Saint Irenaeus, the 2nd century philosopher and theologian who inspired the development of the Irenaean theodicy

The Irenaean theodicy is a Christian theodicy designed to respond to the problem of evil. As such, it attempts to defend the probability of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent (all-powerful and perfectly loving) God in the face of evidence of evil in the world. Numerous variations of the theodicy have been proposed which all maintain that, while God is responsible for creating evil, he is not guilty. Typically, the Irenaean theodicy asserts that the world is the best of all possible worlds because it allows humans to fully develop. Most versions of the Irenaean theodicy propose that creation is incomplete, as humans are not yet fully developed, and experiencing evil and suffering is necessary for such development.

Third century philosopher and theologian Irenaeus, after whom the theodicy is named, proposed a two-stage creation process in which humans require free will and the experience of evil to develop. In 1710, Gottfried Leibniz proposed that the world is the best of all possible worlds because it balances all the possible goods the world could contain. Friedrich Schleiermacher argued in the nineteenth century that God must necessarily create flawlessly, so this world must be the best possible world because it allows God's purposes to be naturally fulfilled. In 1966, philosopher John Hick discussed the similarities of the preceding theodicies, calling them "Irenaean". He supported the view that creation is incomplete and argued that the world is best placed for the full moral development of humans, as it presents genuine moral choices. British philosopher Richard Swinburne proposed that, to make a free moral choice, humans must have experience of the consequences of their own actions and that natural evil must exist to provide such choices.

The development of process theology has challenged the Irenaean tradition by teaching that God's power is limited and that he cannot be responsible for evil. Twentieth century theologian Alvin Plantinga supported the idea that this world is the best possible world, arguing that the good in the world (including God's infinite goodness) outweighs the evil and proposing that the ultimate good of God's sacrifice when Jesus was crucified necessitated the existence of evil. His free will defence was not a theodicy because he was trying to show the logical compatibility of evil and the existence of God, rather than the probability of God. D. Z. Phillips and Fyodor Dostoyevsky challenged the instrumental use of suffering, suggesting that love cannot be expressed through suffering. Michael Tooley argued that the magnitude of suffering is excessive and that, in some cases, cannot lead to moral development. French theologian Henri Blocher criticised Hick's universalism, arguing that such a view negates free will, which was similarly important to the theodicy.

Outline[link]

The Irenaean theodicy was first identified as a form of theodicy by John Hick in Evil and the God of Love, written in 1966. Hick distinguished between the Augustinian theodicy, which is based on free will, and the Irenaean theodicy, which casts God as responsible for evil but justified in it.^[1] The Irenaean theodicy is distinguished by its acceptance that God is responsible for evil, but that he is not at fault.^[2]

Evidential problem of evil[link]

The Irenaean theodicy is a response to the evidential problem of evil which raises the problem that, if an omnipotent and omnibenevolent (all-powerful and perfectly loving) God exists, there should be no evil in the world. Evidence of evil in the world would make the existence of God improbable.^[3] The theodicy attempts to demonstrate that the existence of God remains probable, despite the occurrence of evil.^[4]

Creation and development of humans[link]

According to the Irenaean tradition, humans are not created perfectly, but in a state of imperfection.^[5] The theodicy teaches that creation has two stages: humans were first created in the image of God, and will then be created in the likeness of God. Humans are imperfect because the second stage is incomplete, entailing the potential, but not actuality for humans to reach full development. To achieve the likeness of God, humans must be refined and developed.^[6] The theodicy proposes the evil and suffering exists in the world because this is the best way for humans to develop. As such, the Irenaean theodicy is sometimes referred to as the "soul-making theodicy", a phrase taken from the poet John Keats.^[5]

Greatest possible world[link]

Typical to variations of the Irenaean theodicy is the notion that the present world is the greatest possible world, or the best of all possible worlds.^[7] This is based on the Irenaean idea of human development, suggesting that the best possible world would be best suited to human development: a world containing evil and suffering would allow development better than one which does not, so the world is considered the best possible world.^[8]

Development[link]

Irenaeus used the Biblical example of Jonah as someone whose suffering brought about a greater good

Irenaeus[link]

Third century philosopher Irenaeus developed a theodicy based on the idea that the creation of humans is still in progress.^[9] He proposed that creation consists of two distinct parts: first in the image of God, then in the likeness of God. Irenaeus believed the first stage is complete, but the second stage requires humans to develop and grow into the likeness of God, a stage which Irenaeus believed is still in progress. He believed that, in order to achieve moral perfection, humans must be given free choice, with the actual possibility of choosing to do evil.^[10] Irenaeus argued that for humans to have free will, God must be at an epistemic distance (or intellectual distance) from humans, far enough that belief in God remains a free choice.^[11]

