Table Of ContentJOHN HICK
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John Hick
A Critical Introduction and Reflection
DAVID CHEETHAM
The University of Birmingham, UK
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2003 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright © David Cheetham 2003
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Cheetham, David
John Hick : a critical introduction and reflection
1. Hick, John, 1922-
I. Title
230' .092
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cheetham, David.
John Hick : a critical introduction and reflection / David Cheetham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7546-1599-5 (alk. paper)
1. Hick, John. I. Title
BL43.H35C482003
210'.92--dc21
2002032695
ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-1599-6 (hbk)
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
1 Faith and Knowledge 9
2 Evil and Soul-Making 40
3 Death and Eternal Life 67
4 The Universe of Faiths 99
5 Religious Pluralism 132
Postscript 174
Bibliography 177
Index 186
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the following journals for permission to reproduce material.
To New Blackfriars for permission to use 'Evil and Religious Pluralism:
The Eschatological Resolution' (May, 1997) and 'Religious Passion and
the Pluralist Theology of Religions' (May, 1998). To The Expository Times
for permission to use 'Hell as Potentially Temporal' (Vol. 108, No. 9, June
1997). To the Modern Churchpeoples Union for permission to use material
in their journal Modern Believing: 'Pulp Fiction, a God of Love and an
Authentic World' (Vol. 27, No. 3, 1996). To Sophia for permission to use
'John Hick, Authentic Relationships and Hell' (Vol. 33, No. 1, 1994).
A number of people have commented on drafts of the chapters or the
entire book (at various stages). In particular, I wish to thank Prof. Paul
Badham, Rev. J. Andrew Kirk, Dr. Peter Fulljames, Youngsoek Cho and
Prof. John Hick. They are, of course, not responsible for the book's defects
(for which I alone am to blame).
Introduction
History will probably judge John Hick to be one of the great philosophers
of religion of the twentieth century. During his distinguished career, his
thought has had a tremendous influence on debates in the philosophy of
religion. This influence does not just reside within academic circles but
extends into the classrooms where young people are studying commonly
disputed questions in religion. A survey of Hick's work will show that he
has not just focussed on one particular area within his chosen field, rather
he has made substantial contributions to just about every aspect within this
field. Thus, terms like 'experiencing-as', 'epistemic distance',
'eschatological verification', 'Irenaean theodicy', 'the replica theory',
'many lives in many worlds', 'the Real' have been woven into the very
fabric of contemporary religious philosophical thought. In fact, most
textbooks or 'readers' in the philosophy of religion will contain some
reference to Hick's distinctive contributions.
Hick's work could be described as a journey. Readers of his books will
not find a static thinker, rather his work might be characterised as an ever-
expanding exercise. His thought has undergone many changes and shifts of
emphasis - the evangelical student at Hull University slowly over time
became the controversial pluralist 'guru'. Nevertheless, the changes did not
involve the wholesale discarding of what might be called the foundational
aspects of his thought - his view of religious belief in the context of
'experiencing-as', the Irenaean intuition of a soul-making universe, the
affirmation of a life beyond death have remained. Instead, Hick sought to
adjust his thinking within certain limits in order to accommodate an
increasingly pluralistic outlook. However, to what extent he has managed
to coherently retain such 'foundations' has been the subject of intense
scrutiny over the years and some critics have questioned his consistency.
Hick himself is critical of those commentators who have ferociously seized
upon an aspect of his thinking and viewed it in isolation from the rest of his
thought, or have neglected to take into consideration changes or
qualifications that he may have added at a later date. Thus, when
undertaking a study on a particular aspect of his thinking one has to take
care that such later qualifications are properly considered.
