Showing papers on "Supreme Being published in 1970"

Monotheism and Pantheism in Africa

Abstract: Nearly a hundred years ago E. B. Tylor wrote that, in the strict sense, "no savage tribe of monotheists has ever been known. Nor are any fair representatives of the lower culture in a strict sense pantheists. The doctrine which they do widely hold, and which opens to them a course tending in one or other of these directions, is polytheism culminating in the rule of one supreme divinity" [I]. These were bold words at a time when little was known accurately of the beliefs of many "tribes", among whom Tylor included Africans whom he had never visited. Later field studies have brought better knowledge but few overall theories, though in recent years some explanations have been offered to solve the diversity of African religious thought in both monotheistic and pantheistic directions. In 1923 R. S. Rattray produced his classic work on Ashanti, in which he illustrated the worship of the Supreme Being, SNyame, with photographs of priests and temples, and texts of prayers in the Twi language and in translation. He also described some of the shrines and ceremonies of lesser gods (abosom), especially the river Tano, lake Bosomtwe, the river Bea and the sea, Opo. Ashanti religion appeared to be a mixture, in which an undoubted High God ruled concurrently with lesser divine and ancestral spirits, and the explanation of this diversity was said to be that men needed the favour of every kind of spiritual being and it would be a mistake to concentrate upon one and incur the anger of those who were neglected. Twenty years later J. B. Danquah, in The Akan Doctrine of God, criticized Rattray for missing "the whole sunshine" of Ashanti religion, objected to the term "sky God", and declared that "altars and shrines to ancestral and divine gods are unknown things to the Akan" [2]. Danquah expounded a philosophy which selected three names of the Ashanti Supreme Being, to indicate in turn the basic idea of Deity, a personal religious God, and an infinite Being. The unity in diversity of God was affirmed, and most worship of the personal God was said to be offered through the intermediary of the ancestors. In fact God himself was called "the Great Ancestor", a conception