Are All Religions Refractions of a Single Ultimate Reality?

Cover Photo: Cathedral Basilica, Valencia, Septeber 2019, 100ASA Film

Key Themes:

• John Hick

• Religious Pluralism

• Apophatic Theology

• Philosophy of Religion

Introduction

Pluralism is the rejection of the intrinsic superiority of any one religion (Carta, 2018, p.16). John Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis entails a radical shift of perspective in global theology; it is a meta-theory about the relation between historical religions (Hick, 1997, p.163). Rather than understand diverse world faiths through self-centredness (i.e. exclusivist/inclusivist incompatibilism), Hick suggests that refractions of a single ultimate reality create a ‘rainbow of faiths’ (1995). This essay will defend Hick’s pluralism against two themes of objection.

The first theme of discussion will consider religious language and ineffability. Based on quasi-Kantian thinking, Hick’s pluralism contends that the ultimate reality has a nature that is beyond the scope of our networks of human concepts (Hick, 1995, p.27). Hick argues that this transcategorical ineffability rationalises the ostensible conflicts between the diverse range of global religious faiths. However, William Rowe (1999) and Alvin Plantinga (2000) take issue with Hick’s position on ineffability. In short, they argue that Hick makes a false claim in saying that the Real may possess neither of many pairs of contradictory properties. In response, I propose apophatic pluralism helps counter the objections of Rowe and Plantinga while remaining faithful to Hickian principles.

The second theme of discussion will evaluate the soteriological aspect of Hick’s pluralist hypothesis. Despite rejecting the intrinsic superiority of any one religion, and thus endorsing a diverse model of faiths, Hick maintains that there is only one ultimate salvation. Stephen Mark Heim’s objection is that Hick’s attempt to aggregate world faiths soteriologically conflicts with the pluralist ideal of religious diversity (1992, 1994, 2000). Hick’s position is therefore accused by Heim of being inherently anti‑pluralist. Heim’s alternative is a “more pluralistic hypothesis” (1994); rejecting a Hickian view of unified salvation, Heim proposes religious fulfilment through distinct and concrete salvations. I contend that although there is no way to conclusively verify either Hick or Heim’s hypothesis, the pertinent problem of inconsistent revelation separates the two with regards to their inductive persuasiveness: Hick’s solution will be shown to be more compelling that Heim’s in this regard.

Hick’s Pluralistic Hypothesis

Hick offers an insightful introductory analogy in God and the Universe of Faiths (Hick, 1993, pp.120-147). Based on his research into global theological history, Hick suggests that the development of religions can be understood similarly to the Copernican Revolution. The analogy’s narrative begins with a geocentric Ptolemaic understanding, comparable to the exclusivist’s self-centredness. A single fixed explanation is provided; other explanations outside the realm of this fixed explanation seldom contain any truth. Just as the Ptolemaic planets orbit the earth, the exclusivist understands other religions in a very peripheral manner. However, through time, a ‘Copernican Revolution’ will occur within theology just as it did within astronomy from the 16th century. A radical shift in mindset transforms the Ptolemaic perspective – the earth, no longer revered as the centre of the universe, is shown to be in many respects simply another planet, itself orbiting something greater. Hick strongly implies that history will judge the Ptolemaic themes within exclusivist theology as parochial and insular. However, just as Copernicus needed to provide a new system of thought to replace the outdated, Hick must now demonstrate the rationality of his pluralist hypothesis in the absence of Ptolemaic theology. His suggestion is that just as the planets of our solar system orbit the sun in various ways, the plethora of world religions derive from a single ultimate reality: a “theo-centric” model of the universe of faiths (Knitter, 1983). This transcendent Real is refracted to mankind through human circumstance.

Let us clarify what Hick means by refractions. Our worldly religious experiences are re‑understood as the product of the noumenal Real being refracted through culturally shaped lenses (the phenomenal world). Hick clarifies that his religious epistemology is not Kantian (Hick, 1989, pp.242-43); however, the phenomenal-noumenal distinction largely captures the type of structural relationship between mankind and the Real that Hick advocates. Our own conceptual systems shape the way we, to a partial extent, engage with the Ultimate Reality (Hick, 2000, pp.40). These conceptual systems depend on ethnicity, culture, historical context, climate (Hick, 1993, p.138) – in other words, birthplace and upbringing are very strong determinants of a person’s faith. Indeed, Hick notes that it is “evident fact” (1993, p.132) that if, for instance, he was born to a Muslim family in Pakistan or Hindu family in India, he would very likely not be a Christian. The crux of Hick’s point here has strong Bahá’í influences: his suggestion is that an objective onlooker of earth would likely see a range of exclusivist communities and conclude that they are all thinking in a restricted way (Hick, 2001, p.3). Our worldly religious experiences (God(s), divine revelation, dharma etc.) are therefore “veridical hallucinations” (Hick, 1989, p.273). This phrase is particularly insightful – it highlights that although the refractions are hallucinations in that they are not comprehensively authentic, they nonetheless originate from the Real and therefore contain some divine veracity.

