So, did that question catch you off guard? The evangelist John of the infallible, inerrant Bible reports that Jesus claimed to be the only way to heaven (see John 14:6). But a more modern John says that's not the case. In fact, a recent survey of my own denomination revealed that almost two thirds (61%) of its members now believe that Jesus is not the only way to eternal life. We call these people pluralists, because they accept multiple ways to God.
John Hick is an accomplished professor in Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Birmingham, UK In 2004, he wrote An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent. His academic posts have also included tenure at the Claremont Graduate University in California , Princeton Theological Seminary, Cornell University and Cambridge University
His book is divided into five parts related to questions that mark his proposed understanding of religious tolerance: phenomenological, religious ambiguity, epistemological, religious pluralism and criteriological. Hick outlines his argument for religious rationality and tolerance in chapter one. According to Hick’s own assessment, all religious expressions “represent different phenomenal awareness of the same nuomenal reality and evoke parallel salvific transformations of human life” (p. 15).
The primary ingredient in Hick’s case is his phenomenological foundation. David McKenzie reviews Hick correctly when he says, “by arguing that all of the major religious traditions are characterized by a focus on ‘human transformation’ from self-centeredness to reality-centeredness.”[2] This soteriological character of post-axial religions marks a huge shift from the universal social concern of the pre-axial period. Citing aborigines, Egyptians and Mesopotamians as examples of this prior state, Hick believes a new religious era has begun with mankind’s interest in “being capable of salvation” (p. 30). For Hick, there is one “single fundamental theme” involved in this shift, namely “the sudden or gradual change of the individual from an absorbing self-concern to a new century in the supposed unity-of-reality-and-values that is thought of as God” (p. 36). Chapter three promotes several examples within the Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions to define what is supposed to define this shift toward a higher power, an ultimate reality or, as Hick labels it, the Real. Because of this shift, chapter four claims that there is a cosmic optimism that all world religions can now unite their soteriology with their eschatology.
Hick’s argument is advanced in chapters 5–7 as the second part of the foundation. Because the universe is ambiguous, no argument against the existence of God is valid. Hick goes to great lengths to show the irrelevance of both sides in the religion/naturalism debate. Hick “insists that given the universality of religious experience, it is appropriate to think of it in realist terms and generally to trust its veridical nature.”[3] But citing Anselm’s 11th century BC ontological argument as well as that of Charles Hartshorne, he counters these as well as Plantinga’s points on the basis that ontological arguments do “not provide a firm ground for belief in the reality of God” (p. 79). He then turns to cosmotological arguments, but he claims to defeat them. Moreover, using metaphors of DNA chromosomes in sperm and eggs, he argues against scientific proofs for intelligent design. He also defeats Swinburne’s probability argument by using Bayes Theorem against itself. Finally, he concludes that neither naturalism nor theism has any advantage for interpreting external evidence for or against the existence of God.
His third part entails epistemology or truth. Because cognition occurs on three levels, meaning must be evaluated according to that level. Truth from data in the physical world is judged naturally. Relationships are judged by socio-ethical standards. The religious order is reserved for our awareness of God. Because of this order, our religious experiences should be understood as subjective interpretations. In chapter nine, Hick more fully explains this concept by attaching ethical and aesthetic meaning to relationships. In chapter ten, however, he promotes religion as a cognitive filter that allows adherents to experience the Real. This mystical experience associated with the Real involves both the information received via revelation as well as the intrinsic significance associated with the experience. By citing instances in major world religions, Hick is careful to show the logic of religious realism. Conversely, he uses religious symbol and mythology to expose the problems associated with the non-realist or anti-realist positions. The question is not whether a religious experience is genuine, but the most important issue is whether it is rational. As such, he blatantly states that “it is rational to believe in the reality of God” (p. 211).
He moves to the heart of his argument in part 4. By appealing to “the Kantian distinction between noumenon and phenomenon as the basis for his religious pluralism, arguing that God, or "the Real," transcends all of the various personae (divinities) and impersonae (nonpersonal ultimate realities) of religious history,”[4] Hick restates his hypothesis for total religious equality. Since God is a phenomenon, Hick believes we cannot fully know Him. Therefore, “these traditions are accordingly to be regarded as alternative soteriological ‘spaces’ within which, or ‘ways’ along which, men and women can find salvation/liberation/ultimate fulfillment” (p. 240). Because there are aspects about God that are both impersonal and personal, religion as a manmade instrument gives context for our experiences. Since these experiences are subjective, however, Hick believes there is a need for objective criteria to judge them.
In part five, Hick “establishes as a criterion for evaluation of religious beliefs and practices their capacity to bring about the human transformation noted above, arguing in this regard that the various traditions are essentially of equal strength.”[5] The basic criteria are the sense of salvation that the religion gives the adherent and the ethical worth to society as a whole. Hick admits that there are some unanswerable questions related to his proposal, but he believes that his hypothesis clears the way to deal with the problem of conflicting truth-claims. In essence, his argument is more than just pluralism. He proposes that all post-axial religious expressions are simply “different conceptions and perceptions of, and responses to, the Real from within the different cultural ways of being human” (p. 376). Because they are all worshipful responses to the same God, only tainted by cultural lens and linguistic inadequacies, they are “compatible with the pluralistic hypothesis” (p. 376).
