Pluralism: Part 2

Today's pretty much Nash's rebuttal to Hick's argument. I gotta say though, after going through, and thinking about it- this argument is a LOT more prevalent that I first thought. If you think about it- there are hundreds, if not thousands of people who hold sort of a modified version of this argument (I'll elaborate a bit later...).

Nash's objective- to tear apart Hick's argument without help from scripture. It'd be easy enough to say, "I reject that theory because I believe in the Bible, and scripture refutes this claim"- but you're not going to convince many pluralists. To defeat them- you've got to meet them on their own turf.

Eschatological Verification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatological_verification)- essentially a rebuttal to Logical Positivism; which says that in order to be meaningful, or true, something has to be able to be proven with the scientific method. The implications of this pretty much result in Naturalism. This is one of Hick's major discoveries. It made him famous. E.V. refutes Logical Positivism by saying this- "Christians CAN verify their position through those means- and therefore make it meaningful/truthful- the thing is- they just can't do it right this instant.

Say a Logical Positivist dies, and is feeling a bit hot- well, he's going to know that he's been barking up the wrong tree. The Christian dies, and is feeling pretty great, at the throne of Christ- and can then verify through logical means that he was right all along. Christianity really does fit the Logical Positivists criteria- just not right this instant.

Anyways- that's one of Hick's biggest "discoveries", so he's not going to give it up (Nash uses it against him here in a sec...).

Criticisms (Based on the whole E.V. thing)

This next part is going to be a stated claim by Hick, and then a refutation by Nash, and maybe a bit of commentary by me.

Hick: God is both Impersonal and Personal 

Nash: But according to his E.V.- when we die, some of us will be right, and some will be wrong.

My bit:  You can apply this to the parable. All of them gave characteristics  but none of  their claims were actually correct. The guy holding the tail may have thought it was a rope, but Hick was wrong to say that it could be a rope for that person. It may have seemed like a rope- but it wasn't really. When people interpret God- there are right or wrong answers. (Even Hick concedes to this).

Hick: Salvation can mean lots of different things to different people (It's basically ambiguous). 

Nash: Given this ambiguous definition- anything could be Salvation. The Nazi regime could be considered Salvation to some. When you leave the definition of Salvation open for tampering with- bad stuff happens. This clearly isn't ok.

Me: I completely agree. This kind of goes back to relative truth. When you mess with definitions too much, you get twisted results. There has to be some sort of set rule, or constant, because if everything was ambiguous, and open for debate- then where would morals go? How would we really know if anything was real or not? See- sketchy.

Hick: Not every religion can be true- just the major ones with a central deity. So basically, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism are safe.
But not stuff like Jim Jones (For anyone who doesn't know, Jones was kind of a crazy guy who brought a group of people down to somewhere in South America and gave them all poisoned Kool-Aid to kill them. It was awful.)

Nash: But, above- you don't give a set definition of Salvation. In the case of Jones, how do you know it was wrong? Why couldn't it have been his definition of salvation? See where this is going? And remember that Hick also has Universalist views (thinks that no matter what, everyone will end up in Heaven). This also poses problems. He's saying that things can be evil and wrong- but that it doesn't matter because no matter what- everyone will enter heaven.


Logical Issues: Hick is ignoring the Law of Non-contradiction without actually coming out and saying it. He takes the creeds of the major religions, and nullifies them. There's huge irony in this- by trying to ensure the salvation of these religions, he completely insults and alienates them. Can you imagine if he were to walk into an Islamic temple, and preach about how none of their rules or beliefs matter- except for the one about Allah? I can't imagine they'd be too happy about it. Same goes for Judaism, or Buddhism, or Christianity. We take our stuff seriously.

Hick: If Jesus was really the Son of God, he would be the only savior (because of his Theo-centric theory). He then tries to destroy the deity of Christ. 

Nash: Look into this more if you want- but his arguments against Christ's deity are completely outdated and rejected in the modern philosophical world.

