ABSTRACT
The published works of John Hick have invariably aroused controversy, and his belief in universal salvation and understanding of the different areas relevant to that theory had received a great deal of criticism. It is evident that the God of love is at the very heart of Hick's belief in universal salvation. Hick's theodicy attempts to demonstrate that our world with all its injustice and suffering could be the creation of a loving God, and indeed that this would be the best possible world for such a God to have created. Epistemic distance is essential to Hick's theodicy and to his theory of universal salvation. Hick demonstrates that the Bible teaching concerning the afterlife is not unequivocal and there is at least grounds for a universalist hope. Chester Gillis writes, that Hick's universalism 'could easily be interpreted to mean that there is a predeterminism from the beginning towards salvation'.
