John Hick: Soul-Making, Religious Pluralism, and the Real

John Hick: Soul-Making, Religious Pluralism, and the Real

John Harwood Hick (1922–2012) was a British philosopher of religion and theologian who made major contributions to several areas of the philosophy of religion, including the problem of evil, religious pluralism, the nature of faith, and the question of life after death. Born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, Hick studied at the University of Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge, and held academic positions at Cornell, Cambridge, Birmingham, and Claremont. His intellectual journey took him from evangelical Christianity to a pluralistic understanding of religion that embraced insights from all the major world faiths. For AQA A-Level Religious Studies (specification 7062), Hick is essential for understanding theodicy (the soul-making theodicy), religious pluralism, and debates about the afterlife.

The Soul-Making Theodicy

Hick’s most famous contribution to the philosophy of religion is his soul-making theodicy (also called the Irenaean theodicy), developed in his landmark work Evil and the God of Love (1966; revised edition 1977). Hick distinguished between two major Christian traditions of theodicy: