ABSTRACT

Probably John Hick's greatest contribution is his philosophy of religious pluralism. Hick has emerged from his Judeo-Christian framework to formulate a comprehensive hypothesis that seeks to construct a global philosophy of religion. Applying Hick's pluralistic explorations to the eschatological 'experience', it appears that in the initial stages of postmortem life, the adherents to the major world faiths will encounter the religious objects of their various expectations. Hick places the Real in the second category when he says that the Real is trans-categorial, or beyond description. This chapter briefly looks at Hick's treatment of the problem of evil and compares this with his response to the problems of religious diversity. It suggests that Hick's solution to the problem of evil is dissimilar to his solution to the problem of religious diversity. Hick's interpretation of religion is a 'religious interpretation', that is, one might say that its realm of discourse is within the concerns of religions themselves.