Global Theology Wilfred C.

Smith
Wilfred Cantwell Smith: Towards a World
Theology & The Meaning and End of Religion
(1962) heralding the ways for rp
stressed the need for a more adequate
understanding of religion, (of others as well as
ones own religion) for the betterment of
mankind in living together
To develop universal friendship but this is
difficult if to be based on religion
the root problem was in the definition of
religion, no one valid definition , therefore to
redefine the term

 religion in its contemporary Western usage as an

evolving Western concept leading to an
understanding of religion as an objective
systematic entity; a system of ideas or beliefs and
practices in which men of faith were involved, or
with which men of potential faith are confronted
Religion therefore has been interpreted as a
positive organized/ systematic entity; and this
definition is problematic; confront the pluralistic
reality, and lost of its essence
The problem with such an understanding,
according to Smith, is that it concerns only the
external observable part which constituted religion
and ignored the most important inner part of
religion, that is the relation with the transcendent

 the existing conception of religion has finally led

to a differentiation process, religion in a variety
of minor forms and identified as Christianity,
Buddhism, Hinduism and so on, later to be
phrased as religions of the world indicating the
plural religions. Indeed, such naming and
identification of one religion is the ultimate
development of the evolving Western conception
of religion (as an external objective systematic
entity
The questions arising on the very existence of
religion and the truth claim posed by religions
To him there is no such thing as religion as a
noun and therefore there will be no need for
propagating the truth

 Smith offers his ideas of faith and cumulative traditions,

two elements mistakenly understood as religion.
Cumulative tradition is the outcome of human
interactions and human cultures that include;
the entire mass of objective data that constitutes the
historical deposit, for instance; temples, scriptures,
theological systems, dance patterns, legal and other
social institutions, conventions, moral codes, myths and
so on; anything that can be and is transmitted from one
person, one generation, to another and that an historian
can observe
religious tradition enters the mundane aspect of
religious life as it is a historical construct and, indeed, a
human construct which can take many forms and is
simply the expression of mans faith; they are inherently
and inevitably contingent,

 The collection of hymns in the Rig Veda of

the Hindus, the Islamic legal system - the
shariah, the different religious context that
constituted the Christian Church of Western
Europe and the Russian Church, are
examples of religious traditions that are
emerging, changing and developing
cumulative traditions are all historical
entities, and since they are adaptive to
changes, transformation and alteration, this
implies that no one tradition is fixed, certain
and objective. Indeed, cumulative tradition,
according to Smith, is a human construct

 Faith, more to address one personal

conviction, inner religious experience or
involvement of a particular person; the
impingement on him of the transcendent,
personal and profound matter, too divine for
public exposition and not directly observable.
Faith can be expressed and expressions of
faith vary and are identifiable; faith is but an
expression of religious faith; The faith of men
in all communities is not the same. Even the
faith of one man within one community is not
the same. In fact, any one mans faith is
different on any given morning from what it
was the preceding afternoon.

 Smith notions of faith and cumulative

tradition, it is speculated that his
contribution to the spirit of religious
pluralism lies in three facts.
Firstly, in disqualifying the concept of
religion as imposed by modernity,
secondly, in negating the exclusive spirit
brought by the concept of religion and
thirdly, in celebrating the multiplicity and
divergences of the religious life of mankind
depicted in cumulative divergent traditions

JOHN HICK: God-centeredness

John Hick; the prominent propagator
Copernican Revolution (against the Ptolemaic theory of the
earth) centrality of sun to the universe instead of the earth
In the context of religion, transformation from religioncenteredness to God-centeredness; centrality of god
instead of Christianity
Using Smithians lense, Hick in Philosophy of Religion,
dynamic of religious life, development is inevitable, and
gradually there will be converging courses

 Hick in his first book Philosophy of Religion, in 1963

launched his discourses on religion and religions;
historical constructs of religions
There will be converging courses; religions become
plural sects
Called for a global theology; as preparation for future
plural religious engagements

 Religion is a fortuity of birth, man born and

affiliated to particular religion familiar to
his environment
Religion to him is a cultural factor; those
who are born to Buddhist parents in
Thailand are very likely to be Buddhist,
while someone who is born to Muslim
parents in Saudi Arabia will be a Muslim,
someone born to Christian parents in
Mexico is likely to be a Christian, and so on.

