Panentheism and Emmanuel Ofuasia’s Afro-Process Ontology

In this chapter, I contend against Emmanuel Ofuasia’s panentheism as uncovered in his version of Afro-process ontology. Three propositions may be deduced from the panentheism which is expressed in his ontology: (1) God is immanent; (2) God is a subordinate to Being or what Ofuasia, following Whitehead, calls Creativity; and (3) God is an orderer who cannot directly influence anything in the world. For my aim, I contend against (3) on the grounds that it leads to either polytheism at the least and deism at most. If my assessment is valid, (3) cannot sustain panentheism which Ofuasia finds to be overriding in his version of process ontology. Upon a careful analysis, I concede that (1) and (2) are valid provided one is ready to assess them from Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, which Ofuasia relies heavily upon to deduce his African version of process thought. Essentially, I concede to Ofuasia that for (1), it is possible to conceive of an immanent God along with the divinities that traditional Africans directly interact with since Ofuasia strongly uses relevant arguments in traditional (Western) metaphysics and African ontology to reinforce his view. Based on this observation, I recommend that Ofuasia reconsider his panentheism in the light of either deism or polytheism which I think is more appropriate as opposed to a strictly immanent God which he subscribes to.