My Take on Hick
Hick’s Real is not real
There is a definite problem with placing a nondescript definition on God. Although articulately done, Hick’s categorization of God as an ultimate reality or some kind of universal force opens him to the accusation of inclusivism, accepting all human attempts to relate to any god as valid. Understandably, Hick tries to unify the fundamental belief in the existence of God by tying a conceptual label to that belief. This may provide the linguistic means for finding a common denominator in the major world religions, but it also weakens his argument that belief in God’s existence is a rational choice.
Hick seems to intimate that the monotheistic concept was a rational development over time, and as such he disallows progressive revelation. Moreover, he sustains his argument for unverifiable religious truth by maintaining the position that any revelation is both culturally biased and limited. This line of reasoning, in my opinion, might provide an adequate medium for theorizing, but it also is open to the counterargument that it actually proves the irrationality of a belief in God. Like Terrence W. Tilley, I wonder if Hick’s “soteriological and ethical criteria do not finally render him an unwitting inclusivist.”[6]
Hick’s hypothesis portrays God as an unknowable force that can be, at best, partially described. Why do I hear Darth Vader's breath right now? Because Hick’s Real is unknowable, any characterizations of the Real are downplayed into human categories. The Real “cannot be said to be personal” (p. 264). Instead, for Hick the Real truthfully might be only ideals transposed onto some subconscious image a culture has. Thus, his conclusion can only be understood as an expression of “hyper-Kantianism”[7] of a dualistic nature.
Hick’s universalism has no salvation
Hick understands salvation as a process. But exactly what is meant by salvation is open to scrutiny. Saved from what? At points, he seems open to allowing salvation for all of humanity by denying the validity of Christianity’s exclusive claims, by denying the existence of eternal punishment and by suggesting that salvation might be nothing more than earthly liberation and justice.
Hick denies Christ’s claim to being the only way of salvation. For Hick this claim is not only ludicrous, but it was made by a man who had no more spiritual insight than Gautama Buddha or Krishna . He glosses over his judgment with a sweet shell of humanistic rationalization. Since Christ made this claim, as have many others, we are left to assume that each must have believed it to be true. This can, according to Hick, never be proved; therefore, we can only accept that it was important to Christ to feel this way. Moreover, since even Jesus’ understanding of his own identity is subject to his cultural influences, our experience must be the greater judge. Hicks seems to suggest that Christ’s claims were misunderstood, but his denial of Christianity’s uniqueness and his openness to salvation through many roads make him anything but an evangelical Christian. Why do I sense remnants of The Last Temptation of Christ here?
Hick also denies hell as a literal place of eternal punishment. At times, he speaks parenthetically about hell as an apologetic against Augustinian Calvinism. He bases his argument on the love of God as One who would not send anyone to a literal hell, but in doing so he employs the very terminology that he claims is inadequate to describe God as a Personal Being. So again, saved from what?
To Hick, salvation may be simply liberation from injustice. He applauds liberation theologians for their contribution to the discussion. However, as he waters down salvation to apply to only earthly experience, he inadvertently discounts his very argument that religion should be judged soteriologically. Hick finally admits that “it does not seem to make any soteriological difference whether one believes that the world is or is not eternal and its history cyclical or linear, that we do or do not reincarnate, that there are or are not angels and devils and a hierarchy or heavens and hells” (p. 369). And therein is his thesis: if there is no Supreme Being to which we must give an account, it really doesn't matter what you believe.
Hick’s Tolerance
Hick takes painstaking efforts to identify all religions’ common god force as the Real. But then he states that “the Real in itself is not a direct object of worship” (p. xxxi). Since the Real cannot be known nor is it worshiped, it is possible to accept all objects of worship as equally valid. Hick claims that this is the evolution to which the Christian church is gradually moving. He further states that anyone in the future who will be educated will “have come to take for granted a pluralistic understanding of the religious life of the world, with Christianity seen as part of that life” (p. 377). It seems that anything less than tolerance for all religions will not usher in peace.
This stance is not only elitist, but it reeks of liberal activism. It is an anti-Christian core coated with a feel-good luster. The argument that "if you were really educated, you'd agree with me" doesn't hold water. Given the stout denial of the Son of God in favor of language that might appeal to every other ecumenical religious group, Hick’s claim to evangelical Christianity cannot be taken seriously.
[1] This biographical information about John Hick is based on his dust jacket of An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent; an online biographic sketch at "John Hick," in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia; (Wikimedia Foundation Inc., updated 22 July 2004, 10:55 UTC) [encyclopedia on-line]; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hick; Internet; Cited 20 March 2009; and John Hick’s own blogsite. Cited 20 March 2009. Online: http://www.johnhick.org.uk.
[2] David McKenzie, review of John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent. Journal of Church & State Vol. 48 Issue 1 (Winter 2006): 206-207.
[3] David McKenzie, review of John Hick, 207.
[4] David McKenzie, review of John Hick, 207.
[5] David McKenzie, review of John Hick, 207.
[6] Terrence W. Tilley, review of John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent. Theological Studies 51 (March 1990): 139.
[7] Terrence W. Tilley, review of John Hick, 139.
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