This reinterpretation of the global religious experience would perhaps be less complex if there was a high degree of similarity between world faiths. Unfortunately, this is not so. Many world faiths advocate mono-theism: a single God as the apex of their theological system (examples include Allah, Yahweh and God within Abrahamic religions, Tian or Shangdi in Chinese Shang-Zhou theology (Chang, 2000), Waaq in Cushitic East Africa (Abdullahi, 2001, p.65) and various Hindu denominations et cetera). Polytheism, animism and pantheism all offer radically contrasting interpretations on the nature of their respective deities. Non-theistic faiths vary further still. I need not enumerate the vast diversity of positions to demonstrate the immense challenge that Hick faces in his attempt to aggregate the plethora of world faiths through a noumenal ultimate reality.

Hick’s solution hinges on the ineffable nature of the Real (Hick, 2000, pp.35-41). The ultimate reality is, for Hick, transcategorical: unlike our experience of the phenomenal world that may be semantically taxonomised, the noumenal is beyond worldly description. Therefore, the conceptual polarities and dualisms that may be constructed by comparing world faiths simply do not apply to the Real (Hick, 1995, pp.27-28); Hick argues that two ostensibly incongruous religious principles may both provide relevant, fractional, non-intrinsic insights into the nature of the Real. Hick’s understanding of dualisms in relation to the ineffable Real is an aspect of his pluralist position that has attracted criticism; this will later be discussed through the work of Rowe (1999) and Plantinga (2000).

Soteriology (considerations of salvation) represents another important theme within Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis. The soteriological structure that Hick proposes is one of unison – indeed, Hick’s position, described as “soteriocentrism” by Knitter, (1987, p.187), argues that the only possible unity between religions must be eschatological (Hick, 1993, p.130) i.e. concerning an existence after and beyond our current reality. Fegert’s analogy of a pluralist model of soteriology, such as Hick’s, depicts a mountain (Fegert, 2013, pp.499-500): the peak of the mountain represents salvation, with many paths denoting different religious denominations – all paths are valid means of reaching this single celestial pinnacle.

Hick’s theory of eschatological verificationism plays an important role within his pluralist soteriology. Hick is a firm advocate of religious realism, in contrast to a non-realist or naturalist stance on religion. By religious realist, I mean that Hick contends that religious faith involves cognitive content which makes meaningful attempts to refer to real states of affairs. The verifiability or decidability of this religious cognitive content is ambiguous from our phenomenal epistemological perspective; however, it will later become possible, post‑mortem, to verify our religious claims as we reach a unified, eschatological status (Heim, 1992, pp.207-208). Advancing Fegert’s analogy, one can envisage a diverse range of theists at the peak of the eschatological mountain, each reflecting together upon the multifaceted, but ultimately unified journey of moral and spiritual development. That said, in the meantime, Hick stresses that we may nonetheless make some “pragmatic and provisional discernments” (Heim, 1992, p.208) concerning the validity of religious practice. Hick supposes that if we can define salvation in a “very concrete way”, then the moral fruits of spiritual development may act as criteria on which we may appraise the great world faiths (Hick, 1995, p.17). Following on from this view, Hick contends that these moral fruits clearly suggest the following: all world faiths are unanimously concerned with ‘salvation-liberation’ (Hick, 1995, p.18). This hybrid term refers to Hick’s portrayal of eschatology as the fundamental common purpose of every global faith: “the transformation of human existence from self-centredness to Reality-centeredness” (Hick, 1989, p.300) that occurs within any worldly religious refraction of the Real. Since other “great religions” display this process of ‘salvation-liberation’ to a roughly equal extent, no religion can be said to be intrinsically superior to another (Hick, 1995, p.18). Hick’s theory of eschatological verificationism therefore goes hand-in-hand with his pluralistic hypothesis; yet, this aspect of his view is contentious and will later be evaluated with reference to the objections of S.M. Heim (1992, 1994, 2000).

