Pluralism- Part 1

Just like with the miracles thing- this post focuses mainly on Jacob Hick, and his argument for pluralism. This may seem like something that's rare in apologetics, but I actually know several people that hold this belief. It's not super common, but you do see it, so it's good to know how to address it.

A. Early Life of Jacob Hick

• Professor of Faith at Princeton
• Conservative, except for his view on scripture
• Denied propositional revelation (Nash didn't feel like explaining... I really don't know the significance of this)
• Claimed to be evangelized, but denied the Lordship of Christ. 
• Biggest thing-  "All major religions have salvific value"

B. First Stage

1. Copernican Revlutions- 4 total. One of them includes Hick's Revolution with Religion. (Not all of them are necessarily right). 

The first one was Copernicus. He changed the geocentric theory into the heliocentric one (said that the solar system revolved around the sun, not the earth. 

The second was Immanuel Kant. Before his discovery, philosophers said that the epistemological world revolved around the world and it's happenings. Kant challenged that, and said that the center of the epistemological world is our minds. (Not to sure on what this is getting at either. Feel free to give thoughts/comments). 

The third Copernican revolution is Hick's. Before his "discovery" the center of the salvific world was Christ (at least for Christianity). Point being- salvation was dependent on a Messiah like figure, or savior, etc. hick came along and said that the salvific world centered around God. Not a messiah. The implications of this are huge. The fancy way to say this would be that he created the Theocentric Salvation theory.

The fourth Copernican revolution is Nash (Or so he claims). His change had to do with economics, but other than that, he doesn't elaborate.

Hick's Position: 

• Appeals to a loving God. The implication here is that if God is loving he'll let anyone and everyone into heaven- regardless of their beliefs. 
• Essentially pacifies other aspects of religions. 
• Major issue: When he appeals to a Loving God, he implies that this God is also Personal. This is a major contradiction for Hinduism and Buddhism. 

(Side note- Nash mentions here that there's a version of Buddhism that considers God a force- rather than an intelligent being. He then said that if we really wanted to see this form in action- Watch Star Wars. Seriously- "May the force be with you". Same sort of thing.) 

In essence- Hick was cheating. He was contradicting himself. 

He claimed that God could be both impersonal and personal. (I agree with Nash here- I don't think there's any way to be both of those at the same time).

He also said that God was both knowable and unknowable. Nash poses the question, "How can you know that he's unknowable, or even know that he exists, if he really is unknowable?"

C. 2nd Stage

Hick refutes the Christological view of Salvation, and instead creates a Salvation centered view of world religions. But, that poses the question, what does salvation really mean? What does it entail?

Immanuel Kant:
Said that there were two worlds- the Phenomenal World (Life as we each experience it), and the Pnumenal World (Life as it actually is). Hick applies this theory to his own view of God.
There would be the Phenomenal God (God as we each perceive him), and the Pnumenal God (God as he actually is).

He actually uses an old Indian parable to explain his case- and even Nash admits that it does seem to help him.

There are 5 blind men on a safari. They come into a clearing and sense a strange creature. They each exclaim something about their discovery. The first says, "It's a snake!", having felt the trunk. The second says, "It's a rope", having felt the tail. The third says, "It's a fan!", having felt an ear. The fourth says, "It's a column ", having felt a leg. And lastly, the fifth one says, "No, it's a wall!", having felt the main side of the elephant. Each one's perceptions are technically correct- at least to them. In actuality  those discoveries aren't very accurate- but they are true for the perceiver.

Hick says that this is the way religions work. No one religion can have the whole picture of God because we are each "blind". Our perceptions aren't necessarily wrong, but they don't form a full picture.

At this point Hick also gets rid of the word God. Instead he uses the term "Ultimate reality".

Here's where Nash steps in-
When life is over, we may discover that God is really personal. What happens when we die and see that the ultimate reality is a real being with specific attributes? Then he ceases to be impersonal, and we discover that we've been mistaken.


And, that's it for right now. Nash has a LOT to say in rebuttal- but I'm going to make that a separate post. So, if you've got rebuttals of your own, feel free to comment, but remember that the big refutation should be up soon. Stay tuned. :)