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Religious Pluralism and the Divine: Another Look at John Hick's Neo-Kantian Proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Paul R. Eddy
Paul R. Eddy
Affiliation:
Department of Theology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53233
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Abstract

This study focuses upon the heart of John Hick's pluralistic philosophy of religion – his neo-Kantian response to the problem of conflicting inter-religious conceptions of the divine. Hick attempts to root his proposal in two streams of tradition: (1) the inter-religious awareness of the distinction between the divine in itself vs. the divine as humanly experienced, and (2) a Kantian epistemology. In fact, these attempts are problematic in that his hypothesis introduces a radical subjectivizing element at both junctures. In the end, I contend that Hick's neo-Kantian proposal undermines his decades-long effort to defend some form of religious realism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 467 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Hick, John, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 240. This work is henceforth noted as IR.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The term ‘ neo-Kantian ’ is used throughout this essay in a very general sense; it implies no connection to the German philosophical movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

3 Hick, , ‘Mystical Experience as Cognition’, in Coward, Harold and Penelhum, Terence (eds.), Mystics and Scholars: The Calgary Conference on Mysticism, 1976 (Calgary: Canadian Corp. for Studies in Religion, 1977). PP. 41–61.Google Scholar

4 See, for instance, the essays comprising chapters 3, 5, and 6 in Hick, , God Has Many Names (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 See Hick, , Faith and Knowledge (2nd ed.; London: Collins-Fontana, 1974 [1957]), p. viii.Google Scholar

6 IR, p. 240.

7 Ibid. p. 242.

8 Ibid. p. 246.

9 See (1) ‘The Real in Itself and as Humanly Experienced’, pp. 236–40; and (2) ‘Kant's Epistemological Model’, pp. 240–6.

10 IR, pp. 236–7.

11 Ibid. p. 237.

12 Ibid. p. 238.

13 Ibid. p. 239 (emphasis added).

14 Hick, While (‘The Philosophy of World Religions’, Scottish Journal of Theology, xxxvu [1984], 232) has denied that his model owes anything significant to the notion of divine infinity, the fact that he nonetheless continues to devote a significant amount of space to it in the explication of his pluralist hypothesis (see IR, pp. 237–9) suggests that he is still gaining currency from this connection.Google Scholar

15 Ibid. p. 237.

16 Finger, Thomas, Christian Theology: an Eschatological Approach (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1985, 1989), vol. II, p. 502.Google ScholarSee also Davis, Stephen, ‘Why God Must be Unlimited’, in Tessier, Linda J. (ed.), Concepts of the Ultimate (New York: St Martin's, 1989), pp. 4–6.Google Scholar

17 See especially Mortley, Raoul, From Word to Silence, vol. 2: The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986), pp. 242–54.Google ScholarSee also Ward, Keith, ‘Truth and the Diversity of Religions’, Religious Studies, xxvi (1990), 6–11; idem.Google Scholar‘Divine Ineffability’, in Sharma, Arvind (ed.), God, Truth and Reality: Essays in Honour of John Hick (New York: St Martin's 1993), pp. 210–20;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPlantinga, Alvin, Does God Have a Nature? (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), pp. 18–20.Google Scholar

18 E.g. see respectively Palmer, Humphrey, Analogy: A Study of Qualification and Argument in Theology (New York: St Martin's, 1973), esp. ch. 13;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBurrell, David, Aquinas, God and Action (London: Routledge and Kegan, 1979).Google Scholar

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22 See Palmer's (Analogy, pp. 26–7) discussion in this regard. I am indebted at several points here to Byrne's, Peter (‘John Hick's Philosophy of World Religions’, Scottish Journal of Theology, xxxv [1982], 296–9) critique of Hick's use of the concept of divine infinity.Google Scholar

23 For excellent discussion of these matters, see Blanc, Jill Le,‘Infinity in Theology and Mathematics’, Religious Studies, xxix (1993), 51–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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25 In this regard see Ferre, Frederick, ‘In Praise of Anthropomorphism’, in Scharlemann, Robert P. and Ogutu, Gilbert E. M. (eds), God in Language (New York: Paragon, 1987), p. 192.Google Scholar

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30 Hick was not the first to view religious experience in light of these specific Kantian categories; e.g. see Otto, Rudolf, Naturalism and Religion (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1907);Google ScholarOakes, Robert A., ‘Noumena, Phenomena, and God’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, iv (1973), 30–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 This term derives from Forgie's, William ‘Hyper-Kantianism in Recent Discussions of Mystical Experience’, Religious Studies, xxi (1985), 208. Forgie does not, however, apply his critique to Hick.Google Scholar

32 IR, p. 245.

33 Ibid. p. 241.

34 Ibid. p. 240. Here, important sources for Hick include Berger, Peter and Luckmann, Thomas, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966);Google ScholarArbib, Michael and Hesse, Mary, The Construction of Reality (Cambridge: University Press, 1986); and the work of Clifford Geertz.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Cited in IR, pp. 240–1. Here, Hick also claims the same vis-à-vas the Muslim thinker al Junaid's maxim: ‘ The colour of the water is the same as that of its container.’

36 Ibid. p. 244.

37 Ibid. pp. 240, 244.

38 See Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of Pure Reason (abr. ed.; trans. Smith, Norman Kemp; London: Macmillan, 1952), pp. 26–7, 72.Google Scholar

39 IR, pp. 243–4.

40 For readings of Kant's noumenal/phenomenal distinction in an anti-realist vein, see Putnam, Hilary, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: University Press, 1981), ch. 3;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPosy, Carl, ‘Dancing to the Antinomy: A Proposal for Transcendental Idealism’, American Philosophical Quarterly, xx (1983), 81–94.Google Scholar

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49 IR, p. 241 (emphasis added).

50 See the surveys cited at note 48 for problematic aspects of reading Kant in a purely ‘one world’/perspectival manner. See also Rossi, Philip, ‘The Final End of All Things: The Highest Good as the Unity of Nature and Freedom’, in Rossi, P. and Wreen, M. (eds), Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 133–64.Google Scholar

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52 Ibid. p. 178.

53 IR, P. 166.

54 D'Costa, , ‘John Hick and Religious Pluralism: Yet Another Revolution’, in Hewitt, Harold (ed.), Problems in the Philosophy of Religion: Critical Studies of the Work of John Hick (New York: St Martin's, 1991), pp. 3–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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56 Many thanks to Professor Hick, as well as Michel Barnes, Gavin D'Costa, Brad Hinze, Harold Netland, Bruce Reichenbach, Philip Rossi, and John Sanders, for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.