Part Three answers the question: is obedience to a sovereign authority consistent with obedience to a divine authority? Hobbes reasons that there is no conflict between obeying civil and divine laws, but that men are often led to in such a conflict through the false claim that God is present in the world as it exists. This is the worst possible outcome, since here there is no right or wrong, no justice or injustice, and man is constantly defending himself.

Of course one has the option of leaving the commonwealth if one finds it too oppressive, but to leave the commonwealth is to re-enter the state of war that characterizes pre-social man. A subject's duty to the sovereign is total, and acting otherwise is only hurting oneself, since the commonwealth is established for the self-preservation of its subjects. According to Hobbes, the best form of government is a monarchy, since in any other form of government the sovereign power is not strong enough to protect the subjects from outside invaders and from themselves.

Part Two is devoted to explaining the citizen's obligations to this state, or 'Leviathan', and its proper form and functions. Thus, a state or commonwealth is established with the sole purpose of protecting the lives of those who live within it. Since man's main goal in life is to protect his own life through his rational capacities he reasons that the best way to do this is to establish a state with a power great enough to protect all who consent to live under it.

Here men are equal in that anyone can kill anyone else, and as such men live in a constant state of fear an anxiety. These constant motions lead to man's constant and insatiable desires and wants, which in a state of nature pits everyone against another in a perpetual state of war. Part One begins naturally with man, for Hobbes believes that the commonwealth is nothing but an 'artificial man.' Beginning his argument at the most basic level, he argues that man exists in the external world as a reactive creature that senses objects and is driven to act by the constant motions of the world. His overall project is to explain by what reasons a commonwealth may govern men, and then to establish the best possible way for this government to function in order to accommodate the desires of its denizens. Hobbes' Leviathan is divided into four parts: 1) of man, 2) of commonwealth, 3) of a Christian commonwealth, and 4) of the Kingdom of Darkness.

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