Udo Etuk on the “God of Africa”: A Response

Some scholars like Rabbi Ini Mbebeng, Rabbi Ettah Essien and Prof Udo Etuk have argued against Ibibio nay Africans having the idea of Supreme Being identical with that of the West given their polytheistic conception of God with attendant pan-theistic proclivities. On the other hand, scholars like Idowu regard such position as anachronistic and retrogressive since African has what he calls, “diffused monotheistic” idea of God which in description and analysis is similar to that of Western typology. This article as a contribution to that debate examines Abasi as a name of the God among the Ibibio from philo-ontos-linguistic perspectives and comes to the conclusion that not only is it true that the Ibibio nay Africans in general have a superlative idea of God but that the African idea of God is more humanistic and existentially relevant than that of the West thus solving the attendant difficulties of explaining the relationship between God and the world and the issue of the problem of evil which resulted in such idea as Dues abscunditus in Western conception of God.