Only Human

This, Don Cupitt argues, is a new kind of theological book. It starts not from doctrine or scripture but from the rise of those sciences that bear most directly on the questions of human nature and the human condition. The idea is to find out what religious possibilities there may be in the emergent modern vision of our situation. The 'Christian doctrine of man', drawing most of its themes from the book of Genesis via Augustine, has been damaged virtually beyond repair. So a gap needs to be filled. Patching up the old will not do. 'Suppose that someone writing a textbook of psychology is told to integrate the Scientologiste beliefs into his text. He really and truly wishes to comply with this instruction, but he finds that even with the best will in the world it simply cannot be done. Thai is the difficulty that we are in. Maybe it is bad news, but shooting the messenger who brings it will not help.' So this book does not reinterpret or prune or modernize the Christian doctrine of man, or replace it with a new set of doctrines. There is no theological or philosophical anthropology, mixing existentialism, psychology and a little metaphysics. The materials come from geology and biology, psychology, social anthropology, and comparative religion. What results, forming a trilogy with Taking Larne of God and The World to Come, completes and supports a view which Don Cupitt has been presenting over a number of years. It is unlikely to leave readers unmoved. Don Cupitt is Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion in the University of Cambridge and Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.