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The Universe of Faiths

A critical study of John Hick's Religious Pluralism

Hick's hiccups

THE UNIVERSE OF FAITHS:
A critical study of John Hick's Religious Pluralism
By Christopher Sinkinson
Paternoster Press. 184 pages. £14.99
ISBN 1 84227 106 7

John Hick is perhaps most famous for his work as editor of the 1977 volume The Myth of God Incarnate. However, since then he has produced a steady stream of publications on philosophy of religion topics and religious pluralism.

Without doubt he is one of the most significant thinkers of the 20th century. He represents an intellectual enterprise that has filtered down into popular thought so successfully that a commitment to religious pluralism is effectively now the default setting for Western society. There have been many responses to Hick from many different perspectives. But certainly one of the best is offered by Christopher Sinkinson in his recent study.

Sinkinson provides a biographical sketch of Hick's career, outlining his move from conservative evangelical to radical agnostic pluralist, but the thesis of his book is that, despite the major shifts in Hick's thinking, all his academic work has one common foundation: his theory of knowledge. In his doctoral thesis Hick developed a model of religious knowledge based on subjective, personal experience rather than doctrinal propositions and argued that all knowledge is the human interpretation of objective realities.

Sinkinson uses this key observation to persuasively cut to the heart of Hick's work with a number of vital insights. Firstly, this means that the roots of Hick's thought are philosophical and Christian theology has only ever been marginal to his work - he is a theologian only in the sense that he has made particular theological judgments about his philosophy. Secondly, despite his protestations, this means that Hick can be located in the trajectory of philosophical thought associated with Immanuel Kant and indeed the entire modernist and Enlightenment project. Criticisms directed at Kant and the Enlightenment can thus be directed at Hick and Sinkinson does this with devastating effect. Thirdly, this means that Hick has ruled out the possibility of revelation right from the outset. Sinkinson shows that the ultimate fruit of his work is the suggestion that 'a cosmic force of some ineffable kind has created a race of people (or allowed them to come to be) and then left them to grope in the dark over the significance of their existence' (p. 157).

This book is very clear and well written but it is a demanding read in places, particularly where philosophical arguments are involved. However, it is worth its price just for the concluding chapter alone, where Sinkinson shows that Hick's religious pluralism utterly destroys true tolerance of religious diversity. We now live post-September 11 and such a supposedly religiously-motivated tragedy is already having a telling effect in the pressure for inter-faith co-operation and against exclusivist forms of religious expression. For those facing these sorts of issues, whether in government, religious education, academia, or evangelism, Sinkinson offers some excellent guidance on history, tolerance, humility and diversity.

David Gibson, London