Hick: Geographical/Cultural conditioning influence people into their religions. It would be unfair to condemn them because of that conditioning.

Nash: What? Absolutely not. What about converts? Missionaries? Things of that sort? And another thing- if we again went with this theory- Nazism would be justified. They could say "Well, we were just born into Nazism, so it's ok".

Me: I could literally write a book on just this little section alone. Seriously. I'll try to keep it somewhat condensed though.

Here's the thing- this is where my earlier comment comes in. There are a lot of people who sort of modify this view- and hold onto it. They ask themselves this question, "How is it fair to condemn 6 or 7 billion people to Hell, when a majority of them grew up in environments that conditioned them to be the way they are?" They then draw conclusions such as these:

• I can be apathetic- Salvation doesn't really matter, because if it did, then the whole world's in trouble.

Sound familiar? How many people do you know that have this attitude? "I don't want to condemn myself, or the world, so I'll stay apathetic to it..."?? A lot of people. And sometimes it's frustrating trying to get them to care as much as we do about Christ. A lot of people ignore eternal consequences, and just focus on today, which again, is frustrating to watch for those of us who have tasted God's grace; but it's a battle worth fighting.

•  Maybe all beliefs work toward some sort of salvation. Maybe Jews and Christians and Muslims can all have some sort of Salvation.

This one is common too. Sometimes people go Hick's route- and modify "Salvation", so that all people can share in it. This isn't ok. And watch out- If someone claims to be Christian, but also claims that all people can have "Salvation" regardless of their methods- they're lying about their faith. Christianity and this view can't mix. It just doesn't work. Yes, God is loving, but Christ is the only means of Salvation.


Essentially- it all comes back to the problem of evil. It's not an easy thing to explain- but the underlying issue here is God's characteristics. He gave us free will to do as we choose- and there are some who choose not to take advantage of his gift of salvation (which only comes through Christ). God is loving and gracious- but He's also just and fair.

And Yes, people tend to go with the religion that they grew up with- but that's certainly not always the case. But Christ makes himself known through the Holy Spirit. Whether it's through creation, a book, a person, a song, etc., the God of the Universe is showing himself to his people. Sometimes, we're just ignorant of his voice. And If anything, this is just encouragement for us Christians to be more open and minister to people. It's not something to "blame on God"- we have the power of evangelism. In fact, we're called to take part in this ministry, and if we don't, or we become apathetic about people's salvation- it's time to start questioning our own salvation. Seriously.

Right, back to Hick.

Hick: Christians are Intolerant because they say other people's beliefs are wrong (Because of our belief in Hell basically). 

Nash: There are two kinds of Tolerance- good, and bad. Hick is referring to the bad kind here. Just because we disagree with the views of other people, it doesn't make us intolerant. In fact, it's ludicrous to even suggest that. We can kindly, and peacefully disagree with people. We believe that Christianity is the truth- and so sharing it isn't intolerant, it's us caring about the eternal condition of others. If someone thought the earth was flat, and I politely reminded them that it was actually round, would I be considered intolerant?? Of course not. We have an intolerance for hate and evil and sin, sure- so do non-believers. But not an intolerance for people.

My bit: I love the way Nash puts this. I can just see him walking up to Hick, and politely reminding him of the flaws in his argument. I wish some of you could have heard him give his spiel too. I feel like after all these lectures I sort of know him- even if I've only been listening to his tapes. He seems like he'd be a cool guy to meet.


Alrighty- that's it for today. All in all a pretty good case. Nash gives this cool story at the end, but it's long, and the point of it is just to love people- because it wins them over better than trying to beat it into them. It really is interesting though- Nash worked on a committee that helped consult Steven Spielberg on Prince of Egypt with DreamWorks pictures. Pretty epic stuff. Here's a link if you'd like to listen- it's at the very end- http://www.biblicaltraining.org/pluralism/christian-apologetics.

I hope to have a post up about Inclusivism tomorrow, so stay tuned. :)