Because Irenaeus saw the purpose of the world as to develop the moral character of humans, he believed that a good world would be best suited to that purpose. Irenaeaus believed that this world would include some suffering and evil to help people draw closer to God. He perceived God's declaration in the book of Genesis that his creation was good to mean that the world is fit for purpose, rather than being free from suffering.^[10] To illustrate the benefits of suffering, Irenaeus cited the Biblical example of Jonah, from the book of Jonah. His suffering, being swallowed by a whale, both enabled God's plan to be fulfilled and also brought Jonah closer to God: Jonah ended up repenting for his sin and the people of Nineveh turn to God.^[12]

Irenaeus' eschatology was based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, especially the book of Revelation.^[13] He believed that there would be 6000 years of suffering before the world ends in a fiery purge. This fire would purify believers ahead of a new human community existing in the New Jerusalem.^[14] The afterlife Irenaeus proposed focuses more on time than space; he looks forwards to a time in which humans are fully developed and live the life of God.^[15]

Gottfried Leibniz[link]

Gottfriend Leibiz presented a theodicy in 1710 in his work Théodicée which was later categorised as Irenaean by John Hick. Leibniz disagreed with Augustine's argument that the world has gone wrong, insisting that the current world is the best of all possible worlds. He argued that other possible worlds could have been created instead of this one, and the existence of this specific world over any other exhibits a choice by God.^[16] This choice would be by an infinitely wise creator, who would have chosen the best possible world.^[17] The best possible world, as Leibniz saw it, would be a world which maximises the virtue of free beings, mirrors God's goodness through creation, and has a variety of phenomena determined by simple laws.^[18] Leibniz believed that there are logical constraints on what kind of a world God could actually make—certain things cannot coexist in one world—and perceived the best possible world to be the one which would best maximise his three criteria and remain logically possible.^[19]

Leibniz distinguished between three different kinds of evil: metaphysical, physical and moral. Metaphysical evil is "mere imperfection"—Leibniz argued that there must exist some imperfection in the universe, as a completely perfect universe would contain only God. Physical evil (or natural evil) is suffering brought about by the natural world (such as earthquakes); Leibniz believed that this is a penalty for guilt and exists to prevent a greater evil. Finally, moral evil includes any evil brought about by the free will of humans, which Leibniz accounted for in the free will of humans, a necessary consequence of the best possible world.^[19] Leibniz saw metaphysical evil as the basis for all other forms of evil, proposing that, although the world was created by God, it does not share his nature, so is imperfect.^[20] Leibniz was attempting to demonstrate that the evil nature of the world and humanity does not affect the goodness of God because of the greater good it serves.^[21]

Friedrich Schleiermacher[link]

In the early 19th century, Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote Speeches and The Christian Faith, proposing a theodicy similar to that of Irenaeus and Leibniz, which John Hick later identified as Irenaean in nature. Schleiermacher began his theodicy by asserting that God is omnipotent and benevolent and concluded that, because of this, "God would create flawlessly". He proposed that it would be illogical for a perfect creation to go wrong (as Augustine had suggested) and that evil must have been created by God for a good reason.^[22] Schleiermacher conceived a perfect world to be one in which God's purposes can naturally be achieved, and will ultimately lead to dependence on God. He conceived sin as being an obstruction to humanity's dependence on God, arguing that it is almost inevitable, but citing Jesus as an example of a sinless man, whose consciousness of God was unobstructed.^[23] This theology led Schleiermacher to universalism, arguing that it is God's will for everyone to be saved and that no person could alter this.^[24]

If we proceed on this definite assumption that all belonging to the human race are eventually taken up into loving fellowship with Christ, there is nothing for it but this single divine fore-ordination.

—Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith^[24]

John Hick[link]

Philosopher John Hick developed the Irenaean theodicy in 1966

John Hick published Evil and the God of Love in 1966, in which he developed a theodicy based on the work of Irenaeus. Hick distinguished between the Augustinian theodicy, based on free will, and the Irenaean theodicy, based on human development.^[25] Hick framed his theodicy as an attempt to respond to the problem of evil in light of scientific development, such as Darwin's theory of evolution, and as an alternative to the traditionally accepted Augustinian theodicy.^[26] Rejecting the idea that humans were created perfectly and then fell away from perfection, Hick instead argued that humans are still in the process of creation.^[27] He interpreted the fall of man, described in the book of Genesis, as a mythological description of the current state of humans.^[28]

Hick used Irenaeus' notion of two-stage creation and supported the belief that the second stage, being created into the likeness of God, is still in progress. He argued that to be created in the image of God means to have the potential for knowledge of and a relationship with God; this is fulfilled when creation in the likeness of God is complete. Humanity currently exists in the image of God and is being developed into spiritual maturity.^[29] Hick proposed that human morality is developed through the experience of evil and argued that it is possible for humans for know God, but only if they choose to out of their own free will.^[28]

