John Hick
John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was an England-born philosopher of religion and theologian who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism.[3]
This article is about the philosopher and theologian. For the UK member of parliament, see John Hick (politician). For the English lawn bowler, see John Hick (bowls).
John Hick
20 January 1922
9 February 2012 (aged 90)[1]
Life[edit]
John Hick was born on 20 January 1922 to a middle-class family in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. In his teens, he developed an interest in philosophy and religion, being encouraged by his uncle, who was an author and teacher at the University of Manchester. Hick initially went to Bootham School in York which is Quaker, and then pursued a law degree at the University of Hull, but, having converted to Evangelical Christianity, he decided to change his career and he enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in 1941.
During his studies, he became liable for military service in World War II, but, as a conscientious objector on moral grounds, he enrolled in the Friends' Ambulance Unit.
After the war, he returned to Edinburgh and became attracted to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and began to question his fundamentalism. In 1948 he completed his MA thesis, which formed the basis of his book Faith and Knowledge.[3] He went on to complete a D. Phil at Oriel College, Oxford University in 1950[4] and a DLitt from Edinburgh in 1975.[5] In 1977 he received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden.[6] In 1953 he married Joan Hazel Bowers, and the couple had four children. After many years as a member of the United Reformed Church, in October 2009 he was accepted into membership of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. He died in 2012.[4][7]
Career[edit]
Hick's academic positions included Danforth Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University, California (where he taught from 1979 to 1992); H.G. Wood Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham; and Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Research in Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Birmingham.[8]
While at the University of Birmingham Hick played important roles in a number of organisations centred on community relations. Non-Christian communities, mostly Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh, had begun to form in this central England community as immigration from the Caribbean Islands and Indian subcontinent increased. Due to the influx of peoples with different religious traditions, organizations focused on integrating the community became necessary. During his fifteen years at the University of Birmingham, Hick became a founder, as well as the first chair, for the group All Faiths for One Race (AFFOR); he served as a chair on the Religious and Cultural Panel, which was a division of the Birmingham Community Relations Committee; and he also chaired the coordinating committee for a 1944 conference convened under the new Education Act with the aim of creating a new syllabus for religious instruction in city schools.[9]
It is not widely known that between 1970 and 1974, the early Hick championed a substantially different theory of religious pluralism based not on Kant but on the twentieth-century Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950).
He also held teaching positions at Cornell University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Cambridge University.[10] During his teaching stay at Princeton Seminary, Hick began to depart from his conservative religious standings as he began to question "whether belief in the Incarnation required one to believe in the literal historicity of the Virgin Birth".[11] This questioning would open the door for further examination of his own Christology, which would contribute to Hick's understanding of religious pluralism. He was the Vice-President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and Vice-President of The World Congress of Faiths.[12]
Hick delivered the 1986–87 Gifford lectures[12] and in 1991 was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award from the University of Louisville and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary for Religion.[13]
Hick was twice the subject of heresy proceedings. In 1961 or 1962, he was asked whether he took exception to anything in the Westminster Confession of 1647 and answered that several points were open to question. Because of this, some of the local ministers appealed against his reception into the presbytery. Their appeal was sustained by the Synod. A year later, a counter-appeal was sustained by the Judicial Committee of the General Assembly, and Hick became a member of the presbytery.
Problem of evil[edit]
Hick has identified with a branch of theodicy that he calls "Irenaean theodicy" or the "Soul-Making Defense".[27] A simplification of this view states that suffering exists as a means of spiritual development. In other words, God allows suffering so that human souls might grow or develop towards maturation. For Hick, God is ultimately responsible for pain and suffering, but such things are not truly bad. Perhaps with a greater degree of perception, one can see that the "evil" we experience through suffering is not ultimately evil but good, as such is used to "make our souls" better.
Therefore, Hick sees the evils of pain and suffering as serving God's good purpose of bringing "imperfect and immature" humanity to itself "in uncompelled faith and love."[28] At the same time, Hick acknowledges that this process often fails in our world.[29] However, in the after-life, Hick asserts that "God will eventually succeed in His purpose of winning all men to Himself."[30]
The discussion of evil in Hick has been challenged by a number of theologians and moral philosophers including David Griffin and John K. Roth. Using Hick's own words, Roth has stated, "Hick's theodicy is implausible to me because I am convinced that his claims about God's goodness cannot stand the onslaught of what he calls the principal threat to his own perspective: 'the sheer amount and intensity of both moral and natural evil.'"[31] In the book Encountering Evil, Stephen Davis has stated his four criticisms of Hick, "First, while no theodicy is free of difficulties, I believe Hick's is not entirely convincing in its handling of the amount of evil that exists in the world... Second, I am dubious about Hick's hope of a gradual spiritual evolution till human beings reach a full state of God-consciousness... Third, I believe Hick also faces what I call the 'cost-effective' criticism of the free will defense... My final and most serious criticism of Hick concerns his commitment to universalism."[32]
For a list of his books see the referenced footnote.[33]