Igbo perception of their world -Chp3

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MAN IN IGBO THOUGHT

Inspite of the Igbo concept of ‘Chukwu’, the Igbo world remains homo-eccentric. In other words, although ‘Chukwu’ is the foundation of Igbo religion and philosophy, yet Igbo world and Igbo philosophy is focused on man.

Igbo philosophy begins with his conception of life (Ndụ). Life is the consciousness of ‘being’ or existing. Man (mma ndụ) is made up of “life’ (Ndụ), intellect (Uche) and body (ahu). When there is no life in a person he is ozu (corpse). It is the sole function of life to hold body and intellect firmly in their positions and sustains them. As far as life is doing this, man is said to be living a human life and is capable of showing the act of knowledge. Thus the source or origin of human knowledge is life. This life comes from God (chinwendụ).

For the Igbo like the others life is simply a gift (Ndụ bụ onyinye). Thus according to the Igbo, “life is a gift owned by God and is given to somebody” or “some thing by God only.” Hence the Igbo say that “Ndụ bụ Onyinye Chukwu” (Life is the gift of God).

To mention God in an epistemological treatise like this is definitely disapproved of by some philosophers. But the Igbo people do not have any apology to render to any of such people because their sense of God is deeply rooted in our Igbo philosophy. For the Igbo, philosophy without God who is the first philosopher is no philosophy. That is why it is unthinkable for the Igbo to have a religion without philosophy. As Fr. J.J.C. Akunne (1995) rightly put it:

For us Igbo philosophy without God is like a house without a roof. To philosophize whether there is God or not and to marshal out argument for or against it is the most absurd thing any lgbo man is expected to do.

A basic question has been asked as to what a human being is for the Igbo in regard to the origin of human knowledge.

Greek philosophers’ positions have varied. For instance, the Rationalists concluded that human knowledge originated from reason alone. The Empiricists asserted that human knowledge originated from experience, while the Kantians maintain that some human knowledge originated from reason, and some in experience and others in their necessity. With the fact established that Greek philosophy originated from African philosophy (Onyewuenyi, 1993) tremendous contributions have come from other African thinkers. Using the theory of Ndụakpunyereuchenaahụ, it is rightly argued that knowledge originated from life. Man has within him the gift of life which carries within itself essentially the gift of knowledge. As a man starts developing in the womb, the intellect and body become the effects of this development, which reaches its high point in man’s ‘awareness’ which is the human knowledge. This is what the concept of Ndụakpunyeruchenaahụ is all about (Akunne, 1995). This life which is enclosed with intellect and body is what we call human being, Mma Ndụ (the goodness/beauty of life). It is this concept which brings out what a human being is for the Igbo in regard to the origin of human knowledge.

For the Igbo, God is life (Chi bụ ndụ) and God owns life (Chinwendụ). Since we have life we have a share in God. This lifeness of the life in us makes our morality which has eschatological under-tone meaningful. This is because for the Africans to be is to live, and therefore, one continues to live even after death when he continues to live in another form. This is where the Greek philosophers failed. They fai1ed to recognize the inseparability of the intellect and body. They separated intellect and body respectively and gave them independent existence. For the Igbo, this proves the fact that not only that life continues after death but also that it is the same person when alive in this untranscendental world is responsible for all his/her good and bad action done in this world. In other, words a person starts life in the transcendental world following the occurrence of death, it is the person who is now living on this earthly world that will continue to live the transcendental world with his full identity. His life will be the same life because life is not affected by the action of death. Because life is not affected, it carries the implication of one’s action in our mundane world into that of our transcendental world, acquiring a new form of intellect and body. In other words, in Igbo thought and life, man finds ultimate meaning in transcendence even though it is a homo-centric world.

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