The Concept of God in Igbo Traditional Religious Thought

Abstract

This paper examines the concept of God in traditional Igbo-African religious thought, prior to the advent of Western religion, with a view to showing that the idea of a God/Deity who is supreme in every area of life and sphere of influence and who “creates out of nothing,” like the God of the Christian or Western missionaries, is unrecognized in the Igbo-African traditional religious thought. Even though the Igbo conceive of strong and powerful deities that can only reign supreme within their respective sphere of influence where they are in charge, none of these deities is identical to the supreme God promoted by the Christian missionaries. The Igbo traditional religious worldview maintains a polytheistic religious view, unlike the monotheistic outlook of the Christian religion. To achieve its goal, the paper adopts the method of historical hermeneutics and textual analysis.