جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « john hick » در نشریات گروه « فلسفه و کلام »

The main issue of the current research is the accurate representation of the nature of faith through the analysis of the views of Allameh Tabatabai and John Hick, one of the famous contemporary thinkers. In this article, with a theoretical approach and a descriptive-analytical method, the comparative study of Allameh and Hick's views on the representation of the nature of faith is discussed, and after that, criticisms are presented to both views. The findings of the research show that Allameh explains the structure of faith from an intra-religious method and introduces faith consisting of two components of knowledge and commitment. On the other hand, Hick enters the category of faith from an extra-religious method and represents it as an interpretive element that is achieved voluntarily and arising from religious experiences. Allameh introduces knowledge as one of the components of faith, while Hick considers philosophical proofs to prove God to be unsuccessful and puts forward religious experience only to defend the rationality of religious faith. Of course, there are commonalities such as voluntariness and orderliness of faith in the two views.

Suhrawardi and John Hick, as Islamic and Western philosophers respectively, have discussed the problem of evil with specific theories and foundations; "The theory of the nothingness of evil, the necessary additional state of evil with regard to the superior good, the natural world, and the human free will" can be considered as one of Suhrawardi's solutions to the problem of evil. John Hick, with the theodicy "Education of the Soul", free will and relativity of evil, tries to provide an appropriate answer to this problem and prove the noncontradiction between evil and God's attributes. Each has offered solutions to the problem of evil in the world. The research method in this study is the descriptive-analytical librarian method. The method for data-processing is librarian and surveying the two thinkers views. Explanation and comparative study of their intellectual foundations and their approaches to the problem, the problem of research and comparison and evaluation of their specific solutions, while maintaining the main theorems, made it clear that no contradictions and inconsistencies may be found between their essential views.

Given the multiplicity of religions in our time and the claim that each of them is based on legitimacy and salvation, different approaches have been proposed to such claims, especially in the present age, which is mainly based on the West. Christian theology, which has seen itself more than any other religion in the face of followers of different religions and schools of thought, and on the other hand emphasizes the legitimacy and salvation, now faces the serious issue that claimants of other religions have the same claim and therefore, it must either stand up to its serious opponents or recognize their plurality and somehow submit to religious pluralism. What has happened in the West is the recent form of the problem, which is more closely linked to the efforts of the contemporary Christian theologian John Hick. From the perspective of John Hick, the multiplicity of religions is recognized and he contributes to their legitimacy and salvation. Causes such as the development of communication, association with followers of different religions, the decline of spirituality and in some cases the irrational theories in the paradoxical nature of Christianity, monopoly and other causes is the main factors tend to religious pluralism and strengthen the foundations of this attitude. The authors of this article, considering the importance of the subject, seek to induce those causes and, as far as possible, by examining some of the criticisms against them, seek to paint a perspective on the reason why Muslim theologians do not like this kind of thought.

The problem of evil is a rational problem for theism. The root of this problem is to ask why the omnipotent and absolute benevolent God creates evil or does not prevent its genesis. John Hick explains and justifies evil by proposing the theory of Soul-Making. He argues that the omnipotent and absolute benevolent God can create a world in which there is no evil and has complete control over its creatures, especially human beings, but in this case, the world will become a stagnant place, and its inhabitants will be caught up in the indolence and comforting of the body, which will be incompatible with God's purposes. He also agrees with Iranaeus in his theory that human beings are created imperfect and evolve in the long process of creation, which is accompanied by pain and affliction. John Hick uses both types of moral and natural evil to explain his theory. In the field of moral evils, he emphasizes the authority and freedom of man, which have been granted to him by God. Because in his view, a world in which free beings can freely choose goods and through which the growth of moral and spiritual virtues can be achieved is better than a world in which the non-committed sin (moral evil) is more valuable than freedom. Of Course, Hick believes that man has an epistemological distance from God that man must be able to attain religious growth in situations where he has relative independence from God. Hick believes that God's reason for prescribing natural evils is that their fulfillment is necessary and that they exalt  human soul and acquire his moral acts in such a way that man obtains virtues such as compassion, empathy, devotion, and so on by experiencing evils. He also appeals to the afterlife and compensation in the other world to justify some evils that have no benefit for human beings in this world. David Griffin, a philosopher of religion, considers Hick's view as inconsistent and indefensible and notes some fundamental critiques about his theory. Griffin believes that the situation in the world, which includes many horrible evils, is incompatible with the belief in Hick's omnipotent God because God must exercise his power to prevent the evils by seeing them. Such evils not only do not exalt the human soul but also cause despair and mental defect in humans. He believes that there is no correlation between the acquisition of values and virtues with real freedom in Hick theory. Because God can create human beings in such a way that they always do good deeds freely or instill in them the idea that they are free, while only God is aware of their lack of freedom. Griffin sees Hick's view in justifying evil as a kind of promoting immortality because his concern is to create virtues in exchanges for enduring evils. He believes that Hick's view requires the denial of the genuine evil, which is contrary to the conventional understanding and common sense of the man. Finally, according to Griffin, Hick's belief in the resurrection is incompatible with justifying the unjustified evils, because the God of Hick has an epistemological distance from man, for whom the existence of God does not seem obvious for believing.

