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
- 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