Comparison of Religions Based on John Hick´s Theory on Pluralism

Sammanfattning: “Who am I / What is my identity?” This is one of the most important questions in a person’s life and also one of the most difficult to answer. The identity is developed and internalized mostly during the socialization process in childhood. Part of socialization is to learn what groups to identify with, ingroups, and distinguish them from outgroups that you do not belong to. This is a universal tendency of humans and it gives a bias in people´s thinking to see ingroups as “natural”, as opposed to outgroups with strange and different thinking and behaviour. At the same time we must realise that members of outgroups are human beings, just as ourselves, and that for them, what we see as an outgroup, is an ingroup. When borders and distances between in and out become too adamant and separated it can lead to ethnocentrism, stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination or racism. This is, unfortunately, common in our contemporary world with globalisation, and migration of large groups of people. One of the most important ingroups is religion or worldview and they are deeply embedded in a person´s identity. Can Hick´s theory can be used as, or be a starting point for, one of the tools we need to overcome barriers between different world views, including the major religions and secular world views? This paper critically investigates Hick´s theory of pluralism and its plausibility based on a critical analysis of claims/arguments for and against the theory. It also discusses what consequences it could, in an imaginary situation, have if the theory is plausible.