John Hick 1922 – 2012
John Hick (1922 – 2012) was a British philosopher of the Contemporary era, associated with Analytic Philosophy.
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.
John Harwood Hick was born at Scarborough in Yorkshire in January 1922. He read law briefly at Hull before serving in the Friends Ambulance Unit during the war as a conscientious objector, then took an MA in philosophy at Edinburgh, a DPhil at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1950, and a BD at Westminster College, Cambridge. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church of England in 1953, he taught at Cornell, Princeton Theological Seminary, Cambridge, and from 1967 to 1982 Birmingham, where he was H. G. Wood Professor of Theology, before moving to the Claremont Graduate University as Danforth Professor.
His books include Faith and Knowledge (1957), Evil and the God of Love (1966), Arguments for the Existence of God (1971), God and the Universe of Faiths (1973), Death and Eternal Life (1976), the edited volume The Myth of God Incarnate (1977), An Interpretation of Religion (1989, his Gifford Lectures), The Metaphor of God Incarnate (1993), and the autobiography An Autobiography (2002).
Hick is best known for the soul-making or Irenaean theodicy, for the eschatological-verification reply to logical positivism's challenge to religious meaning, and above all for a pluralist hypothesis on which the great religions are culturally conditioned but salvifically equivalent responses to a single transcendent Real that exceeds all human concepts. The Birmingham Christian Council prosecuted him for heresy without success. He died at Birmingham in February 2012.
Key facts
- Nationality
- British
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Analytic Philosophy
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.”
John Hick by topic
Frequently asked about John Hick
- When did John Hick live?
- John Hick was born in 1922 and died in 2012.
- Where was John Hick from?
- John Hick was a British philosopher of the Contemporary era.
- What philosophical movements is John Hick associated with?
- John Hick was associated with Analytic Philosophy.
- What was John Hick known for?
- John Harwood Hick was a British philosopher of religion and one of the most influential religious thinkers of the late twentieth century.
- How many quotes are attributed to John Hick?
- There are 15 attributed quotations from John Hick in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.