Objections from Rowe and Plantinga

I have chosen to categorise the objections of William Rowe (1999) and Alvin Plantinga (2000) together, since I believe there is a great deal of similarity in the two critiques. Let us begin with an examination of Rowe’s objection. It begins with a distinction between contrary and contradictory property dualisms (Rowe, 1999, p.147). Contrary properties are differing, but not proper opposites e.g. the dualism of green versus red. Contradictory properties are proper opposites e.g. the dualism of green versus not-green. Recall Hick’s position on ineffability: he claims that the Real is beyond the scope of our networks of human concepts (Hick, 1995, p.27). For instance, if the Real is experienced as personal in religion X and non‑personal in religion Y, neither side of this dualism can be said to truly comprehend the intrinsic nature of the real (Rowe, 1999, p.146). Thus, although the viewpoints of both religion X and religion Y are valid, the Real cannot be said to be either personal or non‑personal.

Herein lies a contentious aspect of Hick’s pluralism. Rowe argues that all things must possess one or the other of two contradictory properties (1999, p.146). Rowe understands this as a simple logical truism; in the same way that the law of non-contradiction entails that any entity Q cannot simultaneously possess both property P and not-P, it is surely a given that any entity Q cannot simultaneously possess neither property P nor not-P. Prima facie, Hick’s original conception of the ineffable nature of the real provides some response to Rowe: Hick’s view is simply that conceptual dualisms cannot suitably describe the ultimate reality (Hick, 1995, p.64): the question of whether the Real is P or not-P assumes that the Real is the type of thing that could be suitably described as P or not-P (Hick, 1995, p.61). The question is thus a misleading and senseless one. Rowe, anticipating this response, objects to Hick’s unsuitability reply (Rowe, 1999, p.147-8). Consider an analogous example of an unsuitable question concerning contradictory properties: ‘is the number two green or not-green?’. Rowe recognises this is a clearly senseless question if asked by anyone that knows that no number can be green. However, the senselessness of the question does not imply the falsehood of the proposition that the number two is not-green. In fact, it is precisely because ‘two’ is the type of thing (a number) that cannot possess the type of property in question (colour), it must of necessity be not-green (Rowe, 1999, p.148). Let us apply Rowe’s reasoning to one of Hick’s examples. Take the question, ‘is the Real personal or non-personal?’. Suppose, as Hick suggests, that the Real is the type of thing (an ineffable transcendence) that cannot possess the type of property in question (personality or non-personality); hence, Rowe reasons that it must of necessity be not-personal. Rowe concludes that this creates a serious difficulty for Hick’s pluralistic assessment – in this instance, Hick’s pluralism would seem to favour faiths that advocate non-personal absolutes (1999, p.149).

Plantinga presents a very similar objection. Plantinga’s objection begins with a clarification of Hick’s position on ineffability: “Hick’s claim about the Real is not that none of our concepts apply to it…; that is clearly incoherent. [Hick’s] claim, instead, is that only our formal concepts and terms and our negative concepts and terms apply to it” (Plantinga, 2000, p.47). Let us focus on these formal properties: these are logically necessary statements about the essential nature of all things. Examples include being self-identical, existing, and being such that 7+5=12. Crucially, Plantinga claims that the following is a necessary formal property: ‘possesses either property P or not-P’. Plantinga understands property dualisms in terms of a property (P) and its complement (not-P): every property has a corresponding complement. Therefore, similarly to Rowe, Plantinga contends that it is a formal property of all things, including the Real, that it is logically impossible to have neither property P nor not-P. It follows from this that because, qua Hick, the Real cannot be said to have any positive nonformal property P, then for any positive property P of which we have a grasp, the Real has not-P (Plantinga, 2000, p.48). His exemplar property is ‘being a tricycle’. Since it would be unsuitable to describe the Real with the property ‘being a tricycle’, then ‘it is not a tricycle’ applies literally to it: “it could hardly be neither a tricycle nor a non-tricycle, nor do I think that Hick would want to suggest that it could” (Plantinga, 2000, p.45).

Response to Objections from Rowe and Plantinga

I begin the response with Hick’s reply (2000) to Rowe. The reply will then be applied to Plantinga’s objection and bolstered with an examination of apophatic pluralism, a hypothesis which I understand to be Hickian in character.

A brief summary of Rowe’s objection is provided by Hick: “Rowe insists that if the Real cannot possibly be personal, because it is not the sort of thing that could be personal, then clearly it is non-personal” (Hick, 2000, p.42). Hick responds to this objection by, to an extent, biting the bullet and accepting the claim as a purely formal truth. However, Hick defends his pluralist hypothesis by claiming, contrary to Rowe, that nothing significant follows from this formal truth. Hick’s reply accepts that in ordinary circumstances, the statement “X is not personal” does logically imply that “X is a non-personal reality”. However, considerations of the ultimate reality are extraordinary circumstances; the Real is not within a domain in which that logical implication applies (Hick, 2000, p.43). Note the apophatic tones within Hick’s emphasis of this point: “one may say that the Real is non‑green, non-large, non-intelligent, non-French and so on ad infinitum, as well as non-personal, simply because it is not the kind of reality that could have any of these attributes. But none of this tells us anything significant about the nature of the Real in itself” (Hick, 2000, p.42).

