This contribution offers a survey of the modern African theological discourse on the Trinity as a distinctive Christian doctrine of God. It is a systematic narrative review of primary literature on the doctrine of the Trinity in modern African theology with a view to identify main trends, key concepts and major proponents. It is argued that the contemporary African Trinitarian Hermeneutics cannot be understood in isolation from African debates on translatability of concepts of God framed first in terms of the reinterpretation of the theological significance of pre-Christian African concepts of God and subsequently as an outcome of African Christological reflection. The article affirms an apophatic resistance to any tendency to take God for granted as recently advanced by Ernst Conradie and Teddy Sakupapa.
This contribution is a literature-based research that involved analysis of primary literature on the Trinity in African theology. Although the beginning of the historical development of the Christian doctrine of God as the Trinity may be rooted in Africa not least because of the theological contributions of early African theologians such as Tertullian, Origen, Arius, Athanasius and St. Augustine (Bediako
Given debates on the racialisation of the concept of Africa, the terms Africa and African denote respectively the geographical region known as sub-Saharan Africa and peoples indigenous to this region. Such a deployment of the terms Africa and African is significant for not only for analytical purposes but also given contemporary decolonial debates on the ‘geo-politics and body politics of knowledge’ (Mignolo
It is necessary to offer brief comments on the 20th century Trinitarian renaissance not least of because of the significance of two issues that emerged as central concerns in contemporary Trinitarian theology,
Following the formative contributions of the Reformed theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968) and the German Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner (1904–1984) to the renaissance of Trinitarian theology, many theologians have articulated various Trinitarian theologies. Amongst other concerns, theologians have engaged with the significance and implications of Rahner’s (
The other issue raised in the recent Trinitarian Renaissance concerns the practical implications of the doctrine of the Trinity. Rahner (
Notwithstanding the significance of the 20th century rediscovery of Trinitarian theology as described above, it was and remains a typically western and North American affair. In the growing body of literature on African Trinitarian hermeneutics, African theologians are demonstrating creativity in their various reflections on the Trinity. Given that the African discourse on the Trinity cuts across denominational and theological traditions, it may be described rightly as an ecumenical discourse. In what follows, I offer an overview of contemporary African reflections on the Trinity with specific reference to three phases in the history of modern African Christian theology.
Whilst much of the early 19th century missionary and anthropological discourse denied Africans any concept(s) of God or for that matter religion, pioneer African Christian theologians such as John Mbiti and Bolaji Idowu located the African belief in a Supreme Being as a point of continuity between African Traditional Religion (ATR) and Christianity. The polemical nature of this early phase of African theological discourse on God was prompted by the western missionary denigration of African religion (and culture) and denial of the existence of African concepts of God. They sought to remedy western missionary translations of God which portrayed God as foreign to Africans. I argue that this discourse by pioneer African theologians may well serve as a prolegomenon to any meaningful Christian theology of God in modern African theology (cf. Uzukwu
This continuity thesis found expression in many of Mbiti’s writings. In his
Although affirmed by several African theologians who nevertheless expressed differing views on the degree of continuity (cf. Dickson
Nevertheless, a salient implication of the continuity thesis was that Africans had known God long before the arrival of missionaries. Little wonder that the late Gambian scholar Lamin Sanneh attributed the successful implantation of Christianity in Africa to the facilitating role of ATR, most notably with respect to the missionary appropriation of African names of God in vernacular translations of the Bible. In his view, Christian expansion in Africa was ‘virtually limited to those societies whose people had preserved the indigenous name for God’ (Sanneh
Following the creative reconstruction of the idea of God in ATR as discussed above, African theologians were faced with the task to clarify who Jesus Christ was to the African. This was in part necessitated by a pastoral concern, namely how to make the African Christian at home in new faith. Given the extant literature on African Christology,
There are nevertheless a number of limitations to African Christologies, particularly those that employ what Nyamiti (
Liberation Christologies may also be charged with reductionism for apparently absolutising a particular dimension of oppression. For Nyamiti (
Notwithstanding the enduring issues in African Christology, African theologians have generally affirmed the creedal belief regarding the divinity and humanity of Christ. Nevertheless, several Africa Christological images and symbols are limited in giving expression to divine identity of Christ. If so, this begs further elaboration of how the Master of Initiation, the Ancestor par excellent is the same as the God confessed as Truine.
