Understanding the Nature of Faith: African perspective

Understanding the nature of faith:
African perspective


By
TONYE S. Snithers
{2017}




INTRODUCTION
To ascertain victory, pursuant to the theme that skilful warriors fight only when assured of winning, the victors are those who know when to fight and when not to fight; those whose officers and soldiers are of one mind; those who face the unprepared with preparation; and those with able general who is not constrained by authority. For several millions of years the African people have seen and participated in a flood of actions that has driven them to believe, by having total trust or faith in a deity, a person or an object. Although some has disagreed with this truth that Africans really have any medium of worship, and has so much argued by scholars as well. Nevertheless, in this work we shall be looking at “understanding the nature of faith” with the eye of the Africans. Therefore, it will be of a great importance as a scholar to define some of the simple terms on the theme in discussion.
DEFINITIONS OF BASIC TERMS
Understanding: this a word coined from its root understand; meaning to get or perceive the meaning of ; know or grasp what it meant by; comprehend; to gather or assume from what is heard. Therefore, the word understanding itself; is a mental quality, act, or comprehension, state of a person who understands.
Nature: The essential qualities or characteristics by which something is recognized. It can also be said as the vital functions, force, and activities of the organs often used, as a euphemism.
Faith: According to Hebrews 11:1 thus; “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It is our handle on what we cannot see. In addition, the concise Oxford dictionary of current English states that; it is belief in religious doctrines such as; character and conduct of spiritual apprehension of the divine truth apart from proof and system of religious belief.
African: This is the world second largest continent, which is situated in the eastern hemisphere; while the people living on the sphere are known and called Africans.
Perspective: it is the act of looking or perceiving something, someone or situation through once view or perception.
Therefore, the theme “understanding the nature of faith: the African perspective” can be said or viewed as the ability to comprehend  the character, vital function or force in what is believed and how well it is being handle in the eyes of the African. However, in understanding faith many a time the word faith or belief is used synonymously with religious actions and no simple definition is / has described the numerous religious belief system or faith pattern in the world. For many people, religion/faith or belief is an organised system of practices and worship that is centred on one supreme God, or the Deity. In as much as this paper is concern, we shall talk about the nature of faith and how the African see or perceive it.
WHAT IS FAITH TO THE AFRICAN?
Virtually more than 200 million Africans practice local traditional religions. There are hundreds of local religions in Africa because each ethnic group has its own set of beliefs and practices. In general, nonetheless these local religions have many features in common. They explain how the universe was created and teach what is right and wrong. They define relationships between human beings and nature and between the young and the old. They give reasons for human suffering and instruct people on how to live a good life and how to avoid or lessen misfortune. To the African he believes in the existence of a Supreme God, but most emphasize that people should seek help by appealing to lesser gods or to the spirits of the dead ancestors. People pray or offer sacrifices to the gods or the spirits to gain such things as good health, money, good husband /wife or fertile land. Many religions in Africa celebrate or conduct ceremonies for the passage from childhood, adulthood to death of the individual.
Religion plays a very important role in the lives of most Africans. A survey conducted in 2010 as part of Pew Templeton Global Religious Futures Project by the US-based research think tank, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, revealed that Africa constitutes the most religious part of the world.
Zooming into the continent, Sub-Saharan Africa comes out as the most religious place on earth. The study found that in some Sub-Saharan African countries over 90% consider religion as the most important thing in their life. The least religious among the countries surveyed had 67%, clearly a majority, saying religion is the most important thing in the life of the African.  Although before now, some scholars had believed that Africans has no religion neither a god in which faith can be based on. Mbiti notes that:
 “One of the dominating attitudes in this early period was the assumption that African beliefs, cultural characteristics and even foods were all borrowed from the outside world…it is true that Africans has always had contact with the outside worlds but religious and cultural influences from this can’t have ploughed only one way. There was always a give and take process. Furthermore, African soil is not so infertile that it cannot have its own ideas…there are writers who now argue that in fact it was Africa which exported ideas cultures and civilisations to the outside world”.
I believe many may have said the same to the issue of faith, nevertheless J. N. K. Mugambi in his book, African Heritage and Contemporary Christianity notes: that besides African people having God, they have the name of that God. He says,
“African groups each had their name for deity and sometimes one community had several descriptive names and phrases expressing the various qualities that were attributed to deity.
He adds: “Although the name for deity in any one African community was part of the vocabulary of that particular community, a common traditional belief was that such names referred to beings whose power extended beyond any ethnic territory to the whole world. Thus, it is possible for Africans from different ethnic communities to understand one another as far as basic religious belief is concerned.
Therefore, the part to know what faith is to the African is based on his trust on the Deity he has so believed and daily communed his life to.  

