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Paradox and Paradigms: defending the case for a revolution in theology of religions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Gerard Loughlin
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Thus Hick has shown little reason to change the traditional Christian paradigm of the world religions from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican model of the universe of faiths; from a system with Christ and his church at the centre, around which the other religions revolve, to a Copernican model with all the religions, including Christianity, revolving around the central mystery of ultimate reality. It must be said that D’Costa’s critique is both powerful and ingenious. But is it correct?

In a recent article in New Blackfriars, Gavin D’Costa argued that Professor John Hick’s call for a Copernican revolution in the Christian theology of religions is both unnecessary and incoherent. It is unnecessary because the paradox it is intended to resolve can be met without radically changing Christianity’s traditional selfunderstanding; and incoherent because it assumes a premise denied by its conclusion, namely the Christian conception of an all-loving God definitively revealed in Jesus Christ.

In order to answer our question we must first assess whether or not Hick’s argument has been adequately represented. For we will be in danger of wrongly dismissing Hick’s call for a Copernican revolution if we have not rightly understood the reasons which have led him to make it. And it is precisely at this point that we may suspect several of Hick’s commentators and critics, including D’Costa, of misunderstanding the nature and force of the considerations that weigh with Hick—and should be weighed by us when considering his proposal.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 66 , Issue 777 , March 1985 , pp. 127 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Gavin D’Costa, ‘John Hick’s Copernican Revolution: Ten Years After’, New Blackfriars, 65 (July/August 1984). 323-331.

2 The analogy of Ptolemaic and Copernican planetary theories with traditional and revisionary paradigms of the world religions is presented in John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths, second revised edition (London, 1977). pp. 124-125; the notion of a paradigm is borrowed from Thomas, Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. second enlarged edition (Chicago, 1970)Google Scholar.

3 D’Costa, p.324.

4 John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths, p. 120.

5 The axiom derives from 1 Peter 3:20; and its history may be traced in the texts of Ignatius of Antioch (Philadelphians 3:2), lrenaeus (Adv. Haer. III, 24, 1), and Clement of Alexandria (Paedagogus I, 6). It was given its first complete negative formulation by Origen (In Jesu Nave 3, 5), and asserted with juridical force by Cyprian (De Unitate Ecclesiae 6).

6 D’Costa, p. 323.

7 D’Costa, p. 324. For a similar reading of Hick’s argument see Lipner, J.J., ‘Does Copernicus Help? Reflections for a Christian Theology of Religions’, Religious Studies, 13 (1973), 243-258CrossRefGoogle Scholar (pp. 250-252).

8 D’Costa, p. 325. For a similar assessment of Hick’s reading of the Ptolemaic traditions see Duncan, B. Forrester, ‘Professor Hick and the Universe of Faiths’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 29 (1976). 65-72 (pp. 66-69)Google Scholar.

9 For Hick’s Copernican understanding of Jesus Christ see ‘Jesus and the World Religions’, in The Myth of God Incarnate, edited by John Hick (London, 1977), John Hick, pp. 167-185.

10 John Hick, ‘The Theology of Religious Pluralism’, Theology, 86 (1983), 335-340 (p. 338). See also ‘Is There Only One Way to God?’, Theology, 85 (1982), 4-7, where it might be thought that Hick poses an either/or choice between Ptolemaic and Copernican paradigms of the universe of faiths. But such would be an over-reading of the text: Copernican theology is opposed to exclusivist, not inclusivist, Ptolemaic theology; and the general argument rests on phenomenological considerations.

11 This point is often overlooked or obscured by Hick’s critics. See, for example, how D’Costa (p. 323) and Lipner (p. 250) read the text in which Hick discloses a ‘paradox of gigantic proportions’ in holding an exclusivist interpretation of the axiom with the concept of an all-loving God, as is held in evangelical Christianity (God and the Universe of Faiths, pp. 121-122). According to D’Costa, Hick charges Karl Rahner’s inclusivist Christology with the implications that the experience of grace and salvation in other faiths is illusory (D’Costa, p. 326). But the text cited in evidence against Hick is concerned with just such an exclusivist Christology as Rahner rejects.

12 God and the Universe of Faiths, pp. 123-130. For the appeal to invincible ignorance see The Church Teaches: Documents of the Church in English Translation (St. Louis/London, 1955). p. 174; for the notions of ‘implicit faith’ and ‘baptism by desire’ see The World Teaches, pp. 274-275, and Charles, Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate: An Essay in Speculative Theology, edited by Downes, A.H.C. (London/New York, 1955), pp. 31-40Google Scholar; for Karl Rahner and the notion of the ‘anonymous Christian’ see Theological Investigations, 20 vols (London, 1961–1984), V (1966), pp. 115-134; for Hans Küng see ‘The World Religions in God’s Plan of Salvation’, in Christian Revelation and World Religions, edited by Joseph Neuner (London, 1967), pp. 25-66; and for Küng’s notion of Christianity as ‘critical catalyst’ see On Being a Christian, translated by Edward Quinn (London, 1977), pp. 89-1 16; for eschatological evangelisation see Yves, Congar, The World My Parish: Salvation and its Problems, translated by Donald Attwater, (London, 1961). p. 136Google Scholar.

