Abstract

Don Cupitt argues that our age has recently become post-Christian and post-philosophical. Uncertain what to make of the new situation, people are becoming highly disoriented. Will either philosophy or theology ever again be able to focus our culture around a coherent, rational and commonly-acknowledged view of life? By way of an answer, Don Cupitt offers a reinvention of metaphysics. He aims to reconcile the scientific vision of the world, which brings everything down to a motion of tiny packets of energy, with the 'arts' vision that reduces everything to a movement of cultural signs. He argues that an anti-realist interpretation of the scientific world-picture both does full justice to the cultural importance of science and opens up new religious possibilities. After the church comes the kingdom: this may be the first textbook of post-Christianity, describing a time of fulfilment when religion can at last become completely sensuous, rational and this-worldly.