The present study examines John Hick’s view of death and examines it with regard to Allama’s comment of the Quranic verses. The research method is library-based and comparative. Research findings show that Hick puts forward his theory as recreative theory, and rejects the belief in human Immaterial soul and ascribe humanity to the body. And, therefore, Hick says: Death is complete destruction of man and after the death, God with His infinite power create man again. As Hick in his theory of recreation views the hereafter body of man to be just the same as the earthly body and rejects human immaterial soul, may not be able to explain the problem of this is just the same as that, so he refers to the customary concept of "the same person" which does not solve the problem of identity. According to the verses of the Qur’an, as the truth of human existence is the set of the soul and the body, then if the soul is the same as the soul, but the body is not like it, the harmony of personality would not be established.

The issue of history has a long history of philosophical thinking, and one of the most important and challenging issues among philosophers and theologians is that in the most pessimistic case, God denies God, and in the most optimistic case, there has been a violation of certain attributes of God. For example, evil, and especially the excessive evil of absolute power and God's merciful wills. The purpose of this writing is to study the logical problem of evil and solve it from the perspective of the two Islamic and Western thinkers, Professor Motahari and John Hick. John Hick also believes in the mighty creator who created the best possible universe, while Hicker's view is that he is evil and develops the theory of "cultivating the soul," and the purpose of God is to create evil, to uplift human beings and He introduces his spiritual growth and makes it an agent of perfection. But talking about an unsolved problem and an "unknotted knot" in the name of evil exaggerates, and finally, the wisdom of evil is "mysterious", in other words, unconscious and beyond comprehension.

Various opinions and theories have appeared about the ontological question of good and evil from the time of Aristotle to now. This issue got more sensitive from the time it was considered to be a variable against the existence of God and his attributes. Some deem the existence of evil as the main and the only reason to deny the existence of God, while others have a view contradictory to this belief. In the eyes of John Hick and Augustine, evil is an existential entity. Influenced by the Irenaean theodicy, Hick gives in a new form to the definition of evil. Hick believes that evil is the lack of good and God is not the cause of evil, and introduces evil as a negative entity within a causal specification framework. With the provision of this theory, the casual principles also achieved special importance. In the study at hand, we investigate and criticize the metaphysical question of evil and its relationship with the existence of God from the viewpoint of John Hick. To this end, first the principles of good and evil are presented and then, the important question of “the role of evil in the causal structure of creation” in Hick’s and Augustine’s perspectives is examined. The purpose of this study is to assert that the main and hidden reason for the existence of evil cannot be justified and understood and as Hick notes, we should confess that the world of being in general and evil in particular are mysterious

One of the main issues in explaining the phenomenon of diversity of religions in the world is the issue of religions ranking; i. e. the question of whether religions are essentially comparable or not! And if it is comparable, what is the criterion and criterion of this comparison? It seems that the border between two different positions in explaining the phenomenon of religious plurality, namely relativism and religious pluralism, comes from the accuracy of the issue of religions ranking. In this article, we will speak of two main representatives of these two trends by proposing and examining this problem and among the religious relativists we refer to Ernest Troeltsch and to John Hick from religious pluralism. This article seeks to put these two theories together and remind them of their similarities and reveal their fundamental differences. Briefly, it can be noted that the major similarity between Troeltsch and Hick is to rely on cultural categories in the consistency of religious awareness, while the fundamental difference between them is the observation of objectivity or subjectivity in their grading criteria. In the end, Hick claims that although religions are comparable in principle, but practically the result of this comparing is the equivalence of religion’s Truth-claims, while Troeltsch says it's basically impossible to compare religions, اowever, in his original statements, he clearly states that in practice, Christianity is superior to other religions. Of course, in his later remarks, he reviews this result and claims that religions are only relative in absolute terms and he claims absolute religions are relative only.

