THE ONTOLOGY OF GOD IN AFRICA. prt 1 God is the living eternal Being, the Supreme Being who is the source of all existence and whose life exist from the dateless past. He is self-existence and His power sustains the universe. He created all things and nothing created Him. This great Being reveals Himself in many ways. He is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresence. His knowledge encompasses all things. One to the extent of this great God, many religions sees Him as the Supreme Being. In Africa, people have a common notion of God as the Supreme Being, which is the most minimal idea about God. Though there is no historical book or written scriptures by the votaries of African traditional religion about the ontology of God, but that does not mean that the concept of the supreme Being does not exist in their ontology. Evidently, through proverbs, songs, prayers, myths, names, in facts through their culture etc. this concept is being expressed. The reason why the concept of God in African traditional religion has being a controversial issue is because many scholars see Africans as people who do not know God nor worship Him, their factors includes prejudice by western scholars who measure African traditional religion concept with Christianity due to lack of in debt study of African traditional religion which leads to hasty conclusion Arguments for God’s Existence Many different arguments for God’s existence has been proposed by different scholars. Most of them reflect a relatively small number of groups. However, we shall consider some of these classes of arguments; ontological and cosmological Cosmological Argument Cosmological argument as the name implies, tends to infer the existence of God from the existence of the cosmos or universe. These arguments are sometimes called “first cause arguments” because they try to infer that God must exist as the first ultimate cause of the universe. Tracing the historical root of this argument, it was first propounded by two Greek philosophers; Plato and Aristotle, but after was fully developed in the medieval period by Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. From the five arguments for God existence by Thomas Aquinas, which started with the evidence of motion and concludes that God must exist in order for there to be as is rationally required, an unmoved first mover of all things. It is believed that God must exist as the non-dependent cause. His second argument attempts to prove that God must exist as the ultimate efficient cause. Thirdly, Aquinas argues that there must be a self-subsistent necessary being otherwise all things and the universe itself would merely possible and therefore ultimately non-existence. Fourthly, the reasons that graduation in things, such as more and less being, more or less good, more and less true, etc. implies the existence of an absolute being as the ground of all other existence. The fifth is regarded as a version of the theological argument of St. Anselm, each of his arguments starts with some aspect of the sensible world, claim to prove the existence of God in a completely posterior manner. Ontological Argument It is widely acceptable that the first ontological argument was formulated by Anselm, eleventh century archbishop of Canterbury. According to history, various versions of this argument have defined by such famous philosophers as Descartes and Leibniz. This argument tends to bring to play, that the very concept of God implies his existence, and this has been the subject of much perplexity and in recent years has gravitated to the forefront of philosophical discussion. It has been regarded by some as an example of philosophical sleight of hands while others regarded it as the most profound and certain demonstration of God’s existence, unfolding as it does without any reference whatsoever to the world of sense. To Anselm, in his theory, God is the greater possible Being, “a Being than which none greater can be conceived”. He started his argument with a reference to Psalm 14:1: “the fool says in his heart, there is no God”. This fool is being described as an atheist, one who doesn’t believe on the existence of God. However, since God is by definition, according to Anselm, the greatest possible being, it is impossible for God to exist only in the understanding of the fool. For in that case, a greater being than God could easily be conceived, and these being could be a being that exist both in understanding and in reality. According to Anselm’s argument, God is the greatest possible being, God exists at least in the mind or understanding, a being who exist only in the mind is one so great as a being who exist in the reality as well as in the mind. If God exist only in the mind, he would not be the greatest possible being. Hence, God must exist in reality as well as in the mind. Rene Descartes (1650), a French philosopher and mathematician, who is often called the father of modern philosophy argued the existence proof. Descartes started with the philosophical concept of the most prefect being and then asks what this concept involves. What is Being? God possesses all perfection; Via; Omniscient, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Justice, benevolence, etc. since it is more perfect to exist than not to exist, existence too is perfection. In summary, if we neglect to ascribe existence to God, he cannot be the most perfect being or the sum of all perfection. He can’t be the greatest possible being, a being than which none greater can be conceived. to be continued in part 2
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 10:38:18 +0000
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