God, Philosophers and Theologians in Africa

Abstract

There is renewed interest in philosophical and theological investigations about God, religions and the implications of religious beliefs among philosophers and theologians in Africa. This development is itself profitable because the question or the problem of God is a relevant discourse in Africa where the majority of people are theists. However, unlike the exploration of the first-generation African scholars—philosophers and theologians—whose primary objective was to show the symmetry between Christianity and African Traditional Religions (ATR), contemporary discourses arise within the clamour for decoloniality. The investigations, with varied emphasis, advocate the decolonisation of the concept of God, epistemic decolonisation, decolonisation of Christianity and African Christian theology, etc. In this essay, I critically examine the contemporary decolonial discourse about God, divine attributes, religious belief, and the relationship between African Christian theology and ATR. I argue that most of the contemporary literature is entangled in conceptual convolution and as such, there is a lack of clarity about what needs to be decolonised. Put differently, most works do not clearly distinguish between reality (the person or phenomenon “God”), thought (the concept “God”), and conceptions of God (language, that is, the terms and images used in making assertions about God). Further, I argue that when conceptual clarifications are adequately attended to, there is no need for decolonisation of discourses about God, divine nature, divine attributes, and the relationship between Christianity and ATR.