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After God: The Future Of Religion
What is it about religion that, despite all odds, allows it to survive? In After God, the renowned scholar Don Cupitt considers the fate of religion, now that we have effectively killed off our gods. The author, a trained theologian and an ordained priest in the Church of England, takes us through the evolution of religious belief from the dawn of the gods to their twilight—as well as to the morning after.Tracing the postmodern pilgrimage from traditional belief to cynicism to faith after God, Cupitt says we need to build a new religious vocabulary. He challenges us to see religion less as an ideology and more as a tool kit, a set of techniques—perhaps an art form—enhancing our lives the way that literature and art do.”A heretic's heretic” and ”an atheist priest,” Cupitt has respect for both skepticism and devotion. He neither accepts nor denies religion at face value; he takes faith to pieces, throws away what he can't use, and assembles the remainder into new and extraordinary shapes, challenging us to creatively reshape it, give it new language, reinvent it. After God is for those who find it hard to be among the congregation of an orthodox religion but who miss the discipline and rewards of practicing a faith, and for the person who will understand Cupitt when he writes, ”I actually think that I love God more now that I know God is voluntary. Perhaps God had to die to purify our love for him.”
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Don Cupitt
73 books15 followersDon Cupitt was an English philosopher of religion and scholar of Christian theology. He had been an Anglican priest and a lecturer in the University of Cambridge, though he was better known as a popular writer, broadcaster and commentator. He has been described as a "radical theologian", noted for his ideas about "non-realist" philosophy of religion.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 6, 2024
The Unanswered Question
In 1906, the American composer Charles Ives wrote a short orchestral piece called "The Unanswered Question". He described the music as a "cosmic drama." The piece is indeed a musical picture of the human search for meaning and religion and a world full of skepticism about both. (Ives himself was a believer of a rather traditional sort.)
I thought of Ives, and his "Unanswered Question" in reading Don Cupitt's short study "After God". Cupitt is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and his written widely on religious subjects. He is the founder of the "Sea of Faith" movement, which is an attempt to provide meaning for religion in a non-theistic, non-traditional sense.
The book is modernistic in tone. It is addressed to the many people who attempt to find a form of religion in their lives separate from theism. In setting out his topic Cupitt states: "Religious life is an expressive, world-building activity through which we can get ourselves together and find a kind of posthumous, or retrospective, happiness". (page xiv)
The book is in three parts. In the first part, "The Coming of the Gods", Cupitt tries to give a historical, genetic account of the origins of theistic belief, based on the development of cities and ruling hierarchies from more primitive hunting or agrarian societies. He finds both religion and early philosophy derivative of this change in human social organization.
In the second section, "The Departure of the Gods" Cupitt explores the difficulties in the concept of a transcendent God separate from the imminent world of the everyday. He talks insightfully, if too briefly, of the development of philosophy from the objective realism of Plato (both the chief hero and the chief villain of the book) through Kant's internalization of the sources of human knowledge, through Nietzsche and modern philosophy of language. His position straddles, I think, postmodern thought, which denies the possibility of any absolute truth separate from the observer, and a more traditional philosophical naturalism (denial of supernaturalism) where I think it is ultimately more comfortable.
The third part of the book "Religion after the Gods" offers a new version of religion stripped of its theological trappings. Cupitt adopts a three-fold religious practice from the wisdom of the past, consisting of 1. attempting to see one's life through the eye of eternity 2. meditation on emptiness and 3. "solar living" -- a radiant, outgoing way of life based on emotion and human need, receptive to change and to the moment, and concerned with immanences here and now rather than fixed absolutes. Cupitt sees religion as ultimately global in character, breaking down the tendency of believers to separate themselves and their creed from other parts of humanity. Strangely enough, he closes the book with advice that people remain in their current religious traditions, but follow them in a manner consistent with the teachings of his book.
Cupitt writes eloquently and well. I am in sympathy with much of his programme, but he moves too quickly at times. There is a sense in his book of the mystery and enigma that Ives presents so well in "the unanswered question"; although, paradoxically, Cupitt seems too eager to dissolve the mystery by creating a dogma of his own.
Those wanting to hear more of Cupitt might be interested in looking up his interview with Steven Batchelor in the Fall, 2003,issue of "Tricycle, the Buddhist Review."
