Don Cupitt on Non-Realism about God

Philosophy Bites

Nigel Warburton

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2008

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Don Cupitt, a controversial theologian and philosopher, whose BBC television series and book The Sea of Faith was extremely influential, giving birth to a theological movement, believes that most religion is too anthropomorphic. In this interview for the Philosophy Bites podcast he explains his non-realist approach to God.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warton.
0:07.0	Philosophy bites is available at W.
0:09.0	W.
0:09.2	philosophy bites.com. Don Cupit has been described as the most radical theologian in the world.
0:15.8	His 1984 BBC television series, The Sea of Faith and the Book of the Same Name gave birth to a movement
0:22.2	that is still thriving thriving and his other books
0:24.4	particularly taking leave of God have been praised and pilloried.
0:28.0	Prazed by those who see him as making sense of belief in God in the postmodern age, pilloried by religious traditionalists.
0:36.0	Central to his controversial views is his non-realism about God.
0:40.5	Don't keep it.
0:41.5	Welcome to Philosophy Bites. The topic we're going to focus on today is
0:45.4	non-realism about God. I wonder if you could just say something about
0:49.3	non-realism generally, not in the religious context, but what is non-realism?
0:54.0	Normally non-realism is a view that things don't exist apart from our knowledge of them
0:59.6	and the ways in which we describe them.
1:01.6	Everything takes shape and gets fixed in our
1:04.0	conversation. So I'm giving up the idea of a pre-existent self-world and God
1:10.1	quite apart from human belief, human commitment and human descriptions. God, thinking that there is a world out there that exists independently of their
1:24.3	perception of it so that beyond the window here there is a part of Cambridge which I
1:29.1	can't see but I'm confident exists and will continue to exist after my death, completely independently of me.
1:35.2	So would a non-realist say it doesn't exist apart from me?
1:38.8	No, for ordinary practical everyday purposes we can take realism for granted but remember our
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