The methodology I have followed is one which takes a quasi-historical
approach in that I have sought to rehearse some of the arguments that
occurred at the time when Hick published his works. This study begins
2 John Hick
where Hick began - with the problems of religious language, and ends
where he has arrived - with the questions of religious plurality. The effect
of this is that I have often chosen to use terms that Hick has qualified (or
altered) in his later work. The most important instance of this is the way
Hick refers to the divine. In earlier days he was content to use the term
'God' in the Christian theistic sense; but in his later work he adopts 'the
Real' as his preferred term which he thinks is more 'transcategorial'. For
this reason, some of the discussions (for example in chapter two) might be
considered anachronistic in light of Hick's later pluralistic thinking; but,
again, my justification is that I have sought to take a quasi-historical
approach and stay within the parameters of the time his thinking on such
topics emerged. Moreover, many of his books have been reissued and as
they contain very little in terms of revision (except for new prefaces) one
can only assume that they are acceptable to Hick in virtually their original
form. However, this is of course subject to the qualification that they may
be regarded by the later Hick to speak of 'true myths' rather than
literalities. In most chapters I have weaved in my own critical observations
and have included a brief summary at the end of each. Sometimes,
particularly in discussions of Hick's eschatology, I have made suggestions
and added speculations of my own that I feel could be developed further.
However, in a book that is primarily a discussion of a particular thinker's
work, I decided that it would be inappropriate to embark on extensive
speculations of my own on this occasion. Additionally, although the topics
of the chapters are intended to follow Hick's intellectual contribution and
development in a chronological fashion, it is also possible to read each
chapter as a separate unit. This might be of use to readers who are only
interested in particular areas of Hick's thought (e.g. epistemology,
theodicy, eschatology or religious pluralism).
A great deal of writing about Hick's work has been polemical, some of
it deliberately corrosive and recalcitrant. Hick does not provoke this
because of his tone - which is mostly measured and balanced. However, his
work is often challenging and controversial. Throughout this book I have
sought to adopt a positive tone. This does not necessarily imply that I agree
with Hick, rather it is an appropriate stance for a book which purports to
introduce its readers to a thinker's work.
Life
John Hick was born in Scarborough on the 20th January, 1922. His first
academic studies were in law at Hull University (then University College,
Hull), and it was during this time that he was converted to Christianity. His
Introduction 3
early Christian experience 'was Calvinistic orthodoxy of an extremely
conservative kind'.1 From Hull he went to Edinburgh University in 1940 to
study philosophy. However, it was not long until his studies were
interrupted by the war during which he served in the Friends Ambulance
Unit. He returned to Edinburgh to resume his philosophical studies and
graduated in 1948 with a First. During this time his initial fundamentalist
fervour had begun to wane. He was unimpressed with what he has
described as 'a lack of intellectual integrity in fundamentalist circles, in that
any potentially unsettling questions were regularly suppressed rather than
faced'.2
Hick decided to proceed to Oriel College, Oxford University to
research for a doctorate in the philosophy of religion. He undertook this
research under the supervision of the philosopher H.H. Price (who's work
he was later to refer to in his studies on the possibility of disembodied
minds). The thesis that emerged from this time was later to become his first
book, Faith and Knowledge (1957).
In 1956, Hick moved to America to take up his first academic position
at Cornell University. Three years later he took up another position at
Princeton Theological Seminary, and it was here that Hick's 'other' career
as a controversial theological figure began. Already a minister in the
English Presbyterian Church, he wished to transfer to the American
Church. However, his orthodox views had 'slipped' somewhat and he felt
unable to confess such things as the literal six-day creation, predestination,
the verbal inerrancy of the Bible and the Virgin Birth. This led to
controversy, and the issue was only finally settled in Hick's favour when it
reached the national Assembly.
After seven years of teaching in America, Hick returned to Britain in
1963 and took up a lectureship in the philosophy of religion at Cambridge
University. It was here that he developed his now famous Irenaean
theodicy (influenced by the early church father, Irenaeus), and published
what is widely reckoned to be one of the definitive works on the problem of
evil, Evil and the God of Love (1966).
In recognition of some of these outstanding early achievements, Hick
was appointed to the H.G. Wood Professorship at the University of
Birmingham in 1967. Birmingham is one of the most multicultural cities in
Europe and the experience of living and working in this city was to shape
the future orientation of Hick's philosophical theology (or, more
accurately, philosophy of religions). During the early 1970s he was to
become involved in (often 'chairing') community relations projects. This
was a turbulent time in British immigration politics, and some of Hick's
colleagues in these projects were physically attacked. In such eventful
times, he found himself working in partnership with Muslims, Jews,
