Keynote Speakers
Amara Esther
Amara Esther Chimakonam, PhD, is a postdoc fellow at the Centre for African Phenomenology, University of Fort Hare, South Africa. She obtained her PhD from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She recently advanced a personhood-based theory of right action as an African contribution to ethics. AE Chimakonam has organised and co-organised several international conferences and has ongoing research collaborations with scholars in various universities. She has received awards and funding from various organisations, such as the Commonwealth Scholarship and the John Templeton Foundation. Recently, Dr. AE Chimakonam and other colleagues secured the British Academy Mentoring grant of £30,000. She is the editor of the journal Ezumezu: African Perspectives on Logic, Transhumanism and AI Ethics.
University of Fort Hare, South Africa
God and the Ejima Attributes: Critical Reflections on Yujin Nagasawa’s “The Problem of Systemic Evil”
In traditional Western theism, God is credited with the absolute attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, moral perfection, and wholly goodness. For decades, much attention has been devoted in Western philosophy of religion by atheists and critics to the doctrine that God’s absolute attributes are incompatible with evil in the world, thereby disproving the existence of such a Being. In his book The Problem of Evil for Atheists, Yujin Nagasawa accepts the traditional Western theist conception of God in terms of these absolute attributes and argues that the problem of systemic evil (his own radical new version) does not pose a substantial challenge to the existence of such a Being. In this paper, I evaluate and engage with him by arguing from the perspective of African philosophy of religion that, insofar as Nagasawa accepts these absolute attributes of God, the problem of systemic evil presents a greater challenge to traditional Western theism.
I contend that this challenge primarily arises because the concurrent existence of a God with absolute attributes and systemic evil is absurd. To overcome this absurdity, I apply the Ejima framework (I developed elsewhere), which metaphysically means the inevitable co-existence of two opposite variables as complements, to conclude that Western theism can avoid the problem of systemic evil only by admitting the non-absolute attributes of God — Ejima attributes (such as being powerful, but not all-powerful; knowledgeable, but not all-knowing; and morally good, but not morally perfect), which gives room for complementary co-existence of good and evil.
Ada Agada
Dr Ada Agada, a leading contemporary African philosopher, is the author of the original work Existence and Consolation: Reinventing Ontology, Gnosis, and Values in African Philosophy (Paragon House, 2015), a 2015 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title award winner. His recent monograph The African Mood Perspective on God and the Problem of Evil (Cambridge University Press, 2024) has been well received as a landmark contribution to African philosophy of religion. Dr Agada is currently a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria, and a research fellow at the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare, South Africa.
Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria
Belief in God and Subjective Wellbeing in an African Context
In this paper, I exhibit the two dominant conceptions of God in African philosophy of religion, namely, (a) the perfect God view, and (b) the limited God view. Using indices of subjective wellbeing such as happiness, hope, contentment, and resilience in the face of adversity, I compare and contrast the level of life satisfaction that believers in the perfect God and limited God can conceivably self-report as a marker of faith. Specifically, I raise the question whether it is more likely that a believer will report a higher level of subjective wellbeing if they believe in a perfect God or a limited God, with due consideration to the this-worldly character of African Traditional Religion (ATR) eschatology and the problem of evil that accompanies belief in a perfect God. I highlight the differences in the capacities of the perfect God and limited God. Deploying the method of philosophical analysis and argumentation, I argue that it is more likely that a believer will report a higher level of subjective wellbeing if their faith arises from belief in the existence of the perfect God rather than the limited God.
Pius Mosima
Pius Mosima is Assistant Professor of African and Comparative Philosophy at Leiden University; Netherlands. He has also been affiliated with the teaching and research at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Netherlands; Wageningen University and Research; Netherlands; University of Bamenda and University of Yaoundé I (ENSPY); Cameroon. His areas of research include African and Intercultural Philosophy, Bioethics, Decolonial /Post colonial Theories, Globalization and Culture, and Political Philosophy. He has several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on these topics.
Leiden University, Netherlands
African and Afro-Diasporic Spiritualities as Lived Philosophies of Meaning and Belonging
I argue that African and Afro-Diasporic spiritualities constitute lived philosophical frameworks for understanding religious coping, identity, meaning-making, belonging, and well-being, both within the African continent and across its diasporas. I focus on African spiritual ontologies, often articulated through concepts like vital force, communal personhood, and relational existence. These ontologies, as extensions of African Traditional Religions, not only challenge dominant Western individualist and dualist paradigms, but demonstrate how African and Afro-Diasporic communities make meaning in life through religious beliefs and practices. In spite of religious syncretism and transformations, these ontologies continue to adapt, search and construct meaning under conditions of displacement and modernity. The paper ultimately contends that African and Afro-Diasporic spiritualities offer indispensable resources for a global philosophy of religion.
Socrates Ebo
Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria
Socrates Ebo is a professor of Philosophy at Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria. He heads the Department of Philosophy, and also serves as the Director of SERVICOM at the institution. He is an active unionist, and has served as Vice Chairperson and Chairperson of Academic Staff Union of Universities, Federal University Otuoke Chapter. He has written extensively on Igbo ontology, African Philosophy and metaphysics in general. He has published extensively in local and foreign academic journal.
