There is a widespread belief in God who is believed to be supreme and above all; God is essentially a spirit and is recognized as such in all the African tribes. He is invisible and infinite and cannot be comprehended by the finite man. This is why the Africans do not use any image to represent Him. He is believed to be the creator of the world the sovereign ruler of the whole universe and all that is in it – man, animal, and plants. God is everywhere and is all knowing. He is believed to be both distant from men and near to him.
Published in Chapter:
Concepts of God, Divinities, Ancestors, and Spirits in African Traditional Religious Thought: Conceptual Analysis
AniediAbasi Okon Ekpatt (University of Uyo, Nigeria)
Copyright: © 2021
|Pages: 26
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4595-9.ch002
Abstract
The concept of god, divinities, ancestors, and spirits in African traditional religious ontology has been misunderstood by many scholars to the point of seeing Africans as people who did not know the supreme being nor worship him. Africans were seen as worshipping strange god(s). Against this backdrop, the researcher undertook this study to show that the concept of god is not strange to Africans and that in traditional Africa there is no atheist. Africans rather see the divinities as special beings, offspring, and/or apparitional beings who receive their authority from the supreme being to serve in the unitary theocratic system of the supreme being's government. This study adopts the descriptive and analytical research methods to investigate African traditional religious lifestyle, beliefs, and practices. This chapter concludes by suggesting that there is the need for proper religious education, a theology of enculturation, and understanding of African worldviews in order to sustain Africans' beliefs and practices.