Description
Book SynopsisThis volume contains fresh scholarly contributions to mark the birth centenary of John Hick, the internationally well-known philosopher of religion, whose works continue to have significant global relevance in today’s religiously diverse and conflict-ridden world. His writings have reset the parameters of religious pluralism. Up till now, Hick’s religious pluralism has been mainly seen in relation to the Western context where Christianity is the predominant religion. This volume includes both Western and non-Western engagement with his thinking in contexts such as Japan, China, Korea, Nigeria, and India, where Christianity is a minority religion with little political power. Its distinctiveness lies in widening the debate on religious pluralism by bringing Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis into a constructive cross-cultural and interreligious conversation with scholars of Hinduism, Jainism, Daoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and African traditional religions. In doing so, this collection examines how Hick’s philosophy of religious pluralism has been received, appropriated and appraised by these scholars. It has been appreciated and critiqued in equal measure, and continues to impact on current thinking on religious pluralism. This volume makes a significant contribution to the debate initiated by Hick.
Table of ContentsPart 1 Hick’s Religious Pluralism: A Western Reappraisal
The Translucency of the Real: Revisiting John Hick’s Pluralistic Hypothesis
Religious Pluralism and Critical Realism
Pointers to Pluralism Not Relativism
Ethics and Pluralism
Jewish Pluralism and John Hick
Part II Re-envisioning Hick’s Religious Pluralism: Indic and Islamic Responses
Eating Sugar, Becoming Sugar, Both, or Neither? Eschatology and Religious Pluralism in the Thought of John Hick, Sri Ramakrishna, and S. Mark Heim
On the Shoulders of a Giant: The Re-envisioning and Reconstruction of John Hick’s Pluralistic Hypothesis
The Knowable and the Unknowable ‘Real’ in Radhakrishnan’s and Hick’s Thinking
Hick’s Theory of Religion and the Inclusive Option
Part III Hick’s Religious Pluralism: Asian and African responses
Chinese Daoism and Ultimate Reality: An Interpretation Based on John Hick’s Religious Pluralism
Hick’s religious pluralism and Korean Theology of Indigenization
Japanese Responses to Hick’s Religious Pluralism: Hick’s liberalism inherited from British Idealism
The Significance of John Hick’s Soteriological and Ethical Criteria for Religiously Pluralistic Nigeria
