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<p>This paper reexamines the ontology of the divine in Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion whose cosmology and ritual life challenge the monotheistic assumptions that continue to shape philosophy of religion. Responding to what I call the <i>legitimation trap</i>—the strategy of securing intellectual respectability for African and Afro-diasporic traditions by assimilating them to Western monotheistic norms—I argue that Candomblé articulates a hierarchical polytheism grounded in graded immanence. Drawing on mythic narratives as well as ritual practices of possession, sacrifice, and initiation, I show that divine agency in Candomblé is distributed across multiple autonomous beings whose cooperation sustains the cosmos. This structure of multi-devotionalism reveals a metaphysics in which vitality (<i>axé</i>) circulates through relations among deities, humans, and material elements. Candomblé’s spiritual ontology thus calls for a philosophical shift from theology and ontology to what may be termed <i>entitology</i>: a study of relational co-constitution and participation. The paper concludes by proposing that decolonizing philosophy of religion requires engaging such Afro-diasporic grammars of divinity as sources of metaphysical insight rather than as objects of comparative classification.</p>

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Rethinking Spiritual Ontology in Candomblé and Avoiding the Legitimation Trap Across the Atlantic

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月14日

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  • José Eduardo Porcher

摘要

This paper reexamines the ontology of the divine in Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion whose cosmology and ritual life challenge the monotheistic assumptions that continue to shape philosophy of religion. Responding to what I call the legitimation trap—the strategy of securing intellectual respectability for African and Afro-diasporic traditions by assimilating them to Western monotheistic norms—I argue that Candomblé articulates a hierarchical polytheism grounded in graded immanence. Drawing on mythic narratives as well as ritual practices of possession, sacrifice, and initiation, I show that divine agency in Candomblé is distributed across multiple autonomous beings whose cooperation sustains the cosmos. This structure of multi-devotionalism reveals a metaphysics in which vitality (axé) circulates through relations among deities, humans, and material elements. Candomblé’s spiritual ontology thus calls for a philosophical shift from theology and ontology to what may be termed entitology: a study of relational co-constitution and participation. The paper concludes by proposing that decolonizing philosophy of religion requires engaging such Afro-diasporic grammars of divinity as sources of metaphysical insight rather than as objects of comparative classification.