The value Hick placed on free will was the result of his belief that it is necessary for genuine love: he believed that love which is not freely chosen is valueless. A genuinely loving God, he argued, would have created humans with free will. Hick held that it would be possible for God to create beings that would always freely choose to do good, but argued that a genuine relationship requires the possibility of rejection.^[30] Irenaeus' notion of humans existing at an "epistemic distance" from God also influenced Hick, as it would ensure a free choice in belief in God.^[28] Hick argued that a world without pain or suffering would prevent moral development; such a world would have no fixed structure, or have a structure subject to divine intervention, preventing humans from coming to any harm. Hick argued that this would leave humans unable to help or harm one another, allowing them no moral choices and so preventing moral development.^[31]

The nature of his theodicy required Hick to propose an eschatology in which humans are fully morally developed. He proposed a universalist theory, arguing that all humans would eventually reach heaven. Hick believed that there would be no benefit or purpose to an eternal Hell, as it would render any moral development inconsequential. The eternal suffering of Hell could not be explained in terms of human development, so Hick rejected it. Despite this, he did not reject the existence of Hell outright, as to do so could make living morally in this life irrelevant. Rather, he argued that Hell exists as a mythological concept and as a warning of the importance of this life.^[32]

Richard Swinburne[link]

British philosopher Richard Swinburne proposed a version of the Irenaean theodicy based his libertarian view of free will, a view that one's free actions are not caused by any outside agent.^[33] He argued that, in order for people to make free moral decisions, they must be aware of the consequences of such decisions. Knowledge of these consequences must be based on experience—Swinburne rejected the idea that God could implant such knowledge, arguing that humans would question its reliability.^[34] Swinburne argued that humans must have first hand experience of natural evil in order to understand the consequences of moral evil and that for God to give humans moral free will, he must allow human suffering.^[35] Swinburne conceived Hell as being a separation from God, rejecting the notion of eternal physical punishment,^[36] and argued that people who had chosen to reject God throughout their lives would continue to do so after death.^[37]

Reception[link]

Process theology[link]

Process theologian David Ray Griffin contested "the utility of soul making"

The development of process theology has presented a challenge to the Irenaean theodicy. The doctrine proposes that God is benevolent but suggests that his power is restricted to persuasion, rather than coercion and so is unable to prevent certain evil events from occurring.^[38] Process theology accepts God's indirect responsibility for evil, but maintains that he is blameless, and does everything in his power to bring about good.^[39] In his introduction to process theology, C. Robert Melse argued that, although suffering does sometimes bring about good, not all suffering is valuable and that most does more harm than good.^[40] Process theologian David Griffin contested "the utility of soul making". He argued that the Irenaean theodicy supposes that God inflicts pain for his own ends, which Griffin regarded as immoral.^[41]

Alvin Plantinga[link]

Alvin Plantinga used the Irenaean principle of the best possible world to argue that the existence of God and the occurrence of evil are not logically incompatible.^[42] Plantinga proposed two complimentary arguments: Firstly, that the finite goods of morality in the world and human free will outweigh the finite evil which occurs in the world. Secondly, that the infinite good of God in all possible worlds will always outweigh the finite evil in any possible world.^[42] Plantinga supported that idea that this is the best possible world by arguing that the culmination of God's love in the crucifixion of Jesus was an unsurpassable good. Evil was beneficial as it made the crucifixion necessary and so allowed the greatest possible good to occur.^[43]

DZ Phillips[link]

DZ Phillips argued that the magnitude of suffering experienced in the Holocaust cannot be justified by any apparent gains

Philosopher Dewi Zephaniah Phillips published The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God in 2004, presenting a challenge to the Irenaean theodicy. Phillips maintained throughout his work that humans are incapable of fully understanding God, and presented an understanding of the moral diversity of human existence.^[44] With reference to the suffering of the Holocaust, he rejected any theodicy which presents suffering as instrumental, arguing that such suffering cannot be justified, regardless of any good that comes of it.^[45]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky[link]

Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky presented a similar argument in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov. In the novel, the character Ivan Karamazov presents an account of incredible cruelty to innocent people and children to his theist brother, Alyosha. Following this, Ivan asks his brother if he would consent to being the "architect" of a world which will inevitably lead to suffering.^[46]

"Would you consent to be the architect under those conditions? Tell me honestly!"
"No, I wouldn't agree," said Alyosha quietly.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky , The Brothers Karamazov, p. 308^[47]

Michael Tooley[link]

Writing in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Michael Tooley rejected the Irenaean theodicy as unsatisfactory. He argued that the magnitude of suffering experienced by some people is excessive, supporting Eleanor Stump's view that the suffering endured by those with terminal illnesses cannot be for moral development, and that such illnesses do not fall more often upon those seemingly immoral or in need of development. He also challenged the suffering both of animals and of young children. Neither of these instances of suffering serve any useful purpose, as they cannot lead to moral development. Finally, he questioned whether the current universe is the best possible world for the moral development of humans. Citing the examples of those who die young and those who experience too great a pain to learn from it, as well as people who suffer too little to learn anything, he suggested that this world is not ideally suited to human development.^[48]

Henri Blocher[link]

French theologian Henri Blocher criticised the universalism of John Hick's theory. Blocher argued that universalism contradicts free will, which is vital to the Irenaean theodicy, because, if everyone will receive salvation, humans cannot choose to reject God. Hick did attempt to address this issue: he argued that a free action is one which reflects that character of a person, and that humans were created with a "Godward bias", so would choose salvation. Blocher proposed that Hick must then accept a level of determinism, though not going all the way.^[49]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Alles, Gregory; Ellwood, Robert (2006). The encyclopedia of world religions. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-6141-9. 
• Attfield, Robin (2006). Creation, evolution and meaning. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-0475-4. 
• Barnhart, Joe (2005). Dostoevsky's polyphonic talent. University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-3097-9. 
• Bennett, Gaymon; Peters, Ted; Hewlett, Martinez J.; Russell, Robert John (2008). The evolution of evil. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-56979-5. 
• Blocher, Henri (2005). Evil and the Cross: An Analytical Look at the Problem of Pain. Kregel Academic. ISBN 978-0-8254-2076-4. 
• Bretherton, Luke (2011). Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilites of Faithful Witness. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-5769-1. 
• Campbell, Hugh; Wilkinson, Michael (2010). Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4411-6773-6. 
• Canfield, John V. (1997). The philosophy of the English-speaking world in the twentieth century: Meaning, knowledge, and value, Part 2. Volume 10 of Routledge history of philosophy. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-05605-2. 
• Cheetham, David (2003). John Hick: a critical introduction and reflection. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-1599-6. 
• Cottingham, John (1996). Western philosophy: an anthology. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-18627-4. 
• Davis, Stephen T. (2001). Encountering evil: live options in theodicy. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22251-2. 
• Engel, S. Morris; Soldan, Angelika; Durand, Kevin (2007). The Study of Philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-4892-3. 
• Erikson, Millard (1998). Christian Theology. Baker Academic. ISBN 978-0-8010-2182-4. 
• Geivett, R. Douglas (1995). Evil & the Evidence For God: The Challenge of John Hick's Theodicy. Temple University Press. pp. 151–169. ISBN 978-1-56639-397-3. 
• Hall, Lindsey (2003). Swinburne's hell and Hick's universalism: are we free to reject God?. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-3400-3. 
• Hick, John (2010). Evil and the God of Love. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-25279-0. 
• Irenaeus (c. 180). Adversus haereses (Against Heresies). from the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection. T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers/Volume_I/IRENAEUS/Against_Heresies:_Book_I. 
• Melse, C. Robert (1993). Process theology: a basic introduction. Chalice Press. ISBN 978-0-8272-2945-7. 
• Little, Bruce Alva (2005). A creation-order theodicy: God and gratuitous evil. University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-2989-8. 
• Migliore, Daniel (2004). Faith seeking understanding: an introduction to Christian theology. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-2787-6. 
• Minns, Dennis (2010). Irenaeus: An Introduction. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-567-03366-6. 
• Pojman, Louis; Rea, Michael (2011). Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-111-30544-4. 
• Pierce, Kerri A.; Svendsen, Lars Fr. H. (2010). A philosophy of evil. Dalkey Archive Press. ISBN 1-56478-571-8. 
• Sharma, Arvind (2006). A primal perspective on the philosophy of religion. Springe. pp. 88. ISBN 978-1-4020-5013-8. 
• Stilwell, Gary A. (2009). Where Was God: Evil, Theodicy, and Modern Science. Outskirts Press. ISBN 978-1-4327-3529-6. 
• Stump, Eleonore (1999). Philosophy of religion: the big questions. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20604-0. 
• Thiselton, Anthony C. (2005). A concise encyclopedia of the philosophy of religion. Baker Academic. ISBN 978-0-8010-3120-5. 
• Vermeer, Paul (1999). Learning theodicy: the problem of evil and the praxis of religious education. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-11650-4. 

