Hick and Another Bad Argument for Pluralism

You would think that Hick could at least try to understand the exclusivist position. Instead of doing this, he places two different arguments against it that are quite worthless. Yesterday I pointed out that his first argument was flawed because it contained a false premise, was irrelevant and begged the question. This argument fails to understand the exclusivist position.

Here is Hick's argument: "But the basic criticism of both Christian and Muslim exclusivism is that it denies by implication that God, the sole creator of the world and of all humanity, is loving, gracious and merciful, and that His love and mercy extend to all humankind. If God is the creator of the entire human race, is it credible that God would set up a system by which hundreds of millions of men, women and children, the majority of the human race, are destined through no fault of their own to eternal torment in hell? I say 'through no fault of their own' because it cannot be anyone's fault that they were born where they were instead of within what exclusivism regards as the one limited area of salvation." Now we can take this argument apart and see what Hick is saying.

1) The location of one's birth is not something one is responsible for
2) If exclusivism is true, then damnation depends on one's location of birth
3) Therefore, if exclusivism is true, then damnation depends on something that one is not responsible for
4) If God loves all of humanity, then damnation would not depend on something that one is not responsible for
5) Therefore, if exclusivism is true, then God does not love all of humanity
6) But God really does love all of humanity
7) Therefore, exclusivism is false

As you can see, Hick's argument depends on the assertion that a belief in exclusivism means that salvation will depend on where one is born. It is curious to note that Hick does not defend this absurd idea. Neither does he mention any exclusivist who believes it. He cannot mention any, because no exclusivist believes that. All exclusivists will say that people are damned because they are sinners. The location of their birth does not enter into the equation at all. So why does Hick think that exclusivism means that this sort of belief is true?

If you remember, the previous argument for pluralism argued that approximately 98% of people retain the religion of their youth. Although this is false, it is easy to see how this led to the belief that exclusivism means that you are saved based on location. After all, world-wide travel is a modern invention. However, even if this statistic were true, the exclusivist would not really need to believe that. All they need to believe is that one's location is not the reason for their damnation. Since they already believe that, the exclusivist position does not mean that damnation is a matter of location!

At this point, you may be wondering if I have avoided Hick's real argument. After all, the message of salvation does not reach everyone. There are some who are born and never hear it. The exclusivist believes that if you do not hear it, you cannot be saved. He believes that they are not damned for failing to respond to a message that they did not hear. Those who do not hear are damned because they are sinners. Maybe Hick intends to advance an argument about who recieves salvation. Maybe he does not. That is not the argument he is actually making. If he means to talk about salvation, then he cannot act as if damnation is unjust. If he does, then he is not advancing an argument about salvation.