From the foregoing analyses of the African discourses on the continuity of God and on Christology, it is evident that the focus on continuity of God has not led to thoroughgoing Trinitarian reflections. As the Kenyan theologian Kombo (
There are several attempts in Trinitarian hermeneutics to predicate on the ancestor analogy (see Bediako
The Nigerian theologian Oladipo (
An approach that has found wider expression amongst African theologians is the appeal to the social analogy of the Trinity
Amongst African women theologians, Oduyoye (
Another reinterpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity that draws on the African traditional understanding of community was articulated by the Nigerian Methodist theologian Ogbonnaya (
The monograph by Nigerian Lutheran theologian Bitrus (
Another approach to the Trinity in contemporary African theology entails the retrieval of African concepts to express the Trinity. Kombo’s (
The ‘genuine
The originality of Kombo’s (
This contribution situated the modern African theological debate on the identity of God in the encounter of African Christians with the western translation of God through various missionary theologies. It highlighted three main approaches to Trinitarian hermeneutics in the African context. One may conclude that most African perspectives to the Trinity adopted the social analogy of the Trinity to draw implications of the doctrine for Christian life and society. The attempt to place the symbol of the Triune God in the public sphere (often on the basis of African communality and relationality) illustrates the importance of the social context in African theological method. However, the approach has its own limitations as discussed above. As Conradie and Sakupapa (
[
Nevertheless, there is no given Trinitarian symbolism that could fully capture the mystery of God. At best, ‘the confession of God as Triune serves as the doxological conclusion of the liturgy’ (Conradie & Sakupapa
The author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article.
The author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article.
T.C.S. is the sole author of this research article.
The author confirms that ethical clearance was not required for the study.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author.
For philosophical discussion on conceptualisation of Africa and African, see Mudimbe (
For instance, the following have been published in French but not included in the overview: Ukwuije (
For an overview, see Chalamet and Vial (
Other important figures to broader Trinitarian theology include Wolfhart Pannenberg, Eberhard Jungel, Colin Gunton, Elizabeth Johnson, Robert Jenson, Ted Peters and Leonardo Boff, amongst others.
Some have charged LaCugna (
For a discussion on the various models of understanding this relationship, see Lee (
For an overview of the South African contribution, see Venter (
It was Parrinder who first introduced African Traditional Religion as a separate category of study while teaching at the University College Ibadan in Nigeria.
See, for instance, the edited volume by Smith, namely
For instance, Samuel Kibicho of Kenya and the South African theologian Gabriel Setiloane posited radical continuity. The former argued that ATR possessed a saving knowledge of God, while the latter provided a rather unclear view in which he portrayed the Supreme Being of ATR as superior to the western Christian notion of God.
p’Bitek (
See his
If Sanneh speaks of translatability as a ‘fundamental character of Christianity’, Walls (
For useful overviews of African Christology, see Nyamiti’s and other essays in
Nyamiti (
Exponents of ancestral Christology include Benézét Bujo (Proto-Ancestor; Ancestor par Excellence), Charles Nyamiti (Brother-Ancestor), Kwame Bediako (Supreme Ancestor) and John Pobee (Jesus is
Oduyoye speaks of Christ as the
Given the South African black experience of oppression in the context of racist oppression and exploitation, Mofokeng’s (
See, for instance, Clifton Clarke’s
See, for instance, Cephas Omenyo’s brief discussion on the doctrine of charismatic renewal groups in his
Nyamiti’s pneumatology appears close to Augustine’s mutual love theory.
The social analogy for the Trinity may be traced back to Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173) and has recently found expression in the Trinitarian theologies of several theologians, most notably Jurgen Moltmann, Leornado Boff, John Zizioulas; Elizabeth Johnson and Catherine Mowry La Cugna, amongst others. Depicting the Trinity as an intimate community, the differing accounts of social Trinitarianism portray the Trinity as a model for social relations between humans. For instance, based on an articulation of an ontology of personhood predicated on relationality (being as communion), orthodox metropolitan and theologian John Zizioulas articulates an understanding of the Trinity in terms of communion, and based on this he postulates the doctrine of the Trinity as a model for human life and ecclesiality. Similarly, Jurgen Moltmann expounds implications of the social doctrine of the Trinity not only for the church but also for the broader human community. For a critique of social Triniarianism, see Kilby (
In western theology, the problem of language about God has been vigorously addressed by a number of feminist theologians, most notably Elizabeth Johnson, Salie McFagee and Elisabeth Fiorenza, amongst others. For fuller discussion on the feminist deconstructive critique of patriarchal Trinitarian hermeneutics, see Neal (
For instance, Dube (
Compare Cheikh Anta Diop’s argument that ancient Egypt was a Negro civilisation in his
His interlocutors for the metaphysics of
For instance, unsatisfied with the modern sense of the concept ‘person’, namely ‘a self-conscious will and activity center’, to describe the traditional Trinitarian formula, Barth and Rahner (1974:103–115) suggested the notions of ‘modes of being’ (Seinsweisen) and ‘distinct modes of subsisting’ respectively. Some however argue that Barth and Rahner’s positions in this regard represent a ‘neo-modal Trinity model’. For Kasper (