Post-theism is the belief that the belief in a

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

belongs to a previous stage of human development and, thus, a division of

theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the philosophical conception of God that is found in classical theism—or the co ...

vs.

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...

is obsolete. It is a variant of

nontheism Nontheism or non-theism is a range of both religious and non-religious attitudes characterized by the absence of espoused belief in the existence of God or gods. Nontheism has generally been used to describe apathy or silence towards the subjec ...

. The term appears in

liberal Christianity Liberal Christianity, also known as liberal theology and historically as Christian modernism (see Catholic modernism and fundamentalist–modernist controversy), is a movement that interprets Christian teaching by prioritizing modern knowle ...

and post-Christianity.

Origin

Frank Hugh Foster in a 1918 lecture announced that modern culture had arrived at a "post-theistic stage" in which humanity has taken possession of the powers of agency and creativity that had formerly been projected upon God. Denys Turner argues that

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

did not choose atheism over theism but rejected the binary Feuerbachian choice in '' The Essence of Christianity'' altogether, a position which by being post-theistic is at the same time necessarily post-atheistic. Turner wrote that Marx At one point, Marx argued "there should be less trifling with the label 'atheism, as he insisted "religion in itself is without content, it owes its being not to heaven but to the earth, and with the abolition of distorted reality, of which it is the theory, it will collapse of itself."Karl Marx, ''Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge In Dresden'' (1842)
/ref> Related ideas include

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...

's pronouncement that " God is dead" and the

transtheism Transtheism refers to a system of thought or religious philosophy that is neither theistic nor atheistic, but is beyond them. The word was coined by either theologian Paul Tillich or Indologist Heinrich Zimmer.In published writings, the term ...

Paul Tillich Paul Johannes Tillich (; ; August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German and American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran theologian who was one of the most influential theologians of the twenti ...

or Pema Chödrön.

Notes and references

Sources

* H. J. Adriannse, "After Theism" in: H. A. Krop, Arie L. Molendijk, Hent de Vries (eds.)
Post-Theism: Reframing the Judeo-Christian Tradition
'' (2000), . * Christoph Schwöbel, "After Post-Theism" in: S. Andersen (ed. ) ''Traditional Theism and its Modern Alternatives'' (1994), 161–196. * Vincent Brümmer, "The Enlightenment Project and the Human Image of God" in: Hans-Georg Ziebertz (ed.), ''The Human Image of God'', BRILL, 2001, 55–72.

External links

Post-colonialism and Post-theism
by Christopher Bradley (2007)

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20200704003608/http://www.emory.edu/INTELNET/fi.postatheism.html Post-Atheism: from Apophatic Theology to "Minimal Religion"by Mikhail Epstein In the book: Russian Postmodernism: ''New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture'' (with Alexander Genis and Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover, in the series ''Studies in Slavic Literature, Culture, and Society'', vol. 3). New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1999, 528 pp.345-393. {{DEFAULTSORT:Post-Theism Nontheism Theism Postmodernism Philosophy of religion

Origin

See also

Notes and references

Sources

External links