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A CRITIQUE OF JOHN HICK’S RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

The model of religious pluralism developed by John Hick is the most sophisticated

attempt to defend the position that all religious traditions represent equally valid expressions of

religious truth. Central to Hick’s “Copernican Revolution”1 is a particular conception of ultimate

reality, which he calls the Real, which is the final source of the various metaphysical claims of

the world’s religions2. Despite the appeal that Hick’s view holds in our religiously diverse

landscape, it will be argued that his understanding of the Real is incompatible with his own

system of religious pluralism and should be rejected as an incoherent account of reality.

When first confronted with Hick’s religious pluralism, the natural response is to point out

the doctrinal differences that exist among the world’s religions, concluding that these contrary

truth claims rule out the possibility that every perspective can be true. However, Hick is certainly

aware of these differences and makes no attempt to downplay their significance for the

respective traditions. His solution is the concept of the Real, which allows him to escape the

horns of this dilemma in affirming the undeniable diversity among religious traditions while

protecting the essential unity in their response to ultimate reality. The key is in denying that

humans can possess any positive knowledge about the Real, which amounts to a form of

agnosticism, in which no judgments can be made about the various traditions on account that the

true nature of ultimate reality is essentially unknowable. Ronald Nash effectively explains the

motivation for this move in Hick’s system:

Hick recognized that pluralism could not succeed if any specific knowledge about God is possible. Suppose we knew, for example, that personal monotheism is true. We could then know that polytheism and pantheism are false. But if we know that polytheism and pantheism is false, then we can hardly continue to view pantheistic systems as paths to God that function on equal footing with theism.3

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How does Hick justify this theory of epistemological skepticism concerning the nature of

the Real? The philosophy of Immanuel Kant serves as an analogy for his model:

Summarizing the hypothesis in philosophical terms made possible by the work of Immanuel Kant, we may distinguish between, on the one hand, the single divine noumenon, the Eternal One in itself, transcending the scope of human thought and language, and, on the other hand, the plurality of divine phenomenon, the divine personae of the theistic religions and the concretizations of the concept of the Absolute in the nontheistic religions.4

According to Kant, one can never arrive beyond their own subjective impressions to know reality

as it is in itself. The categories of the mind serve as the final filter through which all sense data

are organized and comprehended, and there is no way to know if the result of this process

corresponds to the external world. In a similar fashion, Hick argues, the religious ultimate is

totally beyond the categories of the human mind and one is ultimately agnostic concerning the

nature of the Real. Nevertheless, according to Hick, these diverse forms of religious phenomenon

still represent legitimate expressions of the Real: “May it not rather be that there are several

different forms of human awareness of and response to the Eternal One, which are each valid and

effective in spite of being different?”5

Given the fact of agnosticism in Hick’s system, that last conclusion may seem

inappropriate to the reader. If ultimate reality is unknowable, how can one claim that a particular

tradition represents a valid expression of that reality? It would seem better to merely assert that

one is unaware whether a tradition is a valid expression of reality. Setting that point aside for the

moment, however, an obvious problem surfaces with Hick’s position concerning God’s

unknowability. In the first place, is it even coherent to claim that nothing can be known about

God or ultimate reality? Again, Nash is helpful in drawing out the inconsistencies with this view:

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What Hick failed to see, however, is that his affirming God’s unknowability only created new problems…Hick tells us that God is unknowable. But in making this claim, Hick reveals at least two things that he knows about God. For one thing, he seems to know that there is a God. Second, to claim that God is unknowable is already to know something very significant about God. If God were really unknowable, then we should be unable to know that he is unknowable.6

Perhaps it is debatable whether the Real being unknowable represents a true item of knowledge

about the Real. At any rate, Hick seemed to anticipate this objection in one of his later works, in

which he wrote: “It would indeed not make any sense to say of [the Real] that none of our

concepts apply to it…For it is obviously impossible to refer to something that does not even have

the property of ‘being able to be referred to.’”7 At this point, the reader is likely confused since

Hick seems to be saying, on the one hand, that the Real transcends human thought and language

and, on the other hand, that human language does in fact apply to the Real at some level. Hick

attempts to alleviate this confusion by appealing to the medieval concept of via negativa in

predication about the divine:

What the [classical thinkers] wanted to affirm was that the substantial characteristics do not apply to God in God’s self-existent being, beyond the range of human experience. The often expressed this by saying that we can only make negative statements about the Ultimate…This via negativa consists in applying negative concepts to the Ultimate—the concept of not being finite and so on—as a way of saying that it lies beyond the range of all our positive substantial characterizations. It is in this qualified sense that it makes perfectly good sense to say that our substantial concepts do not apply to the Ultimate.8

Initially it may seem as though Hick has escaped a significant problem with his model, but

Harold Netland points out that Hick’s use of the via negativa ignores an important qualification

made by the classical thinkers themselves. He quotes from Aquinas, who writes that “The idea of

negation is always based upon an affirmation; as is evidenced by the fact that every negative

proposition is proved by an affirmative, wherefore unless the human mind knew something

positive about God, it would be unable to deny anything about him.”9 Thus, since Hick denies

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that we possess any positive knowledge about God, the via negativa becomes entirely unhelpful

and merely brings one back to the original problem of agnosticism. The difficulty with Hick’s

religious pluralism is that in order for it to work, he must deny all knowledge of the religious

ultimate; but he recognizes the inherent problems with this position and wants to claim that some

knowledge about the Real is actually possible.

