John Hick’s modern Irenaean Theodicy Flashcards
What did Hick argue?
Hick argued that human beings were not created perfect but develop in two stages
What are the two stages of human development?
Hick
Stage 1: Spiritually immature: through struggle to survive and evolve, humans can develop into spiritually mature beings.
The Fall is a result of immature humans who are only in the image of God.
Stage 2: Grow into a relationship with God
What did Hick argue about Gods existence?
Hick argued for the** Epistemic distance.** This means that we cannot truly know of God’s existence.
If God did make himself known to us, we would follow his commands out of obedience to his authority instead of following them because we had figured out that they were the right thing to do.
According to Hick, what is the only way we can grow spiritually?
Hick argued that it’s** only if we have faith in God and still do good because we want to do good**, rather than because we know for sure there’s a God who wants us to, that we can truly grow spiritually and morally
How did Peter Vardy illustrate this argument?
Peter Vardy illustrated this with the example of a peasant girl who a King falls in love with and forces her to marry him.
The girl doesn’t really love the King and only does it due to obedience to authority out of fear.
Similarly, if God appeared to us we would obey his authority rather than really loving what is good for its own sake, which is the morally superior move and therefore most conducive to soul making.
