By Prof. Protus Nathan Uzorma
In the New Testament of the Bible, speaking in unknown tongue is said to be one of the fulfilled promises of Jesus Christ-The earthly Messiah. This has been over criticized by different Christian organizations