Related to this difficulty is the question of how the noumenon and phenomenon of

religious experience are related to one another. Hick clearly doesn’t want to conclude that the

Real is totally unlike its various finite manifestations. In fact, he states very clearly that the

religions of the world, in all their diversity, possess a certain legitimacy as expressions of the

Real:

I want to say that the noumenal Real is experienced and thought by different mentalities, forming and formed by different religious traditions, as the range of gods and absolutes which the phenomenology of religion reports. And these divine personae and metaphysical impersonae, as I shall call them, are not illusory but are empirically, that is experientially, real as authentic manifestations of the Real.10

When Hick distinguishes between personae and impersonae, he is drawing attention to the fact

that some traditions consider ultimate reality or God to be personal in nature, while others view

ultimate reality in impersonal terms. The interesting point is that Hick considers both options as

“authentic manifestations of the Real.” But again, another problem emerges with this admission:

If both the divine personae and metaphysical impersonae represent legitimate expressions of the

Real, then there exists some continuity between the religious noumenon and phenomenon. But

such a conclusion is inappropriate for Hick’s model, for it fails to explain the undeniable

differences between world religions. It would seem that if there is some continuity, then there

would be more agreement among world religions concerning the nature of the Real. But since

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such is clearly not the case, this would serve to discredit Hick’s theory that the personae and

impersonae can truly be considered authentic manifestations of the Real.

It might be argued that the Real as it is in itself is either personal or impersonal, but that

the various traditions cannot know for certain which is the case. But, as Netland points out, this

response ignores a more fundamental issue with Hick’s system:

Now it is not just a question of whether the Real can be experienced as personal and nonpersonal; it is a question of whether its ontological status is such that it can correctly be described as both personal and nonpersonal. For it may be possible for the Real to be experienced as personal and nonpersonal without necessarily being both.11

One immediately wonders which position Hick takes here. In his earlier writing and contrary to

intuitive thinking, Hick contends that “the divine nature is infinite, exceeding the scope of all

human concepts, and is capable of being experienced both as personal Lord and as nonpersonal

ground or depth of being.”12 Yet how can the Real be both personal and impersonal at the same

time and in the same sense? It would seem obvious that, at this point, Hick’s earlier model

clearly fails the test for coherency.

In other writings, however, Hick tends to diminish the continuity between the noumenon

and phenomenon and indicates that the Real, in fact, possesses no discerning qualities:

Thus [the Real] cannot be said to be one or many, person or thing, conscious or unconscious, purposive or non-purposive, substance or process, good or evil, loving or hating. None of the descriptive terms that apply within the realm of human experience can apply literally to the unexperienceable reality that underlies that realm.13

Now, instead of the Real being both personal and nonpersonal, it is neither. According to Hick,

the Real possesses no qualities whatsoever, which is even stronger than claiming that one is

merely ignorant of such qualities. But obviously it is nonsense to suggest that ultimate reality is

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neither personal nor nonpersonal. It would seem that one or the other must be the case. This

move represents one last desperate attempt to escape the inherent difficulties within the model.

Changing subjects, one might wonder if Hick is even consistent in the application of his

religious pluralism. If he really believes that all the religious personae and impersonae are valid

expressions of the Real, then we should expect to find Hick in agreement with the metaphysical

perspective of the various religious traditions. But if anything, Hick tends to side with the

Eastern traditions in their understanding of reality as ultimately ineffable. Commenting on the

Buddhist concept of Sunyata, Hick writes: “When Sunyata is understood in this sense, as

referring to the ultimate reality beyond the scope of all concepts, knowable only in its

manifestations, then it is indeed equivalent to what in our pluralistic hypothesis we call the

Real.”14 On this peculiar characteristic of Hick’s system, Netland rightly argues that “At this

point one might well object that Hick has not produced a genuinely pluralistic understanding of

the different religions but in fact has adopted the framework of one of the religious traditions,

Zen Buddhism, for his model.”15

In what sense does Hick’s model represent a universal explanation for religious belief if

his metaphysic is more similar to one particular religious tradition? Apparently Hick doesn’t

realize that in drawing this parallel between his own system and that of Zen Buddhism, he is

actually disagreeing with every other tradition that takes a different perspective on ultimate

reality. In so doing, Hick is contradicting the very foundation of his religious pluralism, which

asserts that all traditions are legitimate expressions of religious truth. As Netland observes,

“Despite his efforts to depict the Real in terms that do not privilege any particular religious

tradition, Hick is operating on borrowed capital. That is, he is tacitly assuming certain theistic

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characteristics of the Real even as he states that no such attributes can be predicated of the

Real.”16 In reality, Hick does believe certain things about the Real, thus his claim to ineffability

is inconsistent.

