Post-theism is the belief that the belief in aGod belongs to a previous stage of human development and, thus, a division oftheism vs.atheism is obsolete. It is a variant ofnontheism. The term appears inliberal Christianity andpost-Christianity.
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.[1]
Denys Turner argues thatKarl Marx did not choose atheism over theism but rejected the binaryFeuerbachian choice inThe Essence of Christianity altogether, a position which by being post-theistic is at the same time necessarilypost-atheistic.[2] 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."[3]
Related ideas includeFriedrich Nietzsche's pronouncement that "God is dead" and thetranstheism ofPaul Tillich orPema Chödrön.
