John Hick Pluralism

As we all know, many philosophers and theologians have their own views and opinions on the idea of religious pluralism. One particular philosopher of interest is the famous John Hick. According to Hick, “The fact that there is a plurality of religious traditions, each with its own distinctive beliefs, spiritual practices, ethical outlook, art forms, and cultural ethos, creates an obvious problem for those of us who see them, not simply as human phenomena, but as responses to the Divine.” (Hick, p.54) While John Hick describes what he believes is religious pluralism, he also explains the problem of religious diversity. While some similarities exist among certain religions, there are also many differences between the spiritual beliefs and practices

The way Hick expresses this idea is through religious passages to salvation. Many religions have different interpretations of what salvation is, but all of these understandings lead to a common definition of salvation. Hick claims that salvation is “the transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to a new orientation, centered in the divine Reality. (Hick, p.55) Every religion has a specific approach to achieve salvation. Hick uses the example of “… faithfulness to the Torah, discipleship to Jesus, obedient living out of the Qur’anic way of life, the Eightfold Path of the Buddhist dharma, or the three great Hindu margas of mystical insight, activity in the world, and self-giving devotion to God.” (Hick, p.55) While there is much diversity, one things that all religions share is the idea of divine reality also known as the “Real” (Hick, p.54) As stated in Hick’s essay, “is the divine reality (let us refer to it as the Real) personal or non-personal; if personal, is it unitary or triune; is the universe created, or emanated, or itself eternal; do we live only once on this earth or are we repeatedly reborn?” (Hick, p.54) Every religion has a different opinion on divine reality, their relationship with it and how they worship their higher being. For example, some religions worship gods and goddesses, while others view the divine as avatars, supernatural beings and

(Hick, p.62) Every religion has a different opinion of what happened in the past. Many of these religions learn about their past in religious scripture. For instance, “In the case of Judaism these include at least the main features of the history described in the Hebrew scriptures; in the case of Christianity, these plus the main features of life, death, and resurrection of Jesus described in the New Testament; in the case of Islam, the main features of the history described in the Qur’an; in the case of Vaishnavite Hinduism, the historicity of Krishna; in the case of Buddhism, the historicity of Guatama and his enlightenment at Bodh Gaya; and so on.” (Hick, p.62-63) As we can see, there are vast variations in the historical records of each religion, although, John Hick does not see these deviations as a problem. As Hick states in his essay, “But although each tradition thus has its own records of the past, there are rather few instances of direct disagreement between these. For the strands of history that are cherished in these different historical memories do not generally overlap; and where they do overlap they do not generally involve significant differences.” (Hick, p.63) Some overlaps between religious histories agree with each other, and others vary significantly. It is difficult to confirm which memory is correct without sufficient documentation. Hick then explains, “It is evidently