John Hick believes Evil is an existential matter and has explained the Theodicy to justify and define it which gives it a new form. There are various views and theories about the existence of God, evil and good. Some believe the existence of evil is the most important and the single factor which causes the denial of God and some believers disagree. The metaphysical matter of evil and its relation with God's existence is discussed and criticized in this article. I will focus on John Hick's answer to the matter of evil; therefore I will present a report of the principles of evil and good from the perspective of John Hick to find the answer to this question: "what is the role of evil in the causal structure of universe". The purpose of this writing is to explain that there is no contradiction between the creation of the world by God and the existence of evils, and God is not the cause of evils and also the existence of evil is based on the Divine providence and necessity; but John Hick says we cannot understand the expediency of existence of evil and this is a mysterious matter for human.

John Hick, a contemporary philosopher of analytical philosophy of religion, discusses about the reasons for the existence of different conceptions of God and impossibility of accessing the concept of God, which is reviewed in the present paper. First, the paper mentions the differentiation between the concept of God and conception of God, and basic features of different conceptions of God, based on Hick's principles, i.e. differentiation between Kant's noumen and phenumen, New Wittgenstein's "seeing as", and ineffability of God. Then it proves that Kant's differentiation can only help us to justify the differentiation between the concept of God and conception of God, not to defend accessibility of the concept of God, because there is no way to grasp the noumen of God, according to such differentiation. Furthermore, there is no pure experience to help us to talk about the concept of God; rather, we always have some conceptions of God, based on New Wittgenstein's view. God's ineffability also multiplies the problem of our experience of Him and causes different conceptions of God. Finally, the paper refers to the results of Hick's view such as his success in differentiating between the concept of God and conception of God, justifying the existence of different conceptions of God, opening a way to criticize and study Christian teachings, defending religious plurality, and his approximation to the panentheistic conception of God.

The problem of evil is one of the important problems considered in the philosophy of religion. This paper considers the problem of evil from the viewpoint of the contemporary philosopher, John Hick, and explores his arguments for proving the compatibility between the evil in the world and the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient God. By analyzing Hick’s viewpoint about the relationship between evil and free will, this paper demonstrates that Hick negates irreparable evil, and emphasizes not only that the existence of evil cannot be considered as a barrier to human evolution from the philosophical perspective, but also that those human capabilities which cannot be activated because of the existence of evil in the earthly life will be activated in the afterlife.

The question of the “meaning of life” has always studied by philosophers like John Hick and led them to make an explanation regarding their philosophical bases about it. John Hick mentions “the meaning of life” in his work based on the concepts he borrows from Wittgenstein and Kant and states that the meaning of life depends on an interrelation between the human and the world. Thus, he inevitably talks about the world as a place in which the human experiences his life and then he relates the explanation of the world to the cosmic optimism. He, then, thinks that the cosmic optimism depends on religious beliefs. Therefore, he makes a turn from the question of “the meaning of life” to the question of “the world’s nature” and then, from the “world’s nature” to “the religious features which give us better judgments about the world”. The article is going to explain his point of view about the meaning of life regarding his ideas about critical realism and then, is going to consider the results and notes about it such as being allocated merely to Abrahamic religions, being not general and being no implication between cosmic optimism and religious belief.

In recent centuries, the issue of evil has been logically and contextually discussed against the existence of God and criticisms have been leveled to religious teachings. Philosophers and theologians suggest different solutions among which are Hick, the idea of theodicy of spiritual cultivation proposed by a Christian philosopher and theologian and Allame Tabatabaii’s belief that evil is not-existent and has to do with the material world and man’s free will. Despite having some similarities, these two views about justice have fundamental differences. This paper makes a comparison between these two views, sheds light on the different aspects of this question and provides a new solution.

