It occurred to me yesterday that you are one person who could speak with some authority on a question that has floated around the more experienced practitioners in the Central Illinois pagan/magical community for some time:
Are the orisa/loas properly classified as gods, or are they different?This is a hotly-debated topic in many circles. Many Haitian Vodouisants identify as Roman Catholics and see their Vodou activities as an adjunct to their faith. They believe the world was created by Bondye ("Bon Dieu," or "Good God"), who then turned its daily workings over to les mistés (the Mysteries) - the angels, saints, and lwa. While some think this is a European corruption, things are more complicated than that. Many African stories feature a Creator who sets things in motion, then withdraws. Olodumare, Mbomba, Nsambi - all are credited with being the First Cause and the Prime Mover. Yet they receive far less attention and worship than their children, who are among the most magnificent of all Creations.
Is this Monotheism? While these Creator Gods bear a passing resemblance to Allah or G-d, they are not seen as omnipotent, omnipresent or omniscient. Their knowledge and power may be far greater than ours, but they are limited: these limitations are generally used to explain the world's many imperfections. Still, they are seen as being greater than their servants: they may be absentee rulers, but they are rulers nonetheless. There certainly is none of what Rabbi and conservative pundit Dennis Prager has hailed as "ethical Monotheism."
The oneness of God is an indispensable component of ethical monotheism. Only if there is one God is there one morality. Two or more gods mean two or more divine wills, and therefore two or more moral codes. That is why ethical polytheism is unlikely. Once God told Abraham that human sacrifice is wrong, it was wrong. There was no competing god to teach otherwise.
The African Diaspora model generally treats the mysteries like the saints, angels and intercessors in the Catholic faith. They are venerated and honored, but not worshipped: worship is reserved for the Triune God. (In theory at least: as with most strains of folk Catholicism, it can be difficult to tell where hagiography and veneration end and worship begins - a controversy which still plays out in the Catholic/Protestant split). Working within this framework offers the consolation of tradition and puts one squarely within a living faith. But it may not be satisfying for those who do not feel a particular affinity for Catholicism or who do not believe in One God, the Father, the Almighty.
The Orishas and the lwa (and the gods of most polytheistic pantheons) regularly struggle amongst themselves. There is no transcendent morality there: they, like humankind, are capable of great evil and of tremendous kindness. There are few universals: each spirit and each person must make their way as best they can, guided by tradition and by their own sense of good and evil. It's an imperfect process - but so too is Prager's ethical monotheism. (The ancient Amalekites and contemporary Palestinians might have something to say about the superiority of morality by YHVH's fiat...).
If you reject the tenets of Abrahamic Monotheism in favor of a polytheistic worldview, the spirits of African Traditional Religion certainly qualify as gods. Chango and Ogun are definitely fitting company for Thor, Ares, and other warrior gods: Exu, Loki and Coyote could all be classified as Trickster Gods. But this brings us to another question: do we worship a God in the same way we worship the One God? And if not, what are appropriate models for honoring and serving the Gods? And that is a question which has only rarely been asked, and even more rarely answered.
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8 comments:
From Timothy Schneider, whose browser fell out of favor with Blogger's commenting software:
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Do I worship a God in the same way I worshipped YHVH? No. I worship my God with more zeal now than I did YHVH. I worshipped YHVH often in prayer, in going to the Catholic Church and taking communion, praying the rosary, and doing what I thought was 'the work of God' as I could in my everyday life.
As a polytheist my worship is much more intensive and far more personal. Part of this, I feel, is given that YHVH is so transcendent and 'out there'. The potter and the clay don't see one another very often in YHVH's case, whereas with Odin, I encounter on a very continuous basis. The entire approach I have for engaging my Gods is very different from YHVH anyhow. There's no list of commandments I have to memorize; instead, there's interpersonal relationships, perhaps taboos and little details here and there. Nothing like my Catholic upbringing with the tome of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Appropriate models for serving the Gods can even include some monotheist ones, as far as I'm concerned. Some people may simply be called to just be congregants, people that come for their spirituality once a week, are fulfilled and happy, who praise the Gods and go home, perhaps praying before meals and offering to land spirits at dark. Not everyone is called to be a priest, a shaman, or a spirit-worker, and that is not only okay, but a good thing to me. Even so, in the idea of the congregation model the idea of it is utterly changed in the hands of polytheism because the Gods, despite the intercessor of a priest at times, can still be directly interacted, experienced, and understood without reference to Holy Writ. This can provide a dynamic exchange between the Gods and their followers, as well as that of their servants.
While the congregant model may not be for me, I cannot deny that for some people it holds appeal, and I would rather people have a fulfilled spiritual life. There are so many models that I think are appropriate, and I'm sure different Gods would be good fits for different ones.
I think, perhaps, that is the single biggest striking difference between a lot of iterations of monotheism and polytheism. There's no stratification, really, of what you may find in one Pagan's ritual to another's. When I was a Catholic I could be guaranteed, damn near every time, about an hour to an hour and a half per ritual. I found similar veins when I investigated other Christian sects; the sects tended to have similar if not identical rituals, and would last about the same time. Now that I am Pagan there is not so much certainty, and the models adapt to what is requested by the Gods and spirits, and what the people need in the moment.
Is it possible (I have no idea) that African beliefs concerning Olodumare, Mbomba, Nzambi, and presumably other distant Prime Movers, were influenced towards call it "Absentee Monotheism" during the period AD 800-1700? Does evidence exist that Absentee Monotheism was part of African religions prior to the earlier date?