One final difficulty with Hick’s system emerges in his attempt to adjudicate between

authentic and inauthentic religious traditions. At this point in the paper, one will undoubtedly

have the impression that Hick accepts all religions as valid. Generally speaking, this is true

enough, but it comes with a very important qualification. Earlier it was questioned how Hick

could affirm that the various religious traditions could be considered valid if the Real is

ultimately unknowable. Surprising as it may sound, Hick does in fact utilize a standard in

making such a judgment: a religion is valid if it produces the right moral transformation in a

devotee of that religion.17 To the degree that this does not occur, a religion can rightly be

considered an inauthentic expression of the religious noumenon, or the Real. But herein lies

another inconsistency in Hick’s model, for in setting up this standard, he is assuming that

objective moral distinctions are valid in the first place. But as noted earlier, according to Hick,

qualities such as good or evil cannot be predicated of the Real, that is, the Real transcends such

finite categories. If the Real transcends these distinctions, then how are such distinctions even

meaningful in determining whether a tradition is in right alignment with the Real? Netland

explains further and effectively draws out the implications:

But here we confront a fundamental inconsistency at the heart of Hick’s model. An essential component of his theory is the soteriological or moral criterion that performs two critical functions. First, it provides a justification for postulating the Real as the noumenal grounds for the various religions…Second, Hick is not willing to recognize just any religious tradition as being in “soteriological alignment” with the Real…And it is the moral criterion that supposedly enables us to discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate religious teachings and practices. But here is the problem: If indeed the Real in itself is beyond moral categories, so that it is neither good nor evil, how can one use a

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moral criterion in this manner? Given Hick’s ontology, why suppose that moral transformation within a given religion is at all informative about that tradition’s relationship to the Real?18

Thus, again Hick’s model fails to be consistent in its own application. The religious pluralism of

John Hick, though incredibly influential and undoubtedly the most sophisticated theory of its

kind, ultimately fails the test of coherency. Since logical consistency is the first test for truth, and

the Real is central to his thesis, it is obvious that Hick’s system should be rejected as an

incoherent account of reality.

What is the alternative to Hick’s concept of the Real? To be sure, there are simply too

many difficulties in asserting that nothing can be known about ultimate reality. For one, it may

be inferred that even that statement implies some knowledge about the Real. Secondly, and

related, we have seen that even Hick himself was unable to remain consistent on that point. On

the other hand, it is probably equally problematic to assert that finite minds can know everything

about ultimate reality or God. A more balanced conclusion is that there are some things we can

know about ultimate reality and some things we cannot know. Of course, such an admission

would be quite difficult for Hick to swallow19, for this would open the door to right and wrong

views about God, which would naturally jeopardize his original thesis, that all religions are valid

expressions of religious truth. In the end, perhaps one is compelled to appeal to the empirical

evidence in drawing any conclusions about God, and let the chips fall where they may.

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Citations

1 Hick called his model a “Copernican Revolution” in theology which involves a “radical transformation in our conception of the universe of faiths and the place of our own religion in it. It involves a shift from the dogma that Christianity is at the centre to the realisation that it is God who is at the centre, and that all religions of mankind, including our own, serve and revolve around him.” John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths (New York: St. Martin’s: 1973), 131.

2 Undoubtedly Hick uses this term in place of God so as to be inclusive of those pantheistic and nontheistic traditions that would be uncomfortable with such terminology.

3 Ronald H. Nash, Is Jesus the Only Savior? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 33.

4 John Hick, God Has Many Names (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980), 53.

5 Hick, God Has Many Names, 56.

6 Nash, 36.

7 John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 239.

8 Ibid.

9 Quoted in Harold A. Netland, Dissonant Voices (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 218.

10 Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, 242.

11 Netland, Dissonant Voices, 213.

12 Hick, God Has Many Names, 38.

13 Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, 246.

14 Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, 291.

15 Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001), 170.

16 Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism, 246.

17 See John Hick, “On Grading Religions,” in Problems of Religious Pluralism (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985).

18 Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism, 245.

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19 It is not surprising that Hick was very critical of any empirically-based arguments for God’s existence, for if valid, they would imply certain characteristics of the Real. For Hick’s critique of such arguments, see John Hick, “Ontological, Cosmological and Design Arguments,” in An Interpretation of Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). Equally unsurprising is the fact that Hick was compelled to reject the incarnation of Christ on the grounds that it too would make God’s ineffability a problematic concept. For more on this subject, see John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993).