Morality and Truth (Part 2)
Continued from previous post…
It seems to me that Hick fails in his attempt to support pluralism and refute the orthodox Christian teaching that salvation only comes through Christ and his teachings. Formally, Hick’s argument might be stated thusly:
1. A religion which possesses a superior understanding of the Ultimate will also produce adherents which are morally superior to those of other religions.
2. All religions produce morally equivalent adherents.
3. Therefore, no religion has a superior understanding of the Ultimate.
There are other ways, or course, to make this argument, but, I think, the preceding argument fairly represents it. The argument is valid, that is, if the premises are true, the conclusion is true. I will grant premise 2, although there may be reason some might not grant it. Premise 1, however, is where I think Hick’s argument really fails. There is no necessary connection between the truthfulness of a religion’s teachings and the morality of its adherents. It may be reasonable to expect that a true religion might generally produce moral followers, but one cannot judge the truth value of the propositions of any religion based on the morality of its adherents. Additionally, there is no reason to expect that only followers of the true religion will be moral. There could be (and are) many other religions that might produce moral actions. The infusion of the issue of morality into a discussion of which religion more accurately understands the world merely confuses the issue. Hick has not established morality as a criterion of truth.
The point is there is no direct correlation between the truth of a religious claim and the morality of those who believe it. It is also important to note that orthodox Christians do not argue for the superiority of their beliefs on the basis of their moral superiority. In fact, I don’t know any thinking Christian who claims moral superiority. So, Hick is misguided in his attempt to deny orthodox Christian teaching and embrace pluralism based on an assessment of which religion, if any, is morally superior to the others.