I realize this could prove a touchy subject, but I ask this question even as I feel great respect toward many monotheists and polytheists, both ancient and contemporary. And neither do I believe Africans were incapable of discovering or inventing monotheism quite on their own, nor do I believe either "mono-" or "poly-" morally superior to the other. I see no cause for such feelings of religious superiority, neither on the parts of latterday monotheists or polytheists, when I read any history of the Ancient World.
If I'm not mistaken, the Arabic slave trade in Africa began around AD 700 or 800, and by (roughly) AD 1700 the European slave trade was peaking or slowing down. By that end date, a very large bilingual, bi-cultural Creole population had existed in Kongo itself --- (much larger than present-day Congo) for up to two centuries, and many African religions had experienced much European influence.
Before that, Islam had been gaining ground in parts of Africa for a millennium. (Not to mention possible Jewish influences long before that.) Does that evidence for what I just termed the Absentee G-d in African religions exist prior to the earlier date, i.e., approx. AD 800?
Please bear in mind also that absence of evidence does not suggest evidence of absence: if no such evidence survives from those ancient times, it proves nothing. Whereas if the evidence does exist for an ancient and wholly African monotheistic G-d, it would be (to me at least) extremely fascinating.
Cordially hoping not to incite flames --- Tesla
That rabbi is a bigotted fool. Morality excited long before monotheism. Nice to see how he just excises thousands of years of Kemetic, Hellenic, and Roman theorizing on it. MOnotheism is HARDLY the bastion of morality. Take judaism for instance, which he represents: the first recorded RELIGIOUS genocide in history was at their hands. Real moral.
These are all good questions. If you are a polytheist, and you grant the gods their agency, then you must accept that the gods may sometimes be at cross-purposes with each other. (That seems to be part of the message of the Iliad.) They may not even be "ethical."
I don't think it's for us to put our idea of ethics above the Gods. I think it's for us to honor Them and leave Their politics alone. Monotheism, given its history has NO claim to morality or ethics. None.
As a polytheist, i don't have an issue with competing agencies, because I know what it is my place and my portion to do. Of course, I've never had one of the Gods order me to forcibly convert or kill anyone who didn't worship Them either.
@ tesla - I won't answer for Kenaz, of course, since you asked him. However, referring generally to the matter you raised, even if one could prove that those Absentee Creators of Africa were influenced by the Abrahamic Traditions, I could point out, given time to compile a list, thousands of other examples of Absentee Creators not derived from the Abrahamic Traditions.
For example some Amerind groups speak of a "Great Mystery/Spirit" or a "Grandfather" or "Grandmother" whose role is similarly largely an absentee role in relation to the "pantheons" of their "children" whose cults were more everyday affairs.
Or we could refer to Hinduism with its largely Absentee Creator Brahma, or similarly Buddhism, where in each case not only is the creator largely absent but somewhat inept given that Maya constantly overcomes It and that even Buddhas must transcend the Creator to become Buddhas. How's that for a humbling experience, i.e. to create everything and then have your children surpass you? Which, I guess, makes their Creator the ultimate Boddhisattva, which remains unelightened that the rest of us may thereby attain enlightenment (otherwise, presumably, we could not exist as we do now).
In Hellenic philosophy we have the abstract but still related notion of the Logos, usually translated as "Word" but also sharing the root word for "Logic", i.e. the natural orders and causes of things. The Logos precedes and gives rise even to the gods, who themselves are not Creators, for they had ancestors, and races which preceded their own such as the Titans.
So, in any case, the idea was out there, all the Abrahamic Traditions did was elevate the chief deity of a once diverse Hebrew pantheon (including the pantheons they absorbed over time) to a more dictatorial status where increasingly the worship was directed, focused, on the one being, and any other beings were either condemned or absorbed in some manner that seemed not to conflict with this goal (whether or not they may been, in many cases, "cheating" on their One God with another entity like an Angel or a Saint).
Kenaz,
Thanks for responding. This is a fascinating article.
However, it wasn't really what I was asking about. The people I'm discussing this with are usually pagans, and most of us have read about the role of an ultimate creator above the orisa/lwa, so the God vs. gods issue isn't a problem for us.
What we find ourselves discussing is whether the orisa/lwa fit into our usual European-derived categories, or if they need to be classed separately.
For example, I typically honor the holy powers as three kindreds: nature spirits who inhabit the living world (the Land); ancestors who inhabit the spirit world (the Sea); and gods who inhabit the shining world (the Sky). The basic tripartite cosmology underlies all of the Indo-European traditions, though this specific formulation is modern.
I can make arguments for the orisa belonging to each of those three categories. If Osun is the Osun river, is she a nature spirit? If Sango was a human king and became an orisa, is he an ancestor? If the creator made Esu in heaven, is he a god?
What I was hoping you would talk about is your experiences of the lwa and the gods, especially with ritual possession of yourself and those around you. You've met these holy powers face-to-face. You have served as a medium for some of them. Does it feel to you that there is more difference between the lwas and the gods, or within the lwas and within the gods?
@Mad Fishmonger --- that was a very interesting reply. I'm slightly familiar with some American Indian religions (even though most tribes with even partially intact traditions wisely keep many things secret), including the Cherokee, and they for example do believe in a Distant God or maybe an Almost-Omnipotent God. (Actually most or all identify as Christians now, but the old prayers hint at the Almost-Omnipotent God.) My question in re Africa per se probably can not be answered, because Africa was never the isolated "Dark Continent" believed in one century before last and by some to this day.
@all --- My question was tangential to Kenaz's points, so I shall now cease my post hijacking.
Cordially --- Tesla
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