John Hick 1922 – 2012
John Harwood Hick was a British philosopher of religion and one of the most influential religious thinkers of the late twentieth century. Trained at Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge, he held chairs at Birmingham and at the Claremont Graduate School in California. His Faith and Knowledge, Evil and the God of Love, and An Interpretation of Religion developed a soul-making theodicy and a celebrated pluralist hypothesis according to which the great religions are different culturally conditioned responses to the same ultimate Reality. He engaged in vigorous public dialogue with Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu thinkers and shaped a generation of philosophy of religion.
Key facts
- Nationality
- British
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Analytic
Selected quotes
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Attributed to John Hick:
“All the great religions are different responses to the same ultimate Reality.”
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Attributed to John Hick:
“Suffering is the matrix of soul-making.”
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Attributed to John Hick:
“Religious experience is the human encounter with the Real.”
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Attributed to John Hick:
“No religion can claim a monopoly on truth.”
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Attributed to John Hick:
“Faith is the interpretive element in religious experience.”