John Hick - teolog religijnego pluralizmu

Abstract

Hick claims that in a modern theology of religions there should be a shift from an exclusive paradigm into a pluralistic one. The exclusive model is based on the belief that Jesus Christ is the only mediator of salvation and that there is no salvation outside the Church. The pluralistic model, on the other hand, recognizes equal authenticity and soteriological value of all other religions. Hick justifies his revolutionary opinions by highlighting a dissonance between two basic Christian axioms. The first one says that God wants everybody to be saved and the second one adds that the latter can only be had through Jesus Christ as the only mediator with God. Furthermore, Hick goes on to say that the Revelation of God in Christ is not an ultimate one and that Christ himself was only one of many religious figures in history who was given divine features. According to Hick in Christian theology there has been an unjustified transition from a metaphorically understood son of God to a metaphysical understanding of Christ as God the Son, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. The study of Hick’s conception pointed out the pluralistic hipothesis adjusts separate religions into a one meta-theory and changes their image. In consequence the religions are presented differently from how they perceive themselves. Moreover, it is impossible to sustain the conviction about the God’s universal will of salvation without the Christological dogma. It was Jesus who revealed the Truth about God and that Truth can only be affirmed through his Divine authority. There are other difficulties in accepting the pluralistic hipothesis because the perciving of God as a Person contradicts the principal beliefs of buddism and hinduism. The conviction that the ultimate Reality is the God of love could be questioned if there are many other authentic images of that Reality. It must be added that there are than no criteria which would allow to decide which one of them is the true one. Finally, one can only conclude that Hick’s philosophy cannot be treated as a Christian theology of religion because by placing Christianity in a wider pluralistic paradigm it denies one of the essential truth of faith: the Christological dogma.