Full Length Research Paper
Satan and Traditional African Deities as Two Complimentary and Contradictory Spiritual Agents of Social Control among the Igbo of Nigeria
Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe
Article Number - 60F82377C49C3 | Vol. 1(3), pp. 26-42, July 2021 |
Received: 8 February 2021 | Accepted: 4 June 2021 | Published: 31 July 2021
Copyright © 2024 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article.
This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0.
Abstract
This work x-rays the subsisting
tendency by both the Western allied scholars and their Christian counterparts
to conceptualize every spiritual force within the Traditional African
cosmological field of communication particularly among the Igbo of Nigeria that
has no root in Christianity, its positive polar dimension notwithstanding, as
being part of the complex theory Satan (Devil) in Christian cosmology; thus by
the same token interpreted as Ekwensu, a
concept which has become the generic interpretation of the Christian Satan and
Devil. What it means is that spiritual elements in their communication with man
are principally judged not by their stated objectives and reson d’etat, but merely by their forms and geo-cultural identity.
Thus for the Igbo, both Ekwensu which
is literally interpreted as the Biblical Satan and the benevolent spiritual
elements that function as agents of social control are categorized as agents of
Satan. On the contrary, this paper avers that there must be a separation
between the good from the evil within the Igbo realm of cosmological
communication as it is applicable in the Christian cosmology based
fundamentally on their social control roles. It further questions to the notion
of Ekwensu as the Christian Satan who
is in direct opposition to God the Creator in terms of status and roles,
against the background of the existence of other malevolent spiritual forces in
Igbo cosmology. Keywords: Satan, Ekwensu, Deities, Traditional African
Religion, Christianity.
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Authors
Nwankwo
Tony Nwaezeigwe
Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria.
E-mail: [email protected]
How to Cite this Article
Nwaezeigwe, N.
T. (2021). Satan and Traditional African Deities as Two Complimentary and
Contradictory Spiritual Agents of Social Control among the Igbo of Nigeria. Journal
of Culture, History and Archaeology, 1(3):26-42.
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