The fifth dimension : an exploration of the spiritual realm / John Hick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hick, John, 1922-2012.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spirituality.

Spiritual life.

Religion--Philosophy.

Religion.

Physical Description:

xii, 274 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oneworld, [1999]

Summary:

Many of us today, living in our highly technological western culture, are all too willing to accept a humanist and scientific account of the universe which considers human existence as a fleeting accident.

The triumph of John Hick's gripping work is his exposure of the radical insufficiency of this view. Drawing on mystical and religious traditions ancient and modern, and spiritual thinkers as diverse as Julian of Norwich and Mahatma Gandhi, he has produced a tightly argued and thoroughly readable case for a bigger, more complete, picture of reality, in which a fifth, spiritual, dimension plays a central role.

Hick's elegant study tackles head on such timeless and fundamental issues as the meaning of life, the nature and validity of religious experience and the science versus religion debate. Few readers will fail to re-examine their vision of the spiritual landscape in response to this stimulating investigation.

Contents:

Introduction: The Big Picture 1

Alternative pictures

The fifth dimension of our nature

The axial age

Sin or false consciousness?

Guilt or dukkha as the problem?

Transcategorial reality

Part I Drawing the Picture

1. Where we Start Today: the Naturalistic Assumption 13

Naturalism

An ambiguous universe

Science versus religion: a false opposition

2. Naturalism as Bad News for the Many 20

Hard and soft naturalism

No hope for the many

3. Windows on the Transcendent 26

Windows in the physical sciences

Windows in the social sciences

Windows in the natural world

Windows in human life

4. The Key to Understanding 32

Perception as interpretation

Cognitive freedom...

... in religious awareness

5. Turning the Critical Realist Key 39

The transformation of information

Critical realism

Part II The Meaning of Life

6. The Religious Meaning of Life 47

Practical meaning

Religious meaning

Cosmic optimism

7. Cosmic Optimism in the East 55

In Hinduism

In Buddhism

8. And in the West 64

In Judaism

In Christianity

In Islam

Part III The Gods and Absolutes as Manifestations of the Real

9. The Real Experienced as God 77

The pluralist hypothesis

Pseudo-Dionysius

Dionysius' dilemma

Meister Eckhart and others

10. The Real Experienced as the Absolute 91

Part IV Religious Experience and Mysticism

11. Altered States of Consciousness 99

Some distinctions

Altered states

Drugs and altered states

Self-transcendence

The influence of set and setting

12. Religious Experience 110

Preliminary distinctions

The sense of presence

Some examples

13. Visions - A Case Study of Julian of Norwich 118

The emergence of women visionaries

Julian herself

The historical setting

The visions

14. Lady Julian's Fruitful Heresies 129

The fall-redemption model

The lord-servant parable

The godly will within us

Universal salvation?

15. Unitive Mysticism: Literal Unity 136

Literal or metaphorical?

Advaita Vedanta

An epistemological problem

Neoplatonism

16. Unitive Mysticism: Metaphorical Unity 144

Christian Neoplatonism

Deification

The love poetry of the mystics

The Jewish Kabbala

The Sufis of Islam

17. The Dark Side 155

The dark side of the cults

The dark side of the great religions

Harmless eccentricities

18. The Criterion 163

The fruits in human life

Operating the criterion

Trusting religious experience

Part V The Saints Come Marching in

19. One Living Saint is Worth Ten Dead Ones 173

Saints, mahatmas and others

The founders

Living saints

The profile of the saint

Modern political saints

20. Gandhi: A Case Study 180

My life is my message

A very human saint

A rock-like integrity

21. The Politics of Truth 191

God is Truth, Truth is God

A Hindu critic of Hinduism

Non-violence

22. Gandhi's Truth for Us Today 199

Non-violent conflict resolution

Green thinking

The position of women

Religious pluralism

23. An Activist and a Contemplative 205

Kushdeva Singh

Nyanaponika Mahathera

Part VI Time Present and Time Future

24. What We don't Need to Know 219

The beginning and the end

The Buddha's 'unanswered questions'

Living on a need-to-know basis

What then do we need to know?

25. Living Within a True Myth 229

Myth and metaphor

The use and misuse of myths

The Jewish myth

The Christian myth

Living consciously within a true myth

26. Death and Beyond 241

Our contemporary confusion

Traditional possibilities

Many lives

What reincarnates?

Dying.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [255]-267) and index.

ISBN:

1851681906

1851681914

OCLC:

59438113