Robin Friedman
In 1906, the American composer Charles Ives wrote a short orchestral piece called "The Unanswered Question". He described the music as a "cosmic drama." The piece is indeed a musical picture of the human search for meaning and religion and a world full of skepticism about both. (Ives himself was a believer of a rather traditional sort.)
I thought of Ives, and his "Unanswered Question" in reading Don Cupitt's short study "After God". Cupitt is a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and his written widely on religious subjects. He is the founder of the "Sea of Faith" movement, which is an attempt to provide meaning for religion in a non-theistic, non-traditional sense.
The book is modernistic in tone. It is addressed to the many people who attempt to find a form of religion in their lives separate from theism. In setting out his topic Cupitt states: "Religious life is an expressive, world-building activity through which we can get ourselves together and find a kind of posthumous, or retrospective, happiness". (page xiv)
The book is in three parts. In the first part, "The Coming of the Gods", Cupitt tries to give a historical, genetic account of the origins of theistic belief, based on the development of cities and ruling hierarchies from more primitive hunting or agrarian societies. He finds both religion and early philosophy derivative of this change in human social organization.
In the second section, "The Departure of the Gods" Cupitt explores the difficulties in the concept of a transcendent God separate from the imminent world of the everyday. He talks insightfully, if too briefly, of the development of philosophy from the objective realism of Plato (both the chief hero and the chief villain of the book) through Kant's internalization of the sources of human knowledge, through Nietzsche and modern philosophy of language. His position straddles, I think, postmodern thought, which denies the possibility of any absolute truth separate from the observer, and a more traditional philosophical naturalism (denial of supernaturalism) where I think it is ultimately more comfortable.
The third part of the book "Religion after the Gods" offers a new version of religion stripped of its theological trappings. Cupitt adopts a three-fold religious practice from the wisdom of the past, consisting of 1. attempting to see one's life through the eye of eternity 2. meditation on emptiness and 3. "solar living" -- a radiant, outgoing way of life based on emotion and human need, receptive to change and to the moment, and concerned with immanences here and now rather than fixed absolutes. Cupitt sees religion as ultimately global in character, breaking down the tendency of believers to separate themselves and their creed from other parts of humanity. Strangely enough, he closes the book with advice that people remain in their current religious traditions, but follow them in a manner consistent with the teachings of his book.
Cupitt writes eloquently and well. I am in sympathy with much of his programme, but he moves too quickly at times. There is a sense in his book of the mystery and enigma that Ives presents so well in "the unanswered question"; although, paradoxically, Cupitt seems too eager to dissolve the mystery by creating a dogma of his own.
Those wanting to hear more of Cupitt might be interested in looking up his interview with Steven Batchelor in the Fall, 2003,issue of "Tricycle, the Buddhist Review."
Robin Friedman
July 19, 2020
Don Cupitt's 'After God' was definitely an enlightening read. He gives an interesting and I would say quite convincing interpretation of religion in the past in the first part of the book, and offers some ideas for a religion of the future based on that and the postmodern condition we find ourselves in. Let's have a short look on some of these elements.
The postmodern condition we are living in is described by Cupitt as an erasure of distinctions between public and private, objectivity and subjectivity or between the dominant culture and the counter-culture. "People on the Right are very illogical if they refuse to acknowledge that everything nowadays is beginning to float on a free global market - not only money and prices but also linguistic meanings, religious truths, and moral and aesthetic values." Most religious movements try to oppose this or think they can survive (for example within the private realm or within individual subjectivity), but according to Cupitt it is not possible: "... the world of symbolic meaning in which we live is an outsideless and unanchored floating continuum. All reactions against it must use its vocabulary and are therefore part of it, and will be engulfed by it."
The conclusion at which he arrives regarding postmodernity is we should embrace it, if there is no way of beating it.
Cupitt's embrace of postmodernity results in his theory of religion and linguistics that he is elaborating in the first chapters:
"1. As both philosophy and religion have in the past taught, there is indeed an unseen intelligible world, or spirit world, about us and within us.
2. The invisible world is the world of words and other symbols.
3. The entire supernatural world of religion is a mythical representation of the world of language
4. Through the practice of its religion, a society represents to itself, and confirms, the varied ways in which its language builds its world."
To argue for this theory, Cupitt gives a broad overview of the evolution of religion which I won't trace in detail here. Very broadly speaking these are these milestones:
First there is the archaic belief in a world of spirits which exists above and about the visible world. This is then transformed by Plato into his intelligible world of general ideas or forms. Later on, Kant takes this idea of Plato's world-above and transforms it into an order of concepts in our mind. In modern philosophy (in the 1930s) this is turned into the vocabulary of our language: "... we now see from our point of view that the magical supernatural world of religion was, all along, a mythical representation of the world of language."
The new religion Cupitt finally proposes is based on a non-realist approach to religion. In this approach it is believed that God has no real or objective existence apart from human language and culture. God exists only in the sense that he is a potent symbol, metaphor or projection, which also implies that he cannot exist beyond the practice of religion. In spite of his rejection of supernaturalism, Cupitt still sees some benefits in the practice of religion and thus mentions four exemplary religious practices which are not bound to belief in an actually existing God.
In the postmodern condition we thus find ourselves in a new position: "We truly are historical agents, because through our interactions with one another we have among ourselves, and are still shaping, every aspect of the 'reality' within which we live. It is human historical action rather than divine creation that finishes the world. We can use the word interactionism for a general philosophical doctrine, namely, the view that everything, including all linguistic meanings, truths, values, and indeed reality itself, is a slowly evolving consensus product, the result of an interplay of forces in the human realm."
For some conservatives this might sound like a nightmare, but it isn't actually. If embraced and not demonized, there are so many beautiful things that can grow out of such an understanding of the world and the role we play in it. Other authors like John D Caputo manage to convey this sense of beauty of a postmodern theology even better, in my opinion, but the additional perspective Cupitt offered through this book was still very helpful.
The postmodern condition we are living in is described by Cupitt as an erasure of distinctions between public and private, objectivity and subjectivity or between the dominant culture and the counter-culture. "People on the Right are very illogical if they refuse to acknowledge that everything nowadays is beginning to float on a free global market - not only money and prices but also linguistic meanings, religious truths, and moral and aesthetic values." Most religious movements try to oppose this or think they can survive (for example within the private realm or within individual subjectivity), but according to Cupitt it is not possible: "... the world of symbolic meaning in which we live is an outsideless and unanchored floating continuum. All reactions against it must use its vocabulary and are therefore part of it, and will be engulfed by it."
The conclusion at which he arrives regarding postmodernity is we should embrace it, if there is no way of beating it.
Cupitt's embrace of postmodernity results in his theory of religion and linguistics that he is elaborating in the first chapters:
"1. As both philosophy and religion have in the past taught, there is indeed an unseen intelligible world, or spirit world, about us and within us.
2. The invisible world is the world of words and other symbols.
3. The entire supernatural world of religion is a mythical representation of the world of language
4. Through the practice of its religion, a society represents to itself, and confirms, the varied ways in which its language builds its world."
To argue for this theory, Cupitt gives a broad overview of the evolution of religion which I won't trace in detail here. Very broadly speaking these are these milestones:
First there is the archaic belief in a world of spirits which exists above and about the visible world. This is then transformed by Plato into his intelligible world of general ideas or forms. Later on, Kant takes this idea of Plato's world-above and transforms it into an order of concepts in our mind. In modern philosophy (in the 1930s) this is turned into the vocabulary of our language: "... we now see from our point of view that the magical supernatural world of religion was, all along, a mythical representation of the world of language."
The new religion Cupitt finally proposes is based on a non-realist approach to religion. In this approach it is believed that God has no real or objective existence apart from human language and culture. God exists only in the sense that he is a potent symbol, metaphor or projection, which also implies that he cannot exist beyond the practice of religion. In spite of his rejection of supernaturalism, Cupitt still sees some benefits in the practice of religion and thus mentions four exemplary religious practices which are not bound to belief in an actually existing God.
