Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:35:58.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

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

19 E.g. see Hughes, Gerard J., ‘Aquinas and the Limits of Agnosticism’, in Hughes, G. (ed.), The Philosophical Assessment of Theology: Essays in Honour of Frederick C. Copleston (Washington, D. C.: Georgetown University Press, 1987), pp. 37–6 3;Google ScholarRocca, Gregory P., ‘Aquinas on God-Talk: Hovering Over the Abyss’, Theological Studies, LIV (1993), 641–61;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLindbeck, George, ‘The A Priori in St. Thomas' Theory of Knowledge’, in Cushman, R. E. and Grislis, E. (eds), The Heritage of Christian Thought: Essays in Honor of Robert Lowry Calhoun (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 41–63.Google Scholar

20 E.g. see Swinburne, Richard, The Coherence of Theism (rev. ed.; OxfordClarendon, 1993), chs. 4 & 5; idem.CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘Analogy and Metaphor’, in Philosophical Assessment of Theology, pp. 65–84; Sherry, Patrick J., ‘Analogy Today’, Philosophy, LI (1976), 431–46;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMiller, Barry, ‘Analogy Sans Portrait: God-Talk as Literal but Non-Anthropomorphic’, Faith and Philosophy, vii (1990), 63–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 E.g. see Pennings, Timothy J., ‘Infinity and the Absolute: Insights into Our World, Our Faith and Ourselves’, Christian Scholar's Review, xxiii/2 (1993), 159–80.Google Scholar

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

24 See Ibid. pp. 59–62.

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

26 Ward, , ‘Truth and the Diversity of Religions’, p. 10.Google Scholar

27 IR, p. 246.

28 Ward, , ‘Truth and the Diversity of Religions’, p. 10.Google Scholar

29 Feuerbach, Ludwig, The Essence of Christianity (trans., Elliot, George; New York: Harper & Bros., 1957 [1841]), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar See the similar challenge of Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Indianapolis/New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947 [1779]), Pt. IV, p. 158.Google Scholar

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

41 Hick, , God Has Many Names, p. 105.Google Scholar

42 E.g. see Barnes, L. Philip, ‘Relativism, Ineffability, and the Appeal to Experience: A Reply to the Myth Makers’, Modern Theology, vii (1990), 101–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 IR, p. 244.

44 See Smart, Ninian, ‘A Contemplation of Absolutes’, in God, Truth and Reality, pp. 184–5.Google Scholar

45 For Kant, ‘the a priori, then, is merely relational, without inherent content’ (Smith, Norman Kemp, A Commentary to Kant's ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ [rev. ed.; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities, 1992], p. xxxvi).Google Scholar

46 Forgie, , ‘Hyper-Kantianism’, p. 208.Google Scholar

47 In this general regard, see Stoeber, Michael,‘Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism: A Critique and Revision’, Religious Studies, xxviii (1992), 107–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 In regard to the various interpretations and criticisms of Kant at this point, see Ameriks, Karl, ‘Recent Work on Kant's Theoretical Philosophy’, American Philosophical Quarterly, xix (1982), 1–24;Google ScholarAquila, Richard E., ‘Things in Themselves and Appearances: Intentionality and Reality in Kant‘, Archiv für Geschichte Der Philosophic, LXI (1979), esp. pp. 293–5.Google Scholar

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

51 Palmquist, Stephen R., Kant's System of Perspectives: An Architectonic Interpretation of the Critical Philosophy (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993), pp. 169–70, 176–7; see also Appendix 5: ‘The Radical Unknowability of the Thing in Itself’.Google Scholar

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

55 Cupitt, Don, ‘Thin-line Theism’, The Times Literary Supplement, 8 August 1980, p. 902.Google Scholar

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.