One of the important issues in philosophy of mind is mind-body relationship. In this regard، there are two views: Monism and Dualism. Based on Dualism، human beings have two aspects: physical body and immaterial mind; on the contrary Monism holds that there is only one kind of ultimate substance by which the human beings are constituted. Though Mullasadra and John Hick، from two different philosophical traditions، both believe in the two aspects، as this article wants to prove، Mullasadra’s view is monistic، however not in its prominent meaning in philosophy of mind; his view is a novel one based on his philosophical views. John Hick is a substantial dualist. He advocates his view at the cost of rejection of mind-brain identity theory and also epiphenomenalism. Nevertheless، aside his view on mind-body relationship، most of his theories are similar to Mullasadra’s theory، namely، believing in two different aspects for human beings، mind emergence procedure، mind immateriality، human physical initial creation، interrelation of mind and body، and their effects on each other

The purpose of this paper is to compare Hick’s pluralism with Plntinga’s exclusivism concerning religious diversity. In explaning his pluralistic approach، Hick introduces problems of Christian exclusivism and inclusivism and contends that the only way to get rid of these challenges، is the theological revolution of the «Christ-centered» to «God-centered» by means of a religious pluralism. He holds that the apparent differences between religions and their claims arising of negligence from the symbolic language of religion. Plantinga contrary to Hick، differs between religions as a reason for the contradictory stance of pluralism، and sees the legitimacy of religious exclusivism. In explaining and defending his exclusivistic position، he rejects both moral and epistemological criticisms. Finally through his «proper function theory» and through borrowing from the «Aquinas- Calvin Model» Plantinga tried to justify the validity of their religious exclusivism. By comparing these two views and their principles and arguments، it seems that، both views on major issues، particularly in terms of epistemological justification، are confronted with some problem. However، it seems that Hick''s theory، for the emphasis on the aspect of the tolerance between faiths، is more attractive than Plantinga’s religious exclusivism.

John Hick (English philosopher of religion) is the first theorist who invalidated the theory of exclusivism and believes in pluralism of truth and salvation in all religions. On the other hand, although Sadr al-Din Shirazi are not among pluralists, he thinks that the most of the people will be saved and just stubborn deniers and blamed ignorant, that are a few, won’t be saved. In this study, the relevance and relationship of the truth and salvation from the view of these two intellectuals have been explained and considered.

The present study seeks to explain and analyse some of the fundamentals of Hick’s discussion of the problem of evil or theodicy. In this study, while analysing John Hick’s solution to the problem of the existence of evil in the world, we will see that he begins his exposition of the discussion of theodicy by interpreting the notion of primordial fall (and sin) as a myth and opines that moral evils results from the existential requisites of epistemic distance and free will in man. In his opinion, the acquisition of virtues and perfection soul cannot be attained except through confronting evils. In order to workout his solution to theodicy Hick resorts to some of the important elements in his theology, viz. the themes of eschatology, purgatory, and successive lives after death. However, the theological foundation of Hick’s theory implies false consequences stemming from the fact that propositions of the Sacred Book play no role in the generation of faith in God and the manipulation of ‘pluralism’ in religious concepts cause ambiguity to our apprehension of the debate about the problem of evil. In his discussion of ‘pluralism of salvation,’ Hick has selected those verses that are in conformity with the universal vision of salvation of the world while he has ignored those verses that point to the eternal punishment hell.

Several debates and scientific correspondences, in attendance, have taken place between the author of this article and professor John Hick from 2002 to 2012. The main part of this decennial critical debate and correspondence is a detailed criticism of Hick's theory of religious pluralism which is posed by the researcher of this article; he wrote the criticism and sent it for Mr. Hick, as he had requested, and he briefly wrote his response and sent it back to him. This article includes the first part of the collection of criticisms of the theory of John Hick which is being published for the first time. Posing some questions regarding the following key concepts, the author has questioned the theory of John Hick: 'religious pluralism', 'rescue', 'the ultimate matter', 'religion', 'religious tradition'.

This article aims to study one of the major issues in the field of religious researches, namely religious pluralism. According to the theory of religious pluralism all (or at least the divine) religions enjoy an equal degree of rightfulness and salvation.First, different interpretations of religious pluralism are discussed with an emphasis on the theory of John Hicks, the pioneer of religious pluralism in contemporary world.The article has reviews the basis of religious pluralism which is the phenomenon and noumen theory of Knowledge by Kant It is proved that accepting such basis leads one to agnosticism in knowing the reality. Then the other basis of religious pluralism i.e religious experience is discussed. Answering to the question raised by John Hospers on religious pluralism the author acknowledges religious experience as a source of knowledge. He also discusses the different interpretations of seeing and experience of God from an Islamic mystical perspective. The author presents a proper solution for these varying interpretations which differs from John Hicks pluralism in a number of ways. The article concludes by elaborating the Quranic view on seeing God.