Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31823/d.30.2.1
John Hick’s Epistemology of Religion. Overview and Critique
Danijel Tolvajčić
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview and critical analysis of John Hick’s epistemology of religion. Hick was one of the most influential philosophers of religion in the last century. Hick’s epistemology, especially its central concepts like “experiencing as” and “eschatological verification,” aims to establish the meaningfulness and rationality of religious claims by showing that the religious experience of the world is an epistemological equivalent to the naturalistic one. The author points out some difficulties of Hick’s position, especially the inadequacy of his understanding of religious faith. Ultimately, Hick’s epistemology of religion is for the most part problematic because, on the one hand, it depends entirely on the subjectivity of religious experience, and on the other, it completely excludes the propositional aspect of faith.
Keywords
John Hick; the epistemology of religion; the rationality of religious claims; religious experience; »experiencing as«; eschatological verification
Hrčak ID:
281582
URI
Publication date:
1.9.2022.
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