In the postmodern condition we thus find ourselves in a new position: "We truly are historical agents, because through our interactions with one another we have among ourselves, and are still shaping, every aspect of the 'reality' within which we live. It is human historical action rather than divine creation that finishes the world. We can use the word interactionism for a general philosophical doctrine, namely, the view that everything, including all linguistic meanings, truths, values, and indeed reality itself, is a slowly evolving consensus product, the result of an interplay of forces in the human realm."
For some conservatives this might sound like a nightmare, but it isn't actually. If embraced and not demonized, there are so many beautiful things that can grow out of such an understanding of the world and the role we play in it. Other authors like John D Caputo manage to convey this sense of beauty of a postmodern theology even better, in my opinion, but the additional perspective Cupitt offered through this book was still very helpful.
January 12, 2016
I read this book because Stephen Batchelor, a Buddhist thinker who has written several excellent books, recently said that he considered Cupitt's work influential in his own thinking. Cupitt is a prolific writer; he seems to have been producing a book nearly every year for the past 15 or 20 years. I chose this book out of his many others because it has been reviewed more often than his others and appears to be possibly his first full statement about his evolving system.
It should be noted that Cupitt was a priest ordained within the Church of England for many years. He also taught at Cambridge. I think he is retired from or has resigned from both of these roles. As to his religious status, he is (or was) a very liberal priest with highly unorthodox views, bordering on the atheistic.
As to the book itself, I found it intriguing. Cupitt very convincingly sets out the reasons for the diminishing role of religion among many in modern pluralistic societies. However, I think he goes overboard into the postmodern/constructivism camp (the gods are not real, and nothing else is, either), and his effort to find a replacement for the roles that religion has (and among many, still does) provide in human society are, it must be said, lame. His proposed program involves three practices: an attempt to observe oneself "through the eye of eternity"; meditation/contemplation; and "solar living," which seems to be a life of selfless creativity and giving, with no attachments and no regret at the inevitability of death. There are some clear resemblances here to Buddhist practices (and so I can see why Batchelor feels some kinship with Cupitt), but I see little likelihood that the segment of humanity that still craves the supernatural in the form of a god -- to whom they can pray and that is somehow involved in human life -- will gravitate, en masse, toward these practices.
It should be noted that Cupitt was a priest ordained within the Church of England for many years. He also taught at Cambridge. I think he is retired from or has resigned from both of these roles. As to his religious status, he is (or was) a very liberal priest with highly unorthodox views, bordering on the atheistic.
As to the book itself, I found it intriguing. Cupitt very convincingly sets out the reasons for the diminishing role of religion among many in modern pluralistic societies. However, I think he goes overboard into the postmodern/constructivism camp (the gods are not real, and nothing else is, either), and his effort to find a replacement for the roles that religion has (and among many, still does) provide in human society are, it must be said, lame. His proposed program involves three practices: an attempt to observe oneself "through the eye of eternity"; meditation/contemplation; and "solar living," which seems to be a life of selfless creativity and giving, with no attachments and no regret at the inevitability of death. There are some clear resemblances here to Buddhist practices (and so I can see why Batchelor feels some kinship with Cupitt), but I see little likelihood that the segment of humanity that still craves the supernatural in the form of a god -- to whom they can pray and that is somehow involved in human life -- will gravitate, en masse, toward these practices.
March 3, 2008
Easily the best philosopher today in the area of religious studies.
February 4, 2026
Don Cupitt’s After God is a thoughtful and ethically driven attempt to respond to the moral and spiritual vacuum of late modernity. Even as he argues for moving beyond belief in a literal, transcendent God, Cupitt does not abandon ethics. On the contrary, he is deeply concerned with preserving moral seriousness, responsibility, compassion, and self-reflection in a world where traditional religious authority has weakened. His emphasis on self-awareness, shared meaning-making, and ethical “practices of life” reflects a genuine desire to safeguard human dignity and social cohesion.
However, Cupitt’s analysis is shaped almost entirely by the Western Christian intellectual tradition. His reading of religion as primarily symbolic, language-bound, and culturally constructed reflects his context but does not adequately account for non-Western religious frameworks, particularly Islam. In Islamic thought, God is not a linguistic or cultural abstraction but an absolute, transcendent yet immanent reality, whose guidance provides a stable moral framework without collapsing human agency. Ethical values in Islam are not negotiated consensus alone; they are grounded in divine justice, accountability, and purpose, while still allowing cultural diversity and historical development.
By treating the “death of God” as a universal human condition, Cupitt risks projecting a Western crisis of faith onto all civilisations. Many religious cultures have not experienced the same rupture between reason, science, and revelation. Islam, for example, historically integrates ethics, law, spirituality, and knowledge within a coherent worldview that resists the moral nomadism Cupitt describes.
In short, After God is admirable for its ethical seriousness and honesty about modern uncertainty, but its conclusions are limited by a narrow cultural lens. What Cupitt presents as a global future may be better understood as a specifically Western response to the loss of theological confidence, rather than a final verdict on religion, morality, or the human need for transcendence.
However, Cupitt’s analysis is shaped almost entirely by the Western Christian intellectual tradition. His reading of religion as primarily symbolic, language-bound, and culturally constructed reflects his context but does not adequately account for non-Western religious frameworks, particularly Islam. In Islamic thought, God is not a linguistic or cultural abstraction but an absolute, transcendent yet immanent reality, whose guidance provides a stable moral framework without collapsing human agency. Ethical values in Islam are not negotiated consensus alone; they are grounded in divine justice, accountability, and purpose, while still allowing cultural diversity and historical development.
By treating the “death of God” as a universal human condition, Cupitt risks projecting a Western crisis of faith onto all civilisations. Many religious cultures have not experienced the same rupture between reason, science, and revelation. Islam, for example, historically integrates ethics, law, spirituality, and knowledge within a coherent worldview that resists the moral nomadism Cupitt describes.
In short, After God is admirable for its ethical seriousness and honesty about modern uncertainty, but its conclusions are limited by a narrow cultural lens. What Cupitt presents as a global future may be better understood as a specifically Western response to the loss of theological confidence, rather than a final verdict on religion, morality, or the human need for transcendence.
September 25, 2024
The message was something I definitely wanted to pursue - the idea that religions, per se, are basically through, but we could still benefit by employing some of their elements - essentially humanism. He points out that, as per existentialism, we assign our own meaning to our lives, but doesn't really elaborate. His writing style wasn't very appealing to me.
February 4, 2024
Amazing book for Christians looking away from the decline of Christianity and towards the abyss of nihilism; trying to make sense of it all. Disagree with the overt importance of language/linguistics but more than compensated by everything else in the book.
November 1, 2014
All over the place, and the ending is pretty damn New Agey. Plus Cupitt loves name-dropping (if you haven't read Wittgenstein, Kant, and Nietzsche, or don't at least know their respective general projects, I don't know what you can do here) and seems allergic to arguments (cf. chapter nine which introduces the deferral of objectivity which starts off with a hypothetical apparent which Cupitt erroneously deems sturdy enough to use as a platform for what follows), sticking mostly to (extremely) speculative descriptions.
The meat of Cupitt's book rides on this speculative survey of everything from consciousness to the development of the city-state, and the result is a relegation of God to a particular word game that we play, with "God"'s agency coming in the form of a bourgeois ethics that is landed in a personal subjective self-ideal (assuming of course a subject that is always already moral)[the Eye of God], with a broad tolerance of every Other (Cupitt's naivete is most pronounced here) with a will-to-power taking a religio-aesthetic path towards artistic self-realization [Solar Living, Poetical Theology]. Awfully unsatisfactory stuff; it's not really hard to specify even a definite historical scenario (everyday people in 1930s Germany) in which this program would have not done much to prevent anything at all. Nor, more generally, does it really prescribe what one should do to become more ethical, or how one should live—all in keeping with Cupitt's embracing of postmodern rootlessness—but for people who already feel desperately adrift, and for a program which is supposed to offer ultimately therapeutic benefit, it seems like a secondary standard necessarily has to be set, a social ideal, if any of it is going to work. None of this social ideal is talked about here, nor is standard-setting talked about (from where does the personal-subjective ideal derive ethical content?).
Cupitt's take on death and the afterlife, tying Western conceptions of afterlife properly speaking in with Eastern conceptions of Nothingness [Eternal Bliss Void] was probably some of the most riveting stuff, but again it's all just a restatement of older ideas. Cupitt's take on ritual is also strangely satisfying as he cashes out old religious forms as meditation reinforcing the aforesaid Eye of God motif.
