Christian Theology and Religious Pluralism

Synopsis: The question of religious pluralism is the most significant yet thorniest of issues in theology today, and John Hick (1922-2012) has long been recognized as its most important scholar. However, while much has been written analyzing the philosophical basis of Hick's pluralism, very little attention has been devoted to the theological foundations of his argument. Filling this gap, this book examines Hick's theological attempts to systematically deconstruct the church's traditional incarnational Christology. Special attention is given to evaluating Hick's foundational theses "that Jesus himself did not teach what was to become the orthodox Christian understanding of him" and "that the dogma of Jesus' two natures . . . has proved to be incapable of being explicated in any satisfactory way." By elucidating the ways in which Hick's arguments fail, David Nah demonstrates that Hick was unwarranted in breaking away from the church's incarnational Christology that has been at the core of Christianity for almost two thousand years. Endorsements: "David Nah must be congratulated for producing both a most thorough analysis of John Hick's brand of religious pluralism and a most competent defense of traditional two-natures Christology against Hick's critique and his proposed alternative of metaphorical Christology. I heartily recommend this recent addition to the literature on John Hick to all interested in both sides of the issue." --Anselm K. Min Claremont Graduate University "David Nah systematically weakens John Hick's paradigms offered in solution to problems of twentieth-century religious pluralism . . . [Nah's] work fills an unmet need for a more extensive assessment of Hick's last and most mature theology of religions. The tone is irenic rather than disputational and even religious others will find in Nah a friend who, contra-Hick, takes with metaphysical, not merely metaphorical seriousness, their claims of Ultimacy." --James F. Lewis Bethel University (St. Paul, MN) Author Biography: David S. Nah is Associate Professor of Theology at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He obtained his PhD from the School of Religion at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California.