A very similar argument equally responds to Plantinga’s objection. I contend that, contrary to Plantinga, the property “possesses either P or not-P” is not an essential formal property. Rather, it is a property that applies to all contingent entities; this, of course, excludes the transcendent ultimate reality.

My advocacy of Hick’s ineffability hypothesis does, however, benefit from further vindication. A crucial principle of Hick’s pluralism is that all world faiths may describe the ultimate reality in such a way that despite being limited, nonetheless possesses substance. We are rationally compelled to ask, ‘how can limited or fragmentary descriptions of the Real possess substance?’. Answering this question, I propose a form of apophatic pluralism. Apophatic theology aims to enrich the understanding of the divine by understanding what the divine is not. Apophatic theology seems to be the perfect solution in a world where “we cannot speak of the Real an sich in literal terms” (Hick, 1989, 351).

Kenneth Rose astutely explains why apophatic principles enhance pluralism. Echoing Hick’s observations regarding the circumstantial influences on religion (Hick, 1993, p.138), Rose notes that religious faith is “sensitive” (Rose, 2013, p.69); language and customs are “inextricably rooted” in any human understanding of the divine. Therefore, the apophatic claim that no human verbal formula represents a final or normative depiction of the Real (Rose, 2013, p.69) strengthens the pluralist’s egalitarian meta-theology. Rose even claims that in the absence of any possible religious absolutism, apophatic pluralism becomes a “practical necessity for an ethical and reasonable religious life” (Rose, 2013, p.70). Moreover, I interpret his description of the “departicularisation” (Rose, 2013 p.71) of religious practice to be consistent with Hick’s vision of a Copernican Revolution in theology (Hick, 1993, p.120-147).

In a recent paper, Giuseppe Carta has further expounded the benefits of an apophatic pluralism (Carta, 2018). He argues that apophatic pluralism captures the most significant aspect of any pluralist doctrine – this not only includes the work of Hick, but also other significant pluralists such as Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Nasr, 2000). What these pluralist approaches share is their belief that “while revealed truth is final, its interpretations are not” due to the epistemic limitations of human language and discursive reason (Carta, 2018, p.22-3). To summarise, the way that apophatic pluralism supports my advocacy of Hick’s hypothesis is two‑fold: firstly, it deflates the normative ultimacy of Ptolemaic exclusivism; secondly, counter to the concern that ineffability disparages religious language, apophatic pluralism gives substance to religious practice in Hick’s world of refractions.

Objections from Heim

Stephen Mark Heim has critically written on Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis many times. This essay will focus on the objections made in Salvations: A More Pluralistic Hypothesis (1994). As the title suggests, Heim proposes that the endorsement of a variety of soteriological ends is both more pluralist and more rationally compelling than Hick’s endorsement of a unified soteriological structure. In other words, Heim’s hypothesis “presumes an open set of varied religious ends available for realisation rather than presume that all faith-fulfilments do in fact reduce to one” (Heim, 1994, p.346). I structure Heim’s argument into two central points. Firstly, he notes that his pluralistic hypothesis is just as much a possibility as Hick’s hypothesis. Secondly, he argues that his hypothesis performs better when evaluated against pluralist criteria.

Heim’s first point begins by asking the question, ‘What metaphysical assumptions would be consistent with regarding many of these varying [religious] accounts as substantially and currently truthful?’ (Heim, 1994, p.346). His answer to this question facilitates his claim that his own hypothesis is equally viable to Hick’s. His answer is that the noumenal real enables the attainment of our worldly religious fulfilments. Crucially, this does not rule out the possibility that there are “various realities and ends in the noumenal real which are religiously significant” (Heim, 1994, p.346). In other words, both views give high priority to the claim that religious fulfilment is equally available to all (Heim, 1994, p.347). Heim tackles the very intuitive problem of contradiction that arises with this pluralistic eschatology. Take the examples of nirvana and communion with God. Granted, these two eschatological conceptions are contradictory if we assume that one or the other must be the sole fate of all humanity. However, rejecting this assumption, Heim makes the point that although they cannot both the true at the same time for the same person, they may both be true for different people or perhaps the same person at different times (Heim, 1994, pp.352-353). Fegert describes Heim’s pluralist model as a mountain range: each mountain has its own path of practice and its own soteriological peak (Fegert, 2013, pp.499-500). Thus, “we are not competitors for the same thing. We are seekers after various things” (Heim, 1985, p.150).

