HICK’S
PLURALISM ABOUT RELIGION
Hick’s Characterization of “Religion”:
A religion is a view about the whole of the World including a reference to a
supernatural (“transcendent”) God, gods, order, or process,
together with a “way of living” in accordance with the view.
Observation: This does not seem to exclude the view that the space-time in
which we live is the result of laws or other mindless and value neutral
processes outside of it. The way of living would be to ignore all
religious rituals and theologically required moral codes insofar as this does
not interfere with ones’ self-interest. [Recall that C. S. Lewis’s
characterization included moral or normative elements (“a higher
end” or “a wholly good” entity).]
Hick’s “Ultimate Reality”
(1) The best (non-natural) explanation of the historical
development of the various major religions is that they are all cultural
developments of partial revelations of aspects of a single “Ultimate
Reality”.
(2) So probably: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism (and some other religions) are all “relections of aspects
of” or “interpretations of” one Ultimate Reality.
(3) Hence, these religions are not essentially rivals:
Ultimate Reality cannot really be wholly understood and each of these religions
consists of analogies or metaphors:
“[M]any different accounts of the divine reality may be true, though all
expressed in imperfect human analogies, but … none is “the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” [Hick, p. 175]
ANALOGY AND METAPHOR
An analogy is a resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise
unlike.
A metaphor is a word or phrase literally having one reference or meaning, but
used to suggest an analogy.
Example: “The news that ignited his face, snuffed out her smile”
To ignite something is literally to set it on fire and one typically snuffs out
candles or perhaps slightly larger flames. But there is a certain
resemblance between the sudden appearance of a flame and a person’s face
abruptly expressing extreme happiness. Similarly with the disappearance
of candle flame and the rapid change to a somber or neutral expression from a
smiling face.
Hick’s view of religious claims:
God’s Nature:
(a) “God is a person.”
(b) “God is a process.”
(c) “God is identical with the natural universe.”
Hick: None of these is literally true. All of these are metaphorically
true.
(a) God has a mind.
(b) God wills, intends or wants things.
(c) God is good.
(d) God is powerful.
“Jesus rose from the dead.”
Literal meaning: Jesus’s body ceased to be, or ceased to be
animated by, any living person; it and he died. After a time,
Jesus’s body was once again animated by the same person that animated it
before the death, he came back to life.
Metaphorical meaning (?): Only by the death of the Self, that is, by becoming
totally unselfish and non-egotistical can one really fully live and be happy.
The number of gods:
(a) “There is only one God”
(b) “There are many gods”
The origin of the Universe
(a) “God created the Universe at a particular time in the past”.
(b) “God and the Universe have always existed”.