Jeremy Kyle
Jeremy Kyle at Radio Festival 2010
Born	(1965-07-07) 7 July 1965 (age 46) Reading, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Other names	Jezza
Education	University of Surrey
Occupation	Broadcaster
Years active	1996–present
Employer	ITV
Known for	The Jeremy Kyle Show
Spouse	Kirsty Rowley (m. 1989–1991) «start: (1989)–end+1: (1992)»"Marriage: Kirsty Rowley to Jeremy Kyle" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Jeremy_Kyle) (divorced) Carla Germaine (m. 2003) «start: (2003)»"Marriage: Carla Germaine to Jeremy Kyle" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Jeremy_Kyle)
Children	3 daughters, 1 son

Jeremy Kyle (born 7 July 1965)^[1] is an English radio and television presenter, best known for his British daytime television chat show on ITV, The Jeremy Kyle Show. Kyle is also the host of an American talk show of the same name which premiered on 19 September 2011.

Radio career[link]

From 1986-95, Kyle worked as a salesman for life insurance, recruitment, and radio advertising.^[2] He then became a radio presenter and after a brief stint at Orchard FM in Taunton and Leicester Sound in Leicester, he was signed by Kent's Invicta FM in 1996. In 1997, he joined BRMB in Birmingham, presenting the shows Late & Live and Jezza's Jukebox.^[3][4]

In 2000, Kyle moved to the Century FM network, taking this format with him. The show was called Jezza's Confessions. It was broadcast between 9pm and 1am. He won a Sony Award for Late & Live in 2001.^[2] On 1 July 2002, he made his first broadcast on Virgin Radio, presenting Jezza's Virgin Confessions every weekday from 8pm to midnight. In mid-2003, he broadcast the show from 9pm to 1am every weekday, and in January 2004 the show went out from 10pm to 1am, Sunday to Thursday. He left Virgin Radio in June 2004. From 5 September 2004, Kyle presented the Confessions show on London's Capital FM. The new programme aired Sunday to Thursday from 10pm to 1am with live calls on relationship issues of all kinds. Capital Confessions came to an end on 22 December 2005 to make way for The Jeremy Kyle Show, a similar show which ran from January 2006 to December 2006.

In late 2007, Kyle began a new show (The Jeremy Kyle Show), broadcasting across Gcap Media's One Network, of which Orchard FM, Invicta FM and BRMB, his previous employers, are a part. The programme differed from his previous shows in that he interviewed celebrities. Kyle also began broadcasting a new programme, on Essex FM, in November 2007.

Kyle joined Talksport on 21 September 2008 to present a lunchtime sports show every Sunday called The Jeremy Kyle Sunday Sports Show.

As a result of Talksport's Premiership coverage on a Sunday, Kyle's show was cancelled, and he left the station.^[5]

TV career[link]

In 2005 Kyle moved his format to ITV, with a programme also entitled The Jeremy Kyle Show. Here Kyle has reached his widest audience to date. His often aggressive manner with guests has been the source of both popularity and criticism. He is seemingly unafraid of reprisal from his guests, believing that speaking his mind is better than holding his peace. Guests sometimes take offence at Kyle's comments, one guest even attempting to throw a chair at him, whilst another threw an envelope at the back of his head, but he often justifies his criticism by claiming that he only wants to help them. Kyle recently claimed on air that his show was watched by 1.8 million viewers, a very high figure for a daytime chat show.

In September 2007, Judge Alan Berg described The Jeremy Kyle Show as trash which existed to "titillate bored members of the public with nothing better to do". He went on to say "It seems to me that the purpose of this show is to affect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people whose lives are in turmoil" and added that it was "human bear-baiting".^[6] The judge so characterised it "after [a] husband was provoked into headbutting [his] wife's lover in front of [Kyle's] studio audience".^[7]

In February 2008, The Jeremy Kyle Show was again criticised in court after a man who found out during the recording of a show that he was not the father of his wife's baby later pointed an air rifle at her.^[8]

Other shows Kyle is involved with include Kyle's Academy, a ten-part series for ITV1 daytime which first aired on 18 June 2007.^[8] A team of experts (so-called life coaches and psychotherapists), headed by Kyle take five people and work with them over an intensive fortnight to help them on the road to a happier more fulfilled life. Kyle has also presented Half Ton Hospital, a show about morbidly obese people in the United States. In December 2009 he played himself in ITV1's comedy-drama The Fattest Man in Britain.

On 19 April 2011, Kyle began presenting a new documentary series called Military Driving School, where he visited the Defence School Of Transport in Yorkshire, following a group of new recruits as they undergo training as front line military drivers. He is the presenter of the ITV1 show High Stakes, which began on 11 October 2011. Billed as a game of "knowledge, risk, and tension," the show involves participants answering questions and stepping on the correct six squares on a grid in order to avoid trap numbers.^[9]

Writing career[link]

Kyle writes a column for Pick Me Up, a women's weekly magazine published by IPC.^[10] In his column, titled Jeremy Kyle Says..., Kyle adopts a frank style in responding to readers' problems that closely resembles the approach he takes on The Jeremy Kyle Show.