WHAT DOES FAITH MEAN IN THE AFRICAN CONCEPT?
The theme “faith” is reasonably understood by the African in the sense that he trusted in the Supreme Being,  he had believed and daily communed his life to. It is also observed that in the past many scholars had looked down on the faith level or belief system of the African thereby misunderstanding the African and what he so put faith on.
In as much as the word faith exists, Africans has been operating in diverse levels of faith on relevant issues that concerns life, protection, wealth, prosperity etc.
Life: when things of life and death occur the African man/woman or as a community will call on the Creator (Ama’teme-so or Ogina-teme-so’naá Kiri-teme’bo) through the mini gods by libation and sacrifice in agreement that such individual stay alive. But without faith this cannot work, so as they do their prayers it is believed that it will work as long as they kept their covenant with the gods.
Protection: Daily the African man/woman faces challenges that has to do with his/her hope for the next step, which in some cases its  believed that may endanger life. To this effect the consultation of a higher authority for protection is an inevitable act to do. Nevertheless, charms and power are inputted into the body and through that such individual(s) is assured of being protected against any force, both physical and spiritual.
Wealth and Prosperity: Since the believe that wealth and prosperity comes from the divine, the African in a greater level of faith consults the divine to supply the needed wealth, by calling and promising to keep and be faithful to such covenant to keep the prosperity on and to extend to their children unborn. This is why when the continual holding of the faith is overlooked suffering meet with either this individual or the next generation.
When the above is properly experienced, the individual continually returns with gifting for sacrifice unto the deity or the god responsible to this effect. But when such fails then the African continue to ask until something happens in his/her life.As the level of faith in the individual continue, he keeps on the act through series of sacrifices and libation.
As an individual, while I was growing I realized that believing in a deity as well as Ogina-teme-so’naá Kiri-teme’bo for protection and provision is a necessary act in my culture as a Kalabari man and I have never observed it as a taboo and if any man should do such, after all the gods are the givers of everything so provided. Therefore, for life, protection, wealth and prosperity to continue, the individual must have faith to stay on or hang-on to prove him/herself for answers to the prayer offered or sacrifices made to such deity.  With the above in mind, faith to the African man/woman is a trust and complete obedience on self,  deity or an ancestor.






AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE OF FAITH:
The people of Africa believe and continue to claim that they are not without the  knowledge of God even before the arrival of the Europeans. God is seen and considered as father since He gave birth of the first African family from which African descendens have their Ancestors. In the worship, it is believed that God who is their father showed them who He is and how to worship him. It is true that African religion is theirs and they belonged to it since it comes from their God who is their root. Therefore, with this  experience of having the beginning of this section with the investigation of the criterion for a true faith. What is required for a faith to be a true faith? To what extent can the African man/woman see faith as bound to the deity or divine?
The answer to the question of a true faith  yields  two  results: (1) the  name  of  God  and  the  presence  of result. A true religion contains the name of God. (2) The criterion for a true faith is the presence of result in the deity itself. In other words, the measure of a true faith is the presence of result or outcome from that deity.
Faith in African perspective is a logical understanding of believing and acting in the required manner. Considering the  first  and  second  points  together,  it  is  clear  that  the  African Traditional  Religion  endorsed  a kind of trusting in that deity through which prayers has been offered and sacrifices been made in waiting for the manifestation through result.
From the perspective of creation, it is clear that the Creator God in  the  African  religion  is  the  same  as  the  Creator  God  in  the Christian religion. Creation is a single reality or a single existence. We have a single cosmos. To understand the Christian God in contradistinction   from  the  African  concept  of  God  will  inevitably lead  us  to  dualism,  that  is,  to  the  conception  of  two  worlds  –  the world  created  by  the  Christian  God  and  the  world  created  by  the African God. Creation as a revelation of one God, it is the binding wire that ties the concept of God in African traditional religions and the concept of God in the Christian and classical religions. This is also true concerning faith as the force that makes the believer (African religion based and the Christian faith based) to hold onto that which he/she has so believed.
According  to  the  earliest  tradition,  grace  is  God’s own  life  –  the uncreated  grace. Grace is a participation in the divine life of God and in Gods indwelling among human beings. Like Abraham, the Bible says “he believed God and it was counted for him as faith…” because he trusted God and heard whenever He speaks to him and he followed the instruction to the later. The first truth about grace  is  that  grace is, in  the  first instance,  God’s   own  life,  which God  wants  to  give  to  humanity  for  salvation  and  fulfilment.  The secondary dimension is how human beings actually receive God’s grace.  For  Rahner  as  for  Henri  de  Lubac,  the  existential  reality  of human  life  is  one  in  which  God’s  grace  is  in  fact  always  being offered  to  human  beings.  For  Karl  Rahner,  there  is  a  universal presence  of  grace  in  the  world,  since  God’s  saving  will  is  itself universal. Grace, understood in this sense, can enrich human life by showing it to be worth living, and, indeed, by showing it to be worth living can actually make it worth living.
In every religion, God invites human beings to seek Him, and at the same time God goes out constantly in search for human beings. According to Myles"...God needs to heal you because He need your body.." In  search  for  God  in  ATRs,  there  is  a  faith among  the  people  of Africa, in the existence of a Supreme Being. The people of Africa had always believed that God is present in the world, in and through creation. Throughout history, even to the present day; there is found among the people of Africa a certain awareness of a hidden power, which lies behind the course of nature and the events of human life.
There is a presence and strong recognition of a Supreme Being, or still more of a Father. This deep awareness and recognition results in a way of life that is imbued with a deep religious sense.
The  belief  in  the  existence  of  God  and  the  experience  of  a Supreme Being belong to the basic religious experience of    persons belonging to African Traditional Religions and cultures. There is in all the traditions of Africa a sense of spiritual realities, and “a very important and common factor of this sense of spiritual realities is the notion of God as the first and ultimate cause of things…In reality, a living  sense  of  God  as  the  Supreme  personal  and  physical  Being, pervades the whole of African culture.”






CONCLUSION
As the Bible has marked, it is like a universal definition to the word “Faith “, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The African man have not seen this God but with the evidence of the things around him proves to him that God truly exist but cannot be directly approached, in this stance he moved in worshipping God through smaller gods(mediators). Therefore, the faith of the African religious man is based on the prayer and ability to reserve result in the act of waiting.










Bibliography

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