9000 BCE onward: (The Nilo-Saharan Religion of Divinity — Not a Personalized Creator God but One Spirit or Spirit Force, Anthropologists Applying the Term “D…

9000 BCE onward: (The Nilo-Saharan Religion of Divinity — Not a Personalized Creator God but One Spirit or Spirit Force, Anthropologists Applying the Term “Divinity” to This Essentially Monotheistic Conception, Societies Following This Religion Consistently Using Names for Divinity That Identify It with the Sky and by Extension with Rain and Often Lightning, People Invoking Particular Named Spirits for Help but Understanding Such Spirits to Be Not Distinct Beings but Hypostases — Particular Manifestations — of Divinity): The Nilo-Saharan monotheistic entity is better described not as a discrete Being but as one Spirit or Spirit Force. The anthropologists who have studied this belief system in a variety of societies have come generally to apply the word “Divinity” to this essentially monotheistic conception. The societies that follow this religion consistently use names for Divinity that identify it with the sky and, by extension, with rain and often lightning. People in these societies may also invoke particular named spirits for help, but they understand such spirits to be not distinct beings but rather hypostases — particular manifestations — of Divinity. The theological sophistication here is breathtaking. This is not primitive animism. This is not polytheism dressed up in monotheistic clothing. This is a fully articulated theological system in which the divine is understood as a single, pervasive Spirit Force that manifests in particular ways — through the sky, through rain, through lightning — without being reducible to any of its manifestations. The named spirits that adherents invoke are not gods in their own right; they are faces of the one Divinity, aspects of a single spiritual reality that presents itself in multiple forms. Western theology has a technical term for this kind of relationship between the one and the many: hypostasis. The fact that Nilo-Saharan religious thought arrived at this concept independently, nine thousand years before the Council of Nicaea debated the hypostatic union of the Trinity, is a measure of the depth and complexity of African theological innovation. The Nilo-Saharan religion of Divinity is not a stepping stone toward “real” monotheism. It is a complete, self-sufficient monotheistic system, and it is among the oldest in the world.