In 2009 Kyle wrote his first book, 'I'm Only Being Honest', about Britain's social problems and his views on how to solve them including recounts of his past and personal life.^[11]

Personal life[link]

Kyle was born in Reading, Berkshire.^[1] His father was an accountant and personal secretary to the Queen Mother.^[12] He attended the independent Reading Blue Coat School in Sonning, Berkshire^[2] and studied history and sociology at the University of Surrey.^[13]

He met his first wife, Kirsty Rowley, in 1988, when he was a recruitment consultant in an agency in Bristol.^[14] They became a couple within a fortnight, and were engaged within two months. They married in Almondsbury near Bristol seven months later, in July 1989. Their daughter, Harriet, was born in June 1990. The marriage ended just five months after the birth, in November 1990. His ex-wife has since claimed that Kyle had carefully concealed a destructive and expensive gambling habit from her over the course of their marriage.^[14]

He met former model Carla Germaine in 1999, while he was presenting on a BRMB radio show, and Germaine entered the controversial Two Strangers and a Wedding contest hosted by the station.^[15]

As the winner of the bride part of the contest, her prize was to marry the selected groom, Greg Cordell. Their marriage lasted only three months, after claims that Greg had an affair just days after their honeymoon, and she subsequently married Kyle in 2002.^[15][16][17] They have two daughters and a son together.

Kyle is a supporter of West Ham United.^[18] He suffers from obsessive–compulsive disorder and has stated that he "licks his mobile phone to make sure it's clean", as stated in his book "I'm Only Being Honest".^[19]

Kyle has described his opinion on "Broken Britain":

I think it starts with the breakdown of the family unit. Society should invest more in our kids. There should be community centres and youth clubs. And our benefits system – it's the greatest in the modern world. But there are loopholes and people taking advantage.^[12]

In October 2010, Kyle appeared at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. He chaired "Getting Britain Back To Work" alongside George Osborne.^[20]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Jeremy Kyle Show at itv.com

John Harwood Hick

Born	(1922-01-20)20 January 1922 Yorkshire, England
Died	9 February 2012(2012-02-09) (aged 90)[1] Birmingham, England[2]
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy
Main interests	Philosophy of religion, theology
Influenced by St Augustine, Origen, Irenaeus, St Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, John Baillie, Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Hume, St Irenaeus

Professor John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was a philosopher of religion and theologian. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism.^[3]

Life[link]

John Hick was born on 20 January 1922 to a middle class family in Scarborough, England. He developed an interest in philosophy and religion in his teens, being encouraged by his uncle, who was an author and teacher at the University of Manchester. Hick initially pursued a law degree at the University of Hull, but converted to Evangelical Christianity from the fundamentalist Christian beliefs with which he was raised, and decided to change his career and enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in 1941.

During his studies he became liable for military service in World War II, but, as a conscientious objector on moral grounds, enrolled in the Friends' Ambulance Unit.

After the war, he returned to Edinburgh and became attracted to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and began to question his fundamentalism. In 1948 he completed his MA thesis, which formed the basis of his book Faith and Knowledge.^[3] He went on to complete a D. Phil at Oriel College, Oxford University in 1950^[4] and a DLitt from Edinburgh in 1975.^[5] In 1953 he married Joan Hazel Bowers, and the couple had three children. After many years as a member of the United Reformed Church, in October 2009 he was accepted into membership of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. He died in 2012.^[6][7]

Career[link]

Hick's academic positions included Danforth Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University, California; H.G. Wood Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham; and Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Research in Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Birmingham.^[8] While at the University of Birmingham Hick played important roles in a number of organizations centered around community relations. Non-Christian communities, mostly Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh, had begun to form in this central England community as immigration from the Caribbean Islands and Indian subcontinent increased. Due to the influx of peoples with different religious traditions, organizations focused on integrating the community became necessary. During his fifteen years at the University of Birmingham, Hick became a founder, as well as the first chair, for the group All Faiths for One Race (AFFOR); he served as a chair on the Religious and Cultural Panel, which was a division of the Birmingham Community Relations Committee; and he also chaired the coordinating committee for a 1944 conference convened under the new Education Act with the aim of creating a new syllabus for religious instruction in city schools.^[9]

He also held teaching positions at Cornell University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Cambridge University.^[10] During his teaching stay at Princeton Seminary, Hick began to depart from his conservative religious standings as he began to question "whether belief in the Incarnation required one to believe in the literal historicity of the Virgin Birth".^[11] This questioning would open the door for further examination of his own Christology, which would contribute to Hick's understanding of religious pluralism. He was the Vice-President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and Vice-President of The World Congress of Faiths.^[12]

Hick delivered the 1986-87 Gifford lectures^[12] and in 1991 was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Religion.^[13]

Hick was twice the subject of heresy proceedings. In 1961 or 1962, he was asked whether he took exception to anything in the Westminster Confession of 1647 and answered that several points were open to question. Because of this, some of the local ministers appealed against his reception into the Presbytery. Their appeal was sustained by the Synod. A year later, a counter-appeal was sustained by the Judicial Committee of the General Assembly, and Hick became a member of the Presbytery (see Christian heresy in the 20th century).