 Hick quoted Xenophanes

Ethiopians make their gods black with turned up noses.
Thracians make them with red hair and blue eyes;
mortals think that gods are born and have their own
food, voice and shape.that the ancient nomadic
pastoral communities tended to think of the divine in
male terms, in contrast to settled agricultural peoples
who tended to think of the divine in female terms

 Hick propagate the idea religion centeredness to God

centeredness;
The transformation of self-centeredness to Reality
centeredness
Faith is a cognitive freedom; therefore it can be
developed and changed
Salvation is a process of transformation

 Every religion propagate different way of salvation,

when in reality they are different responses to the
Reality/Transcendent/God
Eg; he propagated Christological revolution; doctrines of
Christianity as myth rather than reality -to avoid the
confusion of plural truth-claim put forward by religions
Using Kantian epistemology; noumenon thing as it is in
itself and phenomenon thing as experienced by human
being

 Therefore prefer the Real than god

Concerns over the plural truth claim made on salvation
is dissatisfied, however, with the word God, he prefers the
Real, believing that the term has the advantage of not being the
exclusive property of any tradition but is familiar within all of
them.
the Real an sich or the Real in itself is distinguished from the real
as manifested within the intellectual and experiential purview of
any one religious tradition.

 He claimed that the doctrine of Incarnation is

responsible for cultivating the idea of the uniqueness,
superiority, exclusiveness, absoluteness and sole saving
power of Christianity
Incarnation should be understood as a symbolical or
metaphorical or mythic rather than as a literal truth

 the traditional argument (of substance and hypostatic

union of Jesus and God) was not only out of fashion, but
has a tendency to mislead
Hick chose to understand the Incarnation as the divine
purpose of Agape (love), which is disclosing itself in the
life of Jesus. It is indeed Gods love becoming incarnate
in Jesus dealing with sinful humanity

 Using mystical approach: Hick has made a considerable

recommendation for the mystical approach as
propagating a means for a pluralistic account of religion.
Cited Jall al-Dn al-Rum, the lamps are different, but
the Light is the same; it comes from Beyond, to
propagate what he believed as a pluralistic account in
religion.

 Hick acknowledged a few Muslim Sufis of the Thirteenth

and Fourteenth Centuries, for example Muy al-Dn Ibn
Arab, and al-Junayd al-Baghdd, who taught that the
divine light is refracted through many human lenses
within the spectrum of mysticism, which according to
Hick has captured the idea of the transcendent God as
inwardly manifested in every religion.

 Hick was suggesting that the spiritual experience of

mankind on the transcendent God, as providing a
ground for a pluralistic account in religions, in the view
that every spiritual endeavor would finally reach an
acknowledgement of the existence of a transcendent
God which has been variously interpreted by man

 Hick claimed that even such mystical experience is

unable to provide a definite account of the Real an sich
In this regard, Hick insisted that event the mystics are
not free form their cultural conditioning
indeed, it is the manifestation of the real rather than the
postulated Real an sich

 Wittgensteins family-resemblance concepts to religion so that

different traditions, movements, and ideologies could be
classified under the word religion
to employ Wittgensteins family-resemblance concept on the
belief in a transcendent or an ultimate reality which has been
affirmed in most religions
different religions have different identification for the
transcendent or the ultimate; the Yahweh for the Jews, the
Brahman for the Hindus, the Holy Trinity for the Christians, the
Dharmakaya/Nirvana/Sunyata for Mahayana Buddhism

 three important features which shaped

Hicks philosophical formulation on the
philosophy of religious pluralism. First is
the sociological approach; Hicks adoption
of the sociological theory of religion, that
every religion is cultural-based. Second is
the theological approach; the problem of
salvation and its new interpretation as
central to Hicks pluralistic position. Finally,
the mystical approaches; Hicks ideas of
religious pluralism is made possible and
sanctioned under mysticism