John Hick

• Crucial feature in his views

  'transformation of human existence from self-centredness to reality-centredness' (self-transformation)
• Hick is a universalist 


  believes that God's salvation will be available to all, regardless of their religion
• Disagrees with older theologies 


  "Which held that God's saving activity is confined within a single narrow thread of human life, namely that recorded in our own scriptures'

  • God has many names
• Important to establish what religion is

  self-transformation
• Claims that incompatibilities between religions are not of real religious significance
• When it comes to conceiving of God, Hick distinguishes between the ultimately Real, as it is in itself and the different views
• Looks at religious claims and distinguishes between what?


  1. Claims related to historical facts which are in principle capable of being resolved (e/g was Jesus crucified outside Jerusalem by the Romans)
  2. Trans-historical questions for which there may be fundamentally different answers not settled with references to facts (what happens when we die)