Hick's philosophy[link]

Robert Smid states that Hick is regularly cited as "one of the most – if not simply the most – significant philosopher of religion in the twentieth century".^[14] Keith Ward once described him as "the greatest living philosopher of global religion."^[15] He is best known for his advocacy of religious pluralism,^[3] which is radically different from the traditional Christian teachings that he held when he was younger.^[5] Perhaps because of his heavy involvement with the inter-faith groups mentioned above under the "Career" heading and his interaction with people of non-Christian faiths through those groups, Hick began to move toward his pluralistic outlook on religion. He notes in both "More Than One Way?" and "God and the Universe of Faiths" that, as he came to know these people who belonged to non-Christian faiths, he saw in them the same values and moral actions that he recognized in fellow Christians. This observation led him to begin questioning how a completely loving God could possibly sentence non-Christians who clearly espouse values that are revered in Christianity to an eternity in hell. Hick then began to attempt to uncover the means by which all those devoted to a theistic religion might receive salvation.

Hick has notably been criticized by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who currently holds the position of Pope), when he was head of the Holy Office. Ratzinger had examined the works of several theologians accused of relativism, such as Jacques Dupuis and Roger Haight, and found that many, if not all, were philosophically inspired by Hick. Therefore, the declaration Dominus Iesus was seen by many at the time as a condemnation of Hick's ideas and theories.

Kantian influences[link]

Having begun his career as an evangelical, he moved towards pluralism as a way of reconciling God’s love with the facts of cultural and religious diversity. He is primarily influenced by Immanuel Kant in this regard, who argued that human minds obscure actual reality in favor of comprehension (see Kant's theory of perception). According to Richard Peters, for Hick, "[the] construal of the relationship of the human mind to God...is much like the relationship that Kant supposed exists between the human mind and the world".^[3]

It isn't fair to say that Hick is strictly Kantian, however. Peters notes "the divide between the 'noumenal' and 'phenomenal' realms (so far as nature is concerned) is not nearly so severe for Hick as it was for Kant".^[3] Hick also declares that the Divine Being is what he calls 'transcategorial'. We can experience God through categories, but God Himself obscures them by his very nature.

Pluralism[link]

In light of his Kantian influences, Hick claims that knowledge of the Real (his generic term for Transcendent Reality) can only be known as it is being perceived. For that reason, absolute truth claims about God (to use Christian language) are really truth claims about perceptions of God; that is, claims about the phenomenal God and not the noumenal God. Furthermore, because all knowledge is rooted in experience, which is then perceived and interpreted into human categories of conception, cultural and historical contexts which inevitably influence human perception are necessarily components of knowledge of the Real. This means that knowledge of God and religious truth claims pertaining thereof are culturally and historically influenced; and for that reason should not be considered absolute. This is a significant aspect of Hick's argument against Christian exclusivism, which holds that although other religions might contain partial goodness and truth, salvation is provided only in Jesus Christ, and the complete truth of God is contained only in Christianity.

Perhaps the simplest manner in which to understand Hick's theory of pluralism of religions is to share the comparison he makes between his own understanding of religion and the Copernican view of our solar system. Before Copernicus disseminated his views of the solar centered universe, the Ptolemaic system ruled in which the stars were painted in the sky, and the sun rose and set around the earth. In short, the rest of the universe existed for and was centered around our little planet. On the other hand, Copernicus asserted that the earth, and other planets as well, circled the sun, which in fact, did not move, but only appeared to move due to the revolution of our planet. Copernicus introduced our world to the understanding that other planets took similar paths around the sun; while each path differed, all served the same purpose and generated the same result: every planet makes a full path around our central star. Rotation of a planet about its axis creates day and night for that planet, just as day and night occur on earth. Although the time frames for a full trip around the sun and for a full day-night cycle differs on a planet-by-planet basis, the concept remains constant throughout our solar system.

Similarly, Hick draws the metaphor that the Ptolemaic view of religion would be that Christianity is the only way to true salvation and knowledge of the one true God. Ptolemaic Christianity would assert that everything exists and all of history has played out in specific patterns for the glory of the Christian God, and that there is no other possible path that will lead to salvation. Hick appears as Copernicus, offering the belief that perhaps all theistic religions are focused toward the one true God and simply take different paths to achieve the same goal.^[16]

A speaker on religious pluralism, Keith E. Johnson, compares Hick's pluralistic theology to a tale of three blind men attempting to describe an elephant, one touching the leg, the second touching the trunk, the third feeling the elephant's side. Each man describes the elephant differently, and, although each is accurate, each is also convinced of their own correctness and the mistakenness of the other two.^[17]

Robert Smid states that Hick believes that the tenets of Christianity are "no longer feasible in the present age, and must be effectively 'lowered'".^[14]

Moreover, Mark Mann notes that Hick argues that there have been people throughout history "who have been exemplars of the Real".^[18][19]

Hick's position is “not an exclusively Christian inclusivism [like that of Karl Rahner and his ‘Anonymous Christian’], but a plurality of mutually inclusive inclusivism.” ^[20] Hick contends that the diverse religious expressions (religions) are the result of diverse historically and culturally influenced responses to diverse perceptions of the Real. He states that "the different religious traditions, with their complex internal differentiations, have developed to meet the needs of the range of mentalities expressed in the different human cultures." ^[21]

Hick's Christology[link]

This section requires expansion.

In his "God and the Universe of Faiths", Hick attempts to pinpoint the essence of Christianity. He first cites the Sermon on the Mount as being the basic Christian teaching, as it provides a practical way of living out the Christian faith. He says that "christian essence is not to be found in beliefs about God...but in living as the disciples who in his name feed the hungry, heal the sick and create justice in the world."^[22] However, all of the teachings, including the Sermon on the Mount, that form what Hick calls the essence of Christianity, flow directly from Jesus' ministry. In turn, this means that the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus form the permanent basis of the Christian tradition. Hick continues in this work to examine the manner in which the deification of Jesus took place in corporate Christianity following his crucifixion and questions whether or not Jesus actually thought of himself as the Messiah and the literal Son of God.

In several places (e.g. his contributions to The Metaphor of God Incarnate, and his book The Myth of God Incarnate) Hick proposes a reinterpretation of traditional Christology—particularly the doctrine of the Incarnation. Hick contends "that the historical Jesus of Nazareth did not teach or apparently believe that he was God, or God the Son, Second Person of a Holy Trinity, incarnate, or the son of God in a unique sense."^[23] It is for that reason, and perhaps for the sake of religious pluralism and peace, Hick proposes a metaphorical approach to incarnation. That is, Jesus (for example) was not literally God in the flesh (incarnate), but was metaphorically speaking, the presence of God. "Jesus was so open to divine inspiriation, so responsive to the divine spirit, so obedient to God's will, that God was able to act on earth in and through him. This, I (Hick) believe, is the true Christian doctrine of the incarnation." ^[24] Hick believes that a metaphorical view of the incarnation avoids the need for faulty Christian paradoxes such as the duality of Christ (fully God and fully human) and even the Trinity (God is simultaneously one and three).

Neither the intense christological debates of the centuries leading up to the Council of Chalcedon, nor the renewed christological debates of the 19th and 20th Centuries, have succeeded in squaring the circle by making intelligible the claim that one who was genuinely and unambiguously a man was also genuinely and unambiguously God.^[25]

Problem of evil[link]

Hick has identified with a branch of theodicy that he calls "Irenaean theodicy" or the "Soul-Making Defense".^[26] A simplification of this view states that suffering exists as a means of spiritual development. In other words, God allows suffering so that human souls might grow or develop towards maturation. For Hick, God is ultimately responsible for pain and suffering, but such things are not truly bad. Perhaps with a greater degree of perception, one can see that the "evil" we experience through suffering is not ultimately evil but good, as such is used to "make our souls" better.

Major works[link]

^[27]

• Faith and Knowledge, (1st ed. 1957, 2nd ed. 1966)
• The Many Faced Argument with Arthur C. McGill (1967, 2009).
• Evil and the God of Love, (reissued 2007)
• Death and the Eternal Life (1st ed. 1976)
• An Interpretation of Religion: human responses to the transcendent (reissued 2004)
• The Metaphor of God Incarnate (2nd ed. 2005)
• (Editor) The Myth of God Incarnate (1977)
• (Editor with Paul F. Knitter) The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (1987)
• Philosophy of Religion (4th ed. 1990)
• The New Frontier of Religion and Science: Religious Experience, Neuroscience and the Transcendent (2006)

See also[link]

• Christian universalism
• Religious pluralism
• Eschatological verification
• Immanuel Kant

Footnotes and references[link]

External links[link]

• John Hick's official website

• The John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion