ABSTRACT
One of the distinguishing features of Don Cupitt's writing has been a spirit of experimentation. This has resulted in a pattern of lines of thought, often drawn and redrawn, across ethics, theology, aesthetics, philosophy, religion and cultural studies. The influence of Friedrich Nietzsche, however, has been of special significance. Whereas Cupitt takes ideas from other thinkers to guide particular projects and lines of enquiry, he takes his basic stance from Nietzsche: a philosophical gesture that goes some way towards defining his theology as a whole. Cupitt's development reflects the influence of the so-called 'New Nietzsche' inaugurated by Gilles Deleuze in the early 1960s. Deleuze offered the view that Nietzsche's philosophy must be understood as 'philosophical opera', as a sequence of acts and movements. Of the many metaphors that Nietzsche uses to stage his philosophical opera, the image of 'philosophising with a hammer' is arguably the most unusual and intriguing.
