1 Hick, John, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 240. This work is henceforth noted as IR.
2 The term ‘ neo-Kantian ’ is used throughout this essay in a very general sense; it implies no connection to the German philosophical movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
3 Hick, , ‘Mystical Experience as Cognition’, in Coward, Harold and Penelhum, Terence (eds.), Mystics and Scholars: The Calgary Conference on Mysticism, 1976 (Calgary: Canadian Corp. for Studies in Religion, 1977). PP. 41–61.
4 See, for instance, the essays comprising chapters 3, 5, and 6 in Hick, , God Has Many Names (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980).
5 See Hick, , Faith and Knowledge (2nd ed.; London: Collins-Fontana, 1974 [1957]), p. viii.
9 See (1) ‘The Real in Itself and as Humanly Experienced’, pp. 236–40; and (2) ‘Kant's Epistemological Model’, pp. 240–6.
13 Ibid. p. 239 (emphasis added).
14 Hick, While (‘The Philosophy of World Religions’, Scottish Journal of Theology, xxxvu [1984], 232) has denied that his model owes anything significant to the notion of divine infinity, the fact that he nonetheless continues to devote a significant amount of space to it in the explication of his pluralist hypothesis (see IR, pp. 237–9) suggests that he is still gaining currency from this connection.
16 Finger, Thomas, Christian Theology: an Eschatological Approach (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1985, 1989), vol. II, p. 502.See also Davis, Stephen, ‘Why God Must be Unlimited’, in Tessier, Linda J. (ed.), Concepts of the Ultimate (New York: St Martin's, 1989), pp. 4–6.
17 See especially Mortley, Raoul, From Word to Silence, vol. 2: The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986), pp. 242–54.See also Ward, Keith, ‘Truth and the Diversity of Religions’, Religious Studies, xxvi (1990), 6–11; idem.‘Divine Ineffability’, in Sharma, Arvind (ed.), God, Truth and Reality: Essays in Honour of John Hick (New York: St Martin's 1993), pp. 210–20;Plantinga, Alvin, Does God Have a Nature? (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), pp. 18–20.
18 E.g. see respectively Palmer, Humphrey, Analogy: A Study of Qualification and Argument in Theology (New York: St Martin's, 1973), esp. ch. 13;Burrell, David, Aquinas, God and Action (London: Routledge and Kegan, 1979).
19 E.g. see Hughes, Gerard J., ‘Aquinas and the Limits of Agnosticism’, in Hughes, G. (ed.), The Philosophical Assessment of Theology: Essays in Honour of Frederick C. Copleston (Washington, D. C.: Georgetown University Press, 1987), pp. 37–6 3;Rocca, Gregory P., ‘Aquinas on God-Talk: Hovering Over the Abyss’, Theological Studies, LIV (1993), 641–61;Lindbeck, George, ‘The A Priori in St. Thomas' Theory of Knowledge’, in Cushman, R. E. and Grislis, E. (eds), The Heritage of Christian Thought: Essays in Honor of Robert Lowry Calhoun (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 41–63.
20 E.g. see Swinburne, Richard, The Coherence of Theism (rev. ed.; OxfordClarendon, 1993), chs. 4 & 5; idem. ‘Analogy and Metaphor’, in Philosophical Assessment of Theology, pp. 65–84; Sherry, Patrick J., ‘Analogy Today’, Philosophy, LI (1976), 431–46;Miller, Barry, ‘Analogy Sans Portrait: God-Talk as Literal but Non-Anthropomorphic’, Faith and Philosophy, vii (1990), 63–71.
21 E.g. see Pennings, Timothy J., ‘Infinity and the Absolute: Insights into Our World, Our Faith and Ourselves’, Christian Scholar's Review, xxiii/2 (1993), 159–80.
22 See Palmer's (Analogy, pp. 26–7) discussion in this regard. I am indebted at several points here to Byrne's, Peter (‘John Hick's Philosophy of World Religions’, Scottish Journal of Theology, xxxv [1982], 296–9) critique of Hick's use of the concept of divine infinity.
23 For excellent discussion of these matters, see Blanc, Jill Le,‘Infinity in Theology and Mathematics’, Religious Studies, xxix (1993), 51–62.
25 In this regard see Ferre, Frederick, ‘In Praise of Anthropomorphism’, in Scharlemann, Robert P. and Ogutu, Gilbert E. M. (eds), God in Language (New York: Paragon, 1987), p. 192.
26 Ward, , ‘Truth and the Diversity of Religions’, p. 10.
28 Ward, , ‘Truth and the Diversity of Religions’, p. 10.
29 Feuerbach, Ludwig, The Essence of Christianity (trans., Elliot, George; New York: Harper & Bros., 1957 [1841]), pp. 14–15. See the similar challenge of Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Indianapolis/New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947 [1779]), Pt. IV, p. 158.
30 Hick was not the first to view religious experience in light of these specific Kantian categories; e.g. see Otto, Rudolf, Naturalism and Religion (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1907);Oakes, Robert A., ‘Noumena, Phenomena, and God’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, iv (1973), 30–8.
31 This term derives from Forgie's, William ‘Hyper-Kantianism in Recent Discussions of Mystical Experience’, Religious Studies, xxi (1985), 208. Forgie does not, however, apply his critique to Hick.
34 Ibid. p. 240. Here, important sources for Hick include Berger, Peter and Luckmann, Thomas, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966);Arbib, Michael and Hesse, Mary, The Construction of Reality (Cambridge: University Press, 1986); and the work of Clifford Geertz.
35 Cited in IR, pp. 240–1. Here, Hick also claims the same vis-à-vas the Muslim thinker al Junaid's maxim: ‘ The colour of the water is the same as that of its container.’
38 See Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of Pure Reason (abr. ed.; trans. Smith, Norman Kemp; London: Macmillan, 1952), pp. 26–7, 72.
40 For readings of Kant's noumenal/phenomenal distinction in an anti-realist vein, see Putnam, Hilary, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge: University Press, 1981), ch. 3;Posy, Carl, ‘Dancing to the Antinomy: A Proposal for Transcendental Idealism’, American Philosophical Quarterly, xx (1983), 81–94.
41 Hick, , God Has Many Names, p. 105.
42 E.g. see Barnes, L. Philip, ‘Relativism, Ineffability, and the Appeal to Experience: A Reply to the Myth Makers’, Modern Theology, vii (1990), 101–14.
44 See Smart, Ninian, ‘A Contemplation of Absolutes’, in God, Truth and Reality, pp. 184–5.
45 For Kant, ‘the a priori, then, is merely relational, without inherent content’ (Smith, Norman Kemp, A Commentary to Kant's ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ [rev. ed.; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities, 1992], p. xxxvi).
46 Forgie, , ‘Hyper-Kantianism’, p. 208.
47 In this general regard, see Stoeber, Michael,‘Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism: A Critique and Revision’, Religious Studies, xxviii (1992), 107–16.
48 In regard to the various interpretations and criticisms of Kant at this point, see Ameriks, Karl, ‘Recent Work on Kant's Theoretical Philosophy’, American Philosophical Quarterly, xix (1982), 1–24;Aquila, Richard E., ‘Things in Themselves and Appearances: Intentionality and Reality in Kant‘, Archiv für Geschichte Der Philosophic, LXI (1979), esp. pp. 293–5.
49 IR, p. 241 (emphasis added).
50 See the surveys cited at note 48 for problematic aspects of reading Kant in a purely ‘one world’/perspectival manner. See also Rossi, Philip, ‘The Final End of All Things: The Highest Good as the Unity of Nature and Freedom’, in Rossi, P. and Wreen, M. (eds), Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 133–64.
51 Palmquist, Stephen R., Kant's System of Perspectives: An Architectonic Interpretation of the Critical Philosophy (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993), pp. 169–70, 176–7; see also Appendix 5: ‘The Radical Unknowability of the Thing in Itself’.
54 D'Costa, , ‘John Hick and Religious Pluralism: Yet Another Revolution’, in Hewitt, Harold (ed.), Problems in the Philosophy of Religion: Critical Studies of the Work of John Hick (New York: St Martin's, 1991), pp. 3–18.
55 Cupitt, Don, ‘Thin-line Theism’, The Times Literary Supplement, 8 August 1980, p. 902.
56 Many thanks to Professor Hick, as well as Michel Barnes, Gavin D'Costa, Brad Hinze, Harold Netland, Bruce Reichenbach, Philip Rossi, and John Sanders, for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