Secondly, Heim makes the case that, in addition to being equally viable to the Hickian view, his hypothesis is more pluralistic. Because Heim presents a diverse model of soteriology, religious denominations and their distinct and concrete features can be understood “as they actually exist as the objects of affirmation, rather than a subordinate to a postulated absolute (Heim, 1994, p.347). Hence, Heim contends that Hick’s aggregation of the diverse plethora of religious practices into a non-diverse, unified soteriological end is problematic. Particular religious practices are inextricably linked to particular soteriological ends; indeed, “a religious end or aim is defined by a set of practices, images, stories and conceptions” (Heim, 1994, p.348). Grace Jantzen reinforces this point that a “monolithic” conception of salvation fails to recognise that religious salvations vary hugely in their “antecedent condition (from what we are saved), their methods (how we are saved), and their goals (to what we are saved)” (Jantzen, 1984, p.580). Therefore, Hick’s attempt to dovetail religious practice towards a unified eschatology is deemed clumsy. A particularly crucial example of this is highlighted by Heim: Hick inappropriately attempts to identify a mutual moral transformation “visible in the given saints of a religion” (Hick, 1981, p.463), when in fact there are apparent religious fulfilments other than moral transformation (Heim, 1994, p.350). Consequentially, Hick’s understanding of ‘salvation-liberation’ as an all‑inclusive depiction of global eschatology is assessed as mistaken.

Response to Objections from Heim

My response to Heim’s objection can be summarised as follows: both hypotheses are, theoretically possible – however, Hick’s hypothesis provides a much more inductively compelling response to the highly significant problem of inconsistent revelation.

Inspired by Yong Huang’s 1995 article Beyond Universalism and Particularism, my response to Heim’s objection entails the acceptance of the fact that the perspective or “cosmic vision” (Huang, 1995, p.132) required to demonstrate the truth of either Hick or Heim’s hypothesis is not possible on the basis of our limited present experience. Both Hick and Heim share a mutual understanding that both of their theories are ultimately speculative; this is to be expected with any meta-theology concerning the noumenal reality. Huang evidences this mutual understanding (Huang, 1995, p.133). He refers to Hick’s admission that Heim’s particularism is possible because many divine forms “could co-exist without contradiction” (Hick, 1989, p.234). Huang examines this claim alongside Heim’s recognition of “the possibility that some faiths, at least, might be forms of the same thing” (Heim, 1985. p.30). With both theories unanimously agreed as rational possibilities, the debate can only be concluded with an evaluation of how inductively compelling the two hypotheses are.

I propose that Hick’s hypothesis provides a more inductively compelling response to the problem of inconsistent revelations. Consider the following question: why has God (to use Christian terms) revealed himself to some and not others? Surely, matters of transcendent salvation ought not be influenced by blatantly arbitrary geo-historical borders. A meta‑theology that is capable of answering this meta-theological question is more thorough than one that is incapable of answering the question. Therefore, Hick and Heim’s pluralistic hypotheses may be evaluated on the adequacy of their answer to this question. Hick, on this evaluation, scores excellently. This question is at the heart of Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis (Hick, 1993, pp.121‑122) and hence his theory provides a very direct and compelling answer: the appearance of inconsistent revelation is, in fact, one ultimate reality revealed in a variety of ways through culturally shaped lenses.

In contrast, Heim’s particularist pluralism provides no obvious and satisfying answer to this problem of inconsistent divine revelation. With each source of divine truth, the problem becomes more inductively compelling and problematic. Perhaps, in conventional non‑pluralist circumstances featuring one source of divine truth, some rational response to the problem may be provided. In contrast, Heim’s acceptance of many sources of divine truth greatly complexifies the problem of inconsistent revelation. It is this problem that clarifies my conclusion that Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis is more inductively compelling than that of Heim’s.

Conclusion

To conclude, I have defended Hick’s pluralist hypothesis against two themes of objection. Firstly, I advocated Hick’s understanding of the ineffable nature of the Real. His reply to William Rowe’s objection is equally effective in rebutting Plantinga’s. Moreover, I demonstrated how the principles of apophatic pluralism further strengthen Hick’s hypothesis. Secondly, I considered the objection of Stephen Mark Heim. Although Heim makes noteworthy points regarding the rational possibility of a diverse range of soteriological ends, I argued that his theory offers a less compelling response to the problem of inconsistent revelation.

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