Description
Danquah desired to expound Akan thought in such a way as to make it comprehensible to western thinkers and demonstrate that it is comparable to their system. To this aim, he calls forth his philosophical training and indulges in metaphysical and ethical speculation, discussing the nature of the supreme Being and exploring Akan ethical thought.
The author explains that the enquiry into the nature of the Akan God had in fact been in progress for upwards of a century; the doctrine had, however, never been stated in a form recognisable to theologians as being interwoven with previous speculative thought and accepted truths. The greatest advances towards this objective were made by Rattray, Westermann and Christaller, and Dr. Danquah shows to what extent they had misinterpreted certain fundamentals. In the following section, he discusses three distinctive names given to the Akan Supreme Being: Onyame, corresponding to the basic idea of Deity, as understood in Christianity; Onyankopon, denoting the Supreme Deity in the sense of a personal religious God; and Odomankoma, corresponding to Infinite Being.