The meat of Cupitt's book rides on this speculative survey of everything from consciousness to the development of the city-state, and the result is a relegation of God to a particular word game that we play, with "God"'s agency coming in the form of a bourgeois ethics that is landed in a personal subjective self-ideal (assuming of course a subject that is always already moral)[the Eye of God], with a broad tolerance of every Other (Cupitt's naivete is most pronounced here) with a will-to-power taking a religio-aesthetic path towards artistic self-realization [Solar Living, Poetical Theology]. Awfully unsatisfactory stuff; it's not really hard to specify even a definite historical scenario (everyday people in 1930s Germany) in which this program would have not done much to prevent anything at all. Nor, more generally, does it really prescribe what one should do to become more ethical, or how one should live—all in keeping with Cupitt's embracing of postmodern rootlessness—but for people who already feel desperately adrift, and for a program which is supposed to offer ultimately therapeutic benefit, it seems like a secondary standard necessarily has to be set, a social ideal, if any of it is going to work. None of this social ideal is talked about here, nor is standard-setting talked about (from where does the personal-subjective ideal derive ethical content?).
Cupitt's take on death and the afterlife, tying Western conceptions of afterlife properly speaking in with Eastern conceptions of Nothingness [Eternal Bliss Void] was probably some of the most riveting stuff, but again it's all just a restatement of older ideas. Cupitt's take on ritual is also strangely satisfying as he cashes out old religious forms as meditation reinforcing the aforesaid Eye of God motif.
June 25, 2013
I started out pretty excited about this book, as he made a lot of interesting arguments. Because he's so logical and novel, I was startled to find myself agreeing with things I never thought I would have before. But as he started making his conclusions, I felt disappointed. Still, it was an interesting book.
He's an atheist who believes in God. That's right. It may sound like a contradiction, but the way he explains it, it makes perfect sense. He starts right off saying, basically, God is dead. Let's just admit that. Or at least on life support. Religion is quickly becoming irrelevant. As we find more and more of our answers from science, religion just feels so ridiculous and stupid. And that's a shame, he says, because religion has a lot going for it. And the change is happening so quickly that it's alarming, maybe faster than we can handle, having evolved for so long with religious and superstitious approaches to the world.
Maybe there's a way to keep religion alive, but make it work in this day in age, without all the stupid dogma and outrageous claims. He thinks it's both possible and important. Interesting idea, I was thinking, reading on, curious to hear his propositions. There were four, a couple of which sounded vague and ethereal. The other two were more concrete. One he calls the Blissful Void, which sounded basically like Zen Buddhism. The other he calls the Eye of God, which sounded an awful lot like making up an imaginary friend and calling him God.
But it's good to think about this stuff, and religion is such a huge part of who we are, so it certainly is a relevant question: What is the future of religion?
He's an atheist who believes in God. That's right. It may sound like a contradiction, but the way he explains it, it makes perfect sense. He starts right off saying, basically, God is dead. Let's just admit that. Or at least on life support. Religion is quickly becoming irrelevant. As we find more and more of our answers from science, religion just feels so ridiculous and stupid. And that's a shame, he says, because religion has a lot going for it. And the change is happening so quickly that it's alarming, maybe faster than we can handle, having evolved for so long with religious and superstitious approaches to the world.
Maybe there's a way to keep religion alive, but make it work in this day in age, without all the stupid dogma and outrageous claims. He thinks it's both possible and important. Interesting idea, I was thinking, reading on, curious to hear his propositions. There were four, a couple of which sounded vague and ethereal. The other two were more concrete. One he calls the Blissful Void, which sounded basically like Zen Buddhism. The other he calls the Eye of God, which sounded an awful lot like making up an imaginary friend and calling him God.
But it's good to think about this stuff, and religion is such a huge part of who we are, so it certainly is a relevant question: What is the future of religion?
June 21, 2012
A collection of arguments and quotes from other authors that support the point that all religions are fundamentally flawed. Ultimately, it only offers a framework for anyone who might be interested in devising a new religion to use.
July 16, 2012
I didn't track the argument in this book very well. Could hardly finish it.
May 25, 2016
Rambling syncretism.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews