PLURALISM WITH REFERENCE TO JOHN HICK

HICKS VIEW OF THE NATURE OF GOD AND RELIGION

  • he was a conservative evangelical but moved away from that position to religious pluralism
    • his starting point on pluralism was that the religion of an individual is almost lalways an accident of birth
  • the relationship between humans and what he thought of as ultimate reality is shaped by history and culture
  • its a mistake to understand salvation In terms of the sacred writings of one particular religion and to adopt an excusavist position
  • he rejected the concept of hell as incompatable with the belief in an omnibenevolent god
  • hick distinguished the concept of ultimate reality and he widely differing views that humans have of reality
  • he thought that religion was about self-transformation rather than believing certain teachings and practices are true
    • this means that differences and so called incompatibilities between religions are insignificant

HICKS UNIVERSALISM

  • He is a universalist
    • believes that gods salvation will be available to everybody whatever their religion
  • He viewed the purpose of human life as one of soul making, or spiritual growth
  • that raised the question of those who dies wothout having fulfilled their purpose, in some cases, having wreaked misery on earth
  • hick believed that after death there would be future lives, in this or other worlds, to enable spiritual growth that would result in eternity with god
  • he rejected the teaching related to everlasting suffering in Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats

ASSESSMENT OF HICKS VIEWS

  • His ideas have not been very widely accepted for a few reasons:
  • his claim that apparent incompatibilities between religions are insignificant is not a valid one
    • the views and practices of some religious groups (e.g suicide cults0 seem totally incompatible with those of mainstream religions of societies
  • Christianity traditionally thinks in terms of life, death, judgement and final state
    • hicks idea of future states of existence after death does not fit in with this so many christians would reject it
    • the concept of universalism is unacceptable to evangelical protestants though acceptable to some liberal protestants
  • most religions reject the view that religion is about self-transformation rather than just a quest for truth
  • hicks ideas do however go some way to promoting interfaith and interdenominational relations:
    • his views about the cultural links btwee individuals and their religion encourages people to think about the one-ness of human religion understanding and nt just about the differenced between religions
    • his views on nature of religion and on universalism souls strengthen interfaith and interdenominational relations