Thaddeus Oparah
Federal University Otuoke, Nigeria
Spiritual Yearning: The African Dilemma in Christian Religious Practice
This paper explores the apparent contradiction in Christianity’s branding of African Traditional Religion (ATR) worship/practice as heathenism, even as many of its adherents conveniently incorporate elements of ATR practice in their Christian practice. Many Africans believe and profess the Christian faith but have reason(s) to think that their spiritual welfare cannot be adequately met by Christianity. Two categories of syncretistic adherents can be identified: (1) the category of acclaimed Christian Pastors and/or Evangelists who incorporate traditional African magical practice, a core element of ATR, to boost their spiritual powers, and (2) the category of adherents who publicly profess Christianity but secretly practice ATR. Yet, ATR worship is branded heathenish by Christians. This raises the questions of whether actually ATR is a heathenous religion; and whether the adherents of Christianity are also heathens in the strict sense of it. I raise the question of why African Christian adherents, despite their profession of the Christian faith, find it reasonable and convenient to incorporate ATR into their Christian practice. I assert that the syncretistic phenomenon can be accounted for by the existence of a spiritual gap that must be filled. The gap ignites a yearning that the syncretistic Christian adherents believe cannot, or is difficult to, be filled as long as they remain purely Christians. I argue that Christianity-ATR syncretism can be explained by the nature of the African who is not at home with a foreign religion that promises absolute transcendence.
Thaddeus A. Oparah is a lecturer in philosophy at Madonna University, Nigeria, Okija Campus, Anambra State, and the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State. He studied for his Master's and Bachelor’s degrees in philosophy at the University of Ibadan and holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He specializes in Philosophy of Science and has research interests in Philosophy of Development and Philosophy of Culture. Recently, he has developed a special interest in the African Philosophy of Religion. He has written many scholarly articles, including “The Human Being and the Problem of Evil in the World: Interrogating Edeh’s Philosophy of Mma-di.”
Christiana Idika
University of Erfurt, Germany
Meaning and Human Flourishing in African Traditional Religions (ATRs) and Christian Religion: A Philosophical Inquiry
This paper explores how ATRs and Christian religion understand human flourishing and meaning in/of life, asking whether these traditions offer rival, complementary, or mutually illuminating visions of the good human life. Rather than treating ATRs as mere pre philosophical systems of ritual and Christianity as the sole bearer of theo-philosophical reflection, the paper argues that both traditions contain rich and robust moral and metaphysical resources for thinking about what makes life meaningful. Recent works in African philosophy have shown that ATRs can sustain a robust philosophical reflection on God, spiritual realities, personhood, moral status, and the final good, especially through concepts such as relational personhood, vitality, communion, and character. The central argument is that human flourishing in both ATRs and the Christian religion is best understood neither as private happiness nor as material success, but as a participation in rightly ordered relationships with God, or spiritual realities, with community, with the living-dead, moral traditions, and one’s own developing character. Meaning is never private; happiness is a meaning, and meaning is never a closed system. It is found and could be lost in the circle of creative struggle to live and to die within a continuous, unbreakable web of relationships, which supports the argument that death is not the end of meaning. In ATRs, flourishing is often linked to active participation in communal and spiritual networks, whereas in Christian philosophy it is associated with the beatitudes, virtue, love, and communion. Although these traditions differ in ontology, Soteriology, and ritual mediation, both resist radically individualistic accounts of meaning and instead place moral formation, hope, gratitude, fortitude, and belonging near the center of a well-lived life. Hence, this paper develops a comparative, intercultural, conversational philosophical framework for engaging ATR s and the Christian religion on the nature of human flourishing and meaning. It argues that ATRs can deepen Christian philosophical discussion of embodiment, communal identity, and the moral significance of spiritual presence, while Christian philosophy can sharpen reflection on transcendence, virtue, suffering, and ultimate fulfillment. By bringing African philosophy into sustained conversation with Western philosophy of religion, ethics, and Christian thought, the paper aims to show that the search for meaning is neither culturally uniform nor philosophically closed; it does not end with death, nor simply start with birth. Human beings are born into the search for meaning and die into the new medium of the same search. The search for meaning is also enriched in tradition, encapsulated in the past, lived in the present, and projected into the future. Meaning is time itself and, simultaneously, timeless. Human flourishing is meaning, not merely meaningful or meaningless, and it is relational and spiritually textured.
Christiana Calice Ngozi Idika is a researcher at the University of Erfurt, Germany, and works as a counselor for Refugees and Asylum seekers with Caritas Mettmann. She is a member of the Young Researchers group: Theology, Tradition and Transformation Research, University of Erfurt; A research member of the Benedictine Academy, Salzburg, Austria. A member of the Decolonial Research Group and Research Associate at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She holds a doctorate in social, moral, and political philosophy. Christiana is an award winner for the Best Young Researchers' Essays, sponsored by the German Bishops' Conference in Germany. She has presented papers and published journal articles and book contributions in Philosophy of Religion, Normative Theory, Ethics, Eco-feminism, Philosophy of Education, Intercultural Philosophy, Theories of Justice, Ethics of AI, Migration and Integration studies, and Postcolonialism, among others. The author of “Internormative Hermeneutics for Social Justice and Emenyere: A Pluriversal Principle of Justice Studies in African Political Philosophy”. She is currently working on two distinct projects: an edited Anthology with Amara Esther Chimakonam on “Her-Storical Perspective in African Philosophy: Critical Engagements with the Contributions of Women Philosophers,” and “Education for Kenotic Self Transcendence: Towards Social Transformation.”