Hick - religious pluralism by hicks PDF

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Religious pluralism is a philosophical approach that identifies the diversity of religious beliefs, practices, and traditions that exist across this world. And the idea of religious pluralism is advanced by John Hick. He argues that there is a plurality of paths to salvation, and each of the great w...

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Religious pluralism is a philosophical approach that identifies the diversity of religious beliefs, practices, and traditions that exist across this world. And the idea of religious pluralism is advanced by John Hick. He argues that there is a plurality of paths to salvation, and each of the great world religions offers such a path. He developed an approach known as the pluralistic hypothesis to achieve religious pluralism. Pluralistic Hypothesis John Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis is based on Kant’s distinction between noumena (things as they really are in themselves) and phenomena (things as they are experienced by us by the categories of our minds). He maintains that among the various religious traditions there is a widely recognized distinction between the Real / Ultimate /Divine as in itself and Real/Ultimate/Divine as experienced or conceptualized by human beings. For example, the distinction between Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman is a distinction between Brahman beyond the scope of human thought and Brahman as encountered by human experience. Similarly in the West the Christians draw a parallel distinction between the Godhead and God and the same reflects in Taoist and Jewish traditions. He refers to Paul Tillich who speaks of the “God above and the God of theism” as well as Gordon Kaufman who distinguishes between the “real God” and the “available God”. On the basis of such distinctions Hick maintains that if we suppose that the Real is one but the human perceptions of the Real are plural then it provides us with a ground for the hypothesis that the different streams of religious experience represent diverse awareness of the same transcendental reality, which is perceived differently by different human mentalities. The Hindu parable of the blind men and the elephant exactly reflect what John Hick means by pluralism where one blind man touches the elephant’s tail and thinks as rope while the other touches its legs and is thought of as a tree, all experiencing the same animal but in different ways. He further explain his hypothesis by stating that the Real in itself is experienced by human beings in terms of one of the two basic concepts in Philosophy of Religion i.e., the concept of God or Real experienced as personal (in theism) and the concept of the Absolute or the Real experienced as non personal (non theism). These concepts take the form of particular images of God or particular concepts of the Absolute respectively. The images of God are formed within the different religious histories. For instance theism is pervaded by “personae” like Krishna, Shiva, Allah and Jesus and Jahweh of the Hebrew scripture that are partly projections of divine reality in human consciousness and partly projections of human consciousness itself formed by a particular historical culture. While the non-theism is pervaded by forms of non personal Absolute or “impersonae” like the Brahman, Nirvana, Sunyata, the Dharma, the Dharmakaya etc. Here the limitless Ultimate Reality is experienced and thought through different concepts of the Real as non personal. As far as salvation is concerned, Hick, with regard to his pluralistic hypothesis, holds that it is the direct and unmediated awareness of the Real having a mystical form. So it is Moksha in the Hindu tradition and Satori in Buddhism and so on. He asserts that it is a conscious experience of a human subject and is influenced by the way the cognitive mind interprets it. According to him all human beings are influenced by their culture and develop certain deep interpretative tendencies in terms of it. The mystics formed by Hindu , Buddhist, Christian , Muslim and other religious cultures report their distinctive experiences in different religious

languages although they all undergo identical experiences. He attributes these differences to the conceptual frameworks and meditational disciplines that their particular religious culture provides them. He also uses Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit picture as an analogy to describe the pluralistic hypothesis. He explains that some interpret it to be a picture of a duck while others see it as a picture of a rabbit. This is because in some cultures people are familiar with ducks while in others people are familiar with rabbits. Hick’s analogy is that the ineffable Real is capable of being experienced in different religions as Allah or Vishnu… depending on one’s religious concepts through which the experience takes place. Thus Hick constitutes religious pluralism and argues that pluralistic hypothesis is an attractive alternative to total skepticism in the context of religious diversity. He gives importance to religious doctrines and dogmas but believes that the most fundamental thing in religion is the personal transformation that occurs within the religion. The transformation here refers to transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to Reality – centeredness or from non-saints to saints. However, a lot of objection arises in this view of John Hick: Pluralism is logically contradictory Some of Hick’s critics argued that he goes further away from the religion itself. He makes an exclusive claim that his idea of religious pluralism is superior to any other philosophical approach of religion. This is where he is contradicting himself. Pluralism leads to skepticism about the Real Some critic argued that the position that religious truth claims are entirely contextually bound and only about the phenomena (rather than the noumena) leads to a knowledge block (epistemic opacity) which leads to skepticism or agnosticism about the Real. If that is the case then how one could we know about the Real? To which Hick responds that given the historically rich and broad religious experiences within the faith traditions, we must posit an objective Real to account for the rich experiences and transformations. However, the Real as construed by Hick is “beyond characterizations” and “neither personal nor nonpersonal.” And if that is the case then how could we have such an “ineffable” posit that can lead to the personal, moral transformation so integral to Hick’s position. Conclusion John Hick’s idea of pluralistic hypothesis to achieve religious pluralism is both a subject of praise and criticism. Praise because it provides an advanced theory as to how different religions provide different paths to arrive at the same one Ultimate Reality. Criticized because his approach lacks epistemological factors in many ways. Therefore another approach known as aspectual pluralism is provided to avoid some of the philosophical and other pitfalls of the pluralistic hypothesis. According to this view, there is an objective Ultimate Reality and we know about this reality. This view is given by Peter Byrne who maintains that each religion shows some aspect of Real because reality has multiple aspects and one transcendent manifests itself in diverse ways. He takes the example from the natural kind and states just like the natural kind such as gold has observable essence like yellow, lustrous etc. the Real too have different observable essence found in different religions which have their own unique conceptual schemes, religious structure, and practices. However, this view too has been subjected to various criticism, accused of being syncretic and skeptic....