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When Hick spent time in the multicultural society of Birmingham, he observed that the many different religions (Islam, Hinduism, etc.) were operating around the same idea, opening their minds to a higher divine reality. He compared this to an ancient Islamic parable of blind men touching different parts of an elephant to figure out what it is, each man thinks it to be something different, none thinking it to be an elephant. Hick uses this to symbolise how no one religion truly understands the divine reality, so no religion can be excluded from salvation.

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The Blind Men and the Elephant. How a parable about religious ...

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“God allows evil and suffering in the world in order to develop humans into virtuous creatures capable of following his will.“

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Hick was one of the most prevalent philosophers during the later twelfth century and he didn’t believe that the teachings found in the New Testament led to the belief of an eternal hell and argues that it actually argues for “universal ultimate salvation”.

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https://iep.utm.edu/hick/#H4
This talks about religious ambiguity, which might add to 'the truth' but not sure how useful it is :D

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- Hick suggested a need for a ‘Copernican revolution’ in theology.
-Refers to the shift in attitudes towards the universe (sun at the centre rather than the Earth).
- Hick uses this to demonstrate his argument - argues that God or 'Reality' should be put at the centre.
- In this sense, Christianity is seen as another 'planet' alongside others.
-This theocentric approach has much criticism - undermines the 'sola Christus' principle.
- Paul Knitter argues that we should have a 'soteriocentric' appraoch, NOT a 'Reality-centred' approach as Hick argues.

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- Hick suggested a need for a ‘Copernican revolution’ in theology.
-Refers to the shift in attitudes towards the universe (sun at the centre rather than the Earth).
- Hick uses this to demonstrate his argument - argues that God or 'Reality' should be put at the centre.
- In this sense, Christianity

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Hick believed that a God of love would not organise the universe in such a way that salvation was limited to some people.

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Hick believed that Christians should not be understood as ‘the truth’ as it has its flaws and that different ways of worship are all attempts to approach the same reality.

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Hick argues that religion is a human, phenomenal attempt to understand and relate to God. All religions are human constructs, where we filter what we can understand of God in accordance with our own contexts and cultural upbringing. Every religion falls short of the truth because none are capable of a noumenal understanding of God. This is why religions can have different and contradictory beliefs. Hick argued that religion comes from flawed human attempts to connect with ‘the Real’.

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Hick used the philosophy of Kant in forming his pluralist theology. Kant drew a distinction between the ‘noumenal’ and the ‘phenomenal’. (A noumenal world is a world full of things as they really are, whereas the phenomenal world is the world as it appears to us.) Kant believed we are not capable of knowing God as he really is, because of our finite minds.

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Hick believed that instead of seeing Christianity as a normative absolute, and measuring other religions against Christianity, people should put ‘God’ or ‘Reality’ at the centre.

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“As soon as one does meet and come to know people of other faiths a paradox of gigantic proportions becomes disturbingly obvious.” - Hick

"The large majority of the human race who have lived and died up to the present moment have lived either before Christ or outside the borders of Christendom.” - Hick

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Hick was a strong advocate of pluralist views and was raised as an evangelical Christian, firmly convinced for the truth of Christianity. However, when he worked in Birmingham he was impressed by the faith and the service to others who belonged to other religions. Many had high commitment. For Hick, this raised a serious question, was it true that a God of love would condemn such people and deny them salvation, just because their cultural heritage was different?

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http://www.philosopherkings.co.uk/hickandpluralism.htmlhttp://www.philosopherkings.co.uk/hickandpluralism.html

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Nice to see so much on here folks.... :)

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Nice to see so much on here folks.... :)