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Who or What is God, According to John Hick?

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Abstract

I summarize John Hick’s pluralistic theory of the world’s great religions, largely in his own voice. I then focus on the core posit of his theory, what he calls “the Real,” but which I less tendentiously call “Godhick”. Godhick is supposed to be the ultimate religious reality. As such, it must be both possible and capable of explanatory and religious significance. Unfortunately, Godhick is, by definition, transcategorial, i.e. necessarily, for any creaturely conceivable substantial property F, it is neither an F nor a non-F. As a result, Godhick is impossible, as shown by the Self-Identity Problem, the Number Problem, and the Pairing Problem. Moreover, even if Godhick is possible, it faces the Insignificance Problem. The upshot is that, so far as I can see, John Hick’s God is unworthy of any further interest.

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Notes

  1. For critical assessment of Hick’s reasons, see Howard-Snyder (forthcoming a).

  2. Each religion also uses consistency with its belief-system as a criterion of the veridicality of religious experience, a fact that Hick ignores.

  3. Why less tendentious? Because, as we will see, to speak of Hick’s God as “the Real” is to import into its conception connotations that cannot be underwritten by its transcategoriality. I therefore use a neutral term, although “X,” which Hick sometimes uses, e.g. Hick (2010c), 75, would be even more neutral, and accurate.

  4. Hick (1989), 278–296, has a parallel discussion of the impersonae of Godhick, but no explicit application of the two models. No explicit application in Hick (2004a) either. However, at Hick (2010c), 69, we find an explicit application.

  5. At least the implication holds if we say that “x is a god,” with a little g, means by definition “x is a very powerful non-embodied rational agent” (Swinburne 1970, 53).

  6. While the revised second model avoids Hasker’s concern, it remains thoroughly polytheistic. For discussion, see Mavrodes (2000), Hick (2004a), xxvii–xxviii, (2010c), 33–35, Mavrodes (2010a), 62–69, Hick (2010c), 69–72, Mavrodes (2010b), 72–75, Hasker (2011), Hick (2011) and Howard-Snyder (forthcoming b).

  7. Four observations. (1) Plantinga (2000), 49–52, misrepresents the referential situation. (2) On the first model, for nearly any F, belief that God is F will be false since, for nearly any F, no projection can be F. (3) The angels of various religions overlap extensively; so the second model will need finessing. (4) Tricky questions about reference abound. For example, on a descriptivist theory of reference, “God” and its natural language equivalents refer on an occasion of use only if the intended referent satisfies a certain description. If the intended referent must satisfy a description that no projection or angel can satisfy, e.g. is neither imaginary nor a creature, then, on no occasion of use will “God” refer to a projection or an angel. On reference, see Reimar and Michaelson (2014).

  8. See Ward (1994), Byrne (1995), Heim (2001), Sugirtharajah (2012), Rose (2013), Eddy (2015) and Netland (2015), and the works cited in the bibliographies of these books and at http://www.johnhick.org.uk/jsite/.

  9. Of course, it’s false that “it follows” from this distinction that we cannot apply to Godhick an sich the characteristics encountered in its personae and impersonae. For critical remarks on this passage, see Quinn (2000), 229–230, with partial reply at Hick (2004a), xxii.

  10. Quinn, Insole, and Rowe say Hick does not draw the formal/substantive line in general terms (Insole 2000, 27; Quinn 2000, 232; Rowe 1999, 145).

  11. As Hick discovered from the protest to his claim that “[t]he most famous instance in western religious discourse” of a formal property “is Anselm’s definition of God as that than which no greater can be conceived” (Hick 1989, 246). Eddy (1994), 472; Ward (1990), 10; Quinn (2000), 233. Hick recanted: Hick (1995), 60, note 12, (2010c), 91.

  12. Mavrodes (2010b), 75, misrepresents Hick on negation.

  13. Hick misleads critics here. “Hick does attribute properties to [Godhick] an sich (such as being the transcendent source and cause of religious experience) that, according to his own lights, cannot apply” (Harrison 2015, 264).

  14. Hick approvingly applies Gregory of Nyssa’s words to Godhick: it is “incapable of being grasped by any term, or any idea, or any other device of our apprehension, remaining beyond the reach not only of the human but of the angelic and all supramundane intelligence” (Hick 1989, 238; quoting Against Eunomius, I:42).

  15. Yandell (1993), 194ff misses this point.

  16. Others also ignore the relevance of the contrary/contradictory distinction. See, e.g., Harrison (2015), 264.

  17. Cf. Rowe (1999), 149–150. Let’s ignore Hick’s name-calling (“dogma”), Hick’s modal confusion (Rowe asserts the necessity of the conditional, not the necessity of the consequent), and Hick’s misrepresentation (Rowe asserts that even if ‘personal’ and ‘non-personal’ are not logically interdependent, they are nevertheless necessarily interdependent).

  18. Hick’s “global religious point of view” implies the falsehood of the globe’s religions. For relevance, see Netland (1986), 255–257, Twiss (2000), 73–77, Byrne (2003), 205–206, and Netland (2012), 36–39.

  19. On my view, Godhick has to be indeterminate only with respect to its creaturely conceivable substantial properties, whereas on the view of others, it “has to be utterly indeterminate” (Smart 1993b, 62). Cf. Yandell (1993), 197.

  20. Thanks to Alex Clark for pressing me on this matter.

  21. Thanks to Hud Hudson and Frances Howard-Snyder. Cf. Yandell (1993), 197.

  22. Thanks to Frances Howard-Snyder, Hud Hudson, Alex Clark, and the audience at Borromeo Seminary in April 2016. This publication was supported through a grant from the Templeton Religion Trust. The opinions expressed in it are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Templeton Religion Trust.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, 98229, USA

    Daniel Howard-Snyder

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Howard-Snyder, D. Who or What is God, According to John Hick?. Topoi 36, 571–586 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9395-y

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