think those are true. They don't see their own bodies, or their true selves, only the images. 4. The Ekklesia, according to Paul, is the body of Christ. The Ekklesia is still composed of many individuals with their own physical bodies, but they all share another identity as members of the Ekklesia. The ceremony of sharing a meal, the communion, was the way

that the Ekklesia participated in the body of Christ. Explain in more detail how the communion created the single community of the Ekklesia as the body of Christ. The ekklesia of God would be used to identify those who recognize the perils of such a system and are the truly called out assembly of the saints of God. In this respect, they would be virtually identical to the remnant of Gods people, i.e., those who are truly united with God, in spirit and in truth, and have submerged their own identity in order to truly be one with God. The ekklesia of God demands a new lifestyle, with its own culture, society, economy and authority structure, with new traditions, values, beliefs, attitudes and habits. And we all have to learn to speak the same spiritual language by becoming disciples of Jesus Christ. This is all clearly delineated in the New Testament relative to the teachings of Christ and of the kingdom of God. 4. Augustine, over one hundred years after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, sharply divided two Cities, the City of Man (under the power of the Devil) and the City of God (the Ekklesia). According to Augustine, what was the relationship between the two cities. Augustine calls the City of Man and the City of God, a conflict that is destined to end in victory of the latter. The City of God is marked by people who forgot earthly pleasure to dedicate themselves to the eternal truths of God, now revealed fully in the Christian faith. The City of Man, on the other hand, consists of people who have immersed themselves in the cares and pleasures of the present, passing world. 5. Augustine attempted to show that Christianity alone could provide human beings with what they were seeking in life, namely, to be able to love something that would never disappoint them. Augustine tries to prove that God is the true object of our love. He begins by showing that we are born with a desire to stay alive, an innate love of life. This often makes us selfish and causes us to sin, but if we understand what we really love when we love our individual life, we can get beyond selfishness and sin. How does Augustine go about proving that we really love God and not our own life? Augustine argues that humans love themselves because they are children of Adam, and Adam

mistook who he was when he decided he could live without loving God. Adam "deserted" God. About sin: The human being chose to love himself rather than love. That was how he tried to be like God. Love is perfection giving itself to imperfect beings. God showed us. He made His love appear in human form, in perfect human form because this human loved God perfectly. He lowered himself into the world. By loving humanity to the point that he died for all humanity and when people love him in gratitude, they love God and they love love again. 6. One of the great questions raised by the discovery of the so-called New World by Columbus was, who is master of this world? According to one view, Christ and his two lieutenants on earth, the Pope and the Emperor (head of the Ekklesia and head of the City of Man) are the masters of all the earth. Therefore, the New World can be claimed for the Emperor and the inhabitants can be baptized into the Ekklesia. Francisco de Vitoria argued, however, that the New World inhabitants had a right to the land and also a right to refuse to be baptized. The view that he held about these inhabitants that justified his arguments was: The view that he held about these inhabitants that justified his arguments was whether the inhabitants have "true dominion, and dominion means rightful ownership. Rightful ownership means owning something by right or law: inheritance, payment, taking unowned property and staking a claim. For example, animals cannot do these things. They are not rightful owners of the land they pasture on. Whether they had a right to the land and also a right to refuse to be baptized depends on whether they are able to having a self-directed culture and therefore
they are not natural slaves, to a true masters of themselves.

7. When Hobbes explains what humans by nature have a right do, he begins where Augustine begins, with the human desire to stay alive, the desirefor self-preservation. This is the nature of humans, but what is right for humans to do in the state of nature because of this innate natural desire? So Hobbes starts with his own human mechanical principles: bodies of humans (all are basically equal); movement (all bodies have a tendency to go on moving unless stopped); power (all bodies have equal power at the initial position, called "the state of nature"). Hobbes' conception of natural rights extended from his conception of man in a "state of nature". Thus he

argued that the essential natural (human) right was "to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgement. Hobbes sharply distinguished this natural "liberty", from natural "laws", described generally as "a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving his life. In his natural state, according to Hobbes, man's life consisted entirely of liberties and not at all of laws. 8. Hobbes believes that human reason can discover the laws of nature by using observation and mathematical calculations based on certain measureable features of nature, like the weight of bodies and the speed of their movement. His political science attempts to do the same thing for human nature, based on observation and drawing conclusions about the laws that human movement should follow. Unlike bodies in movement, humans do not follow the laws of their nature just because of their weight or speed. Bodies keep on moving unless something stops them, and humans only keep on moving (keep on living) because of their desire or will to live. The laws of human nature do not apply to humans unless they use their reason to guide their desire to live. When humans use their reason, what is the first law of nature that they will obey? First law of nature: to seek peace. Second law: to limit one's right to everything for sake of peace. Transfer and Renunciation of Rights: two ways to limit one's rights. Both are done with words, and made secure through fear. The goal is some good, to continue to live. You cannot give up your right to defend your life. The first law states that we should seek peace, and if we cannot attain it, to use the full force of war. Directly building off of the first law's mandate to seek peace is the second law that states that we should lay down our rights of nature and form social contracts, if others are willing to as well. From this springs forth the concept of the covenant, in which men can transfer their rights of nature between each other and which forms the basis of moral obligation. With the enactment of each of these laws, which act as impediments towards the full use of an individual's right of nature, an individual will trade a piece of their right of nature in order to promote cooperation between others. 9. Hobbes calls the sovereign (the king) a mortal god and also Leviathan. Both of these

