An African Response to Karl Barth's Notion of Evil as Nothingness

In African spiritual exercises, there is so much talk about the menace of demons or evil spirits. These spirits are conceived of as the antithesis of God or as the spiritual opposition to the benign activities of God. Modern African religion sees them as the causes of sicknesses and any form of cata...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Transformation (Exeter) 2022-07, Vol.39 (3), p.150-162
Main Author: Onyenali, Rowland
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In African spiritual exercises, there is so much talk about the menace of demons or evil spirits. These spirits are conceived of as the antithesis of God or as the spiritual opposition to the benign activities of God. Modern African religion sees them as the causes of sicknesses and any form of catastrophe in the lives of people. The paper takes off from Karl Barth's conception of evil and demons as nothingness and argues that when correctly understood, the so-called evil spirits or demons are nothing but the active agents of God in His relationship with humans. Since African cosmology sees the world as a universe of forces held in harmony by God, it seems that the African idea of the deities and spirits as subordinates of God better captures the idea of the evil spirits or demons as nothingness outside the purview of God than the Barthian conception.
ISSN:0265-3788
1759-8931
DOI:10.1177/02653788221096152