A Critique of John Hick’s Multiple Incarnation: Theology and Christian Approach to Religious Dialogue

Abstract

The question of Christ’s divine nature is one issue that has caused ripples among the religions of the world. While it is the ground of Christian beliefs and explained as the doctrine of the divine incarnation of God’s only Son into the world, for some people it is faith taken too far. As intellectual ink is being spilt on Christ’s divine incarnation, John Hick, a theologian of great repute, argues of a multiple metaphorical incarnations that include Jesus Christ and other prophetic voices in the religious circle. This has heightened the question and the need to investigate this theological issue. Hence, this paper aims at not only denying the possibility of multiple incarnations, which would distort the entire Christian teaching but also demonstrates how Christ’s incarnation is a witnessed non-metaphoric belief. For this purpose, the paper adopts descriptive phenomenology in its methodology.