terms are challenges to Christianity, which would think of any sovereign who claimed to be a god and Leviathan as the Devil. Hobbes certainly does not humans to obey the Devil, so why is he challenging Christianity this way? Hobbes addresses the problem of how the Christian faith relates to the Leviathans ideal civic society. For Christians, who are compelled to follow the laws of God, a conflict arises from Hobbess insistence that in the interest of peace, all knowledge, law, and belief must stem from the sovereign. Hobbes asserts that the sovereigns laws may occasionally contradict Gods prophetical laws. In Hobbess attempt to reconcile Christian doctrine with civic philosophy, he expresses both his theories of power and human nature and his unique brand of Christian faith. Hobbess view of human nature informs his belief that men will become hopelessly confused when confronted with two mastersthe civil sovereign and God. 10. Hobbes believes that the sovereign has the right to determine everything dealing with the religious practices of the citizens, including forbidding the practice of Christianity. He believes that Christians can accept this because the Christian is not commanded to obey any specific laws. What is the essence of Christianity according to Hobbes? Hobbes would say, " Christianity is just a convention that certain humans have come up with to aid with survival." Kind of like a "crutch". This idea of a "crutch" is studied in the Psychology of Religion. Hobbes (like Rousseau) didn't have the scientific evidence of evolution when he was alive. However, he derived a lot of his thoughts from the future ideology of Darwinism and the Philosophical implications that were inevitable from it. Implications like survival of the fittest, survive at all costs, might makes right (Nietzsche), etc. 11. Hobbes has been described as the first great political theorist of the modern Western world. He attempts to create a scientific (not a religious) perspective on politics. The view that stands most opposed to Hobbes is expressed by certain religious thinkers who consider God to be sovereign over this world. How do these thinkers differ in their interpretation of Gods sovereignty over this world. Another way of asking this question is, How do Augustine and Hobbes differ on the question of the relationship between the City of God (Ekklesia) and the City of Man?

Augustine: old world/new world is turned into two cities: the city of Man and the city of God. The City of Man is like Plato's cave world; the city of God is the city above the cave, the city of perfect knowledge and light. In the cave city, men worship shadows and images. Their own shadows are cast on the walls, and they think those are true. They don't see their own bodies, or their true selves, only the images. Even their concepts, St. Augustine's "City of Man" and Hobbes' view of political community, are identical. For Hobbes, life is a state of war, and men are ordered in political communities only by their fear of violent death and lust for power. The only order in society is the random order of disordered men. St. Augustine's view of the city of man is not dissimilar, with the exception that for St. Augustine the city of man was not all of reality, only part of reality. Hobbes believes that there needs to be a strong centralized government to keep the peace; he claims that a society without a government would be chaotic and it would turn into a society where citizens are constantly fighting and the citizen. In "City of God", the city is set up by the government as a place for all homeless people to be sent; hence it is based largely on central planning, and the government is very much in control of it. However, even though it is controlled by the government the city is absolutely chaotic. So Hobbes' theories that a strong centralized government will bring peace to a society are clearly flawed, as St. Augustines"City of God" shows that centralized government can bring the exact opposite of peace. 12. Hobbes has been said to be the first secular political thinker. That means that he wants to understand how the state is put together in a scientific way, and how it can be best maintained, completely apart from questions about how the state promotes religious and moral values or Christian values more specifically. Augustine would say that Hobbes was trying to cut the City of Man loose from the City of God, and therefore that he was handing it over to the Devil. What would Hobbes reply? What does Hobbes teach us about the meaning of the secular and scientific modern worldview as it applies to politics? What is the value that this worldview is trying to promote? Hobbes offered a dichotomy of the state of nature (anarchy) where a war of all against all and where a strive to power prevailed with a state of the society where the sovereigns task was to control anarchy by maintaining the peace with force. In the state of nature, civilized life

would be impossible, and any life risky. This required an agreement or contract, a concerted act by which they all renounced their rights of nature at the same time whereby the task of the sovereign is to provide security to its citizens, and to prevent war of all against all. Hobbes outlines a theory of cooperation based on contract, sovereignty and representation. The only reason for self-preservation was the will of those living in a commonwealth to survive. Therefore the power of all citizens had to be transferred to one single sovereign or a collective body that combines their will. A good relationship between the sovereign and his people was indispensable to demonstrate its power towards others. Hobbes believed that an external enemy who unites a society was a precondition for a lasting and stable community. The main features of a Hobbesian state have been: absolute sovereignty of a strong central authority and a sharp demarcation to the outside world. What did we learn this semester? The values we cherish, whether based upon reason or faith, grow out of our dissatisfaction with mythology, that is, the idea that justice depends upon the power of the stronger to say what justice is. The modern world's values grow out of reason's split with faith, when faith became the source of violence. Reason, when it splits with faith, bases its arguments for justice on a conception of the human as an animal that wants a long life. Faith, after the split with reason, condemns reason being "Godless". We today need to take from all the philosophers and books From Plato and Socrates, we should take the idea that justice is not simply about the interest of the stronger. From the Bible we should take the idea that justice must take the side of the one who is the victim of injustice. From Aristotle, the idea that humans have potentialities that it is the task of political

governance to cultivate through fair and just laws. From Epicurus, we can derive the idea that fear of death injures us deeply, and that we must cultivate a full and pleasant life that accepts death as a necessary end. It is not death that should be hated, but an unfulfilled life. From Augustine, we should learn that the only thing that can give our life meaning is love, and that love is not a feeling but a way of being giving rather than taking. From Vitoria, we can learn that there are basic laws that govern our international relations. We should not make war for any other reason than to defend ourselves. From Hobbes, we should learn that reason, without faith, can come up with principles to guide a commonwealth, but it cannot come up with a purpose for our life. Reason and faith must both draw from aa common source in order to find a value for human existence. The passion for justice on behalf of the one whose life potential has been cut short.