13 The distinction between a decisive deductive argument and the weight of considerations is to be noted in the light of Kuhn’s account of the rationality of paradigm change, which is not a matter of proof, but of persuasion and conversion. See Kuhn. pp. 148, 151-152. For pertinent and relevant discussion of Kuhn’s notion of paradigm change see Richard, J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Oxford, 1983), pp. 51-71Google Scholar.

14 John, Hick, ‘Pluralism and the Reality of the Transcendent’, Christian Century, 98 (1981). 45-48 (p. 46)Google Scholar. See also ‘Whatever Path Men Choose is Mine’ in God Has Many Names: Britain’s New Religious Pluralism (London, 1980), pp. 43-58 (p. 45).

15 John, Hick, The Second Christianity (London, 1983), pp. 78-79Google Scholar.

16 John, Hick, ‘On Grading Religions’, Religious Studies, 17 (1981), 451-467Google Scholar. Paul Griffiths and Delmas Lewis seriously misunderstand and misrepresent this article in their response, ‘On Grading Religions, Seeking Truth, and Being Nice to People-A Reply to Professor Hick’. Religious Studies, 19 (1983), 75-80. Their article should be read with critical caution. See Hick’s reply, ‘On Conflicting Religious Truth-Claims’, Religious Studies, 19 (1983), 485-492.

17 John, Hick, ‘Towards a Philosophy of Religious Pluralism’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 22 (1980), 131–149 (p. 132)Google Scholar. Alan Race, in a careful and sympathetic exposition of Hick’s argument, does not refer to the paradox of the axiom as its basis, but notes that the ‘foundation of Hick’s hypothesis is that religious experience represents a genuine encounter with the one ultimate divine reality’. See Alan, Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions (London, 1983), pp. 82–90Google Scholar (p.83).

18 This understanding of the relativist perception of the world religions is similar to Kuhn’s notion of incommensurability as interpreted by Gerald Doppelt and Richard J. Bernstein. See Gerald, Doppelt, ‘Kuhn’s Epistemological Relativism: An Interpretation and Defense’, Inquiry, 21 (1978), 33–86Google Scholar; Bernstein, pp. 79–93. The comparability of incommensurabilities reminds us that the relativist perception need not be debilitating if it is recognised that its truth and ‘the tolerance founded on it is ... to be sought in relationality’. see Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology, translated by Margaret Kohl (London, 1977), pp. 150–163 (p. 156).

19 Of course, the value of elegance or simplicity may be credited differently by different people. ‘There is no neutral algorithm for theory-choice, no systematic decision procedure which, properly applied, must lead each individual in the group to the same decision’. Kuhn, pp. 199–200. Kuhn’s group is the scientific community, but equally it may be the theological or ecclesiastical.

20 D’Costa, p. 324.

21 D’Costa, pp. 324–325.

22 Jacques, Maritain, Redeeming the Time, translated by Harry Lorin Binsse (London, 1943), pp. 105–106Google Scholar. See Maurice, Wiles, ‘Christian Theology in an Age of Religious Studies’, in Explorations in Theology 4 (London, 1979), pp. 28–40Google Scholar (pp. 32–33).

23 George, Tyrrell, Medievalism: A Reply to Cardinal Mercier (London, 1908), p. 10Google Scholar.

24 D’Costa, p. 327.

25 D’Costa, p. 328. A similar criticism is advanced by Lesslie, Newbigin in The Open Secret: Sketches for a Missionory Theology (London, 1978). pp. 184–185Google Scholar.

26 For Hick’s theodicy and eschatology see respectively, Evil and the God of Low (London, 1966) and Death and Eternal Life (London, 1976).

27 D’Costa’s use of Hick’s essay ‘An Irenaean Theodicy’ (in Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy, edited by Stephen T. Davis (Edinburgh, 1981), pp.39–52) is thus illegitimate (p. 328). In the essay Hick explicitly states that he is ‘discussing the project of a specifically Christian theodicy’ (p. 39).

28 D’ Costa, p.329.

29 Death and Eternal Life, p. 464.

30 Maurice Wiles, Explorations in Theology 4, pp. 32–33.

31 God and the Universe of Faiths, p. 132. The point of this perception is not that a particular Ptolemaic theology or system is false or invalid, but that the truth or validity of such a system cannot be judged by external criteria. It can only be true or valid for us. Relativism calls the believer to faith. See Ernst Troeltsch, ‘The Place of Christianity Among the World Religions’ (1932), reprinted in Christianity and Other Religions, edited by John Hick and Brian Hebblethwaite (London, 1980), pp. 11–31 (p. 25).

32 Precisely the same considerations–historical relativity and phenomenological similarity–are adduced by Troeltsch. Sarah Coakley identifies Hick as ‘the major exponent of the Troeltschian position in Britain today’. ‘Theology and Cultural Relativism: What is the Problem?’, Neue Zeitschrijr für Systernatische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 21 (1979), 223–243 (p. 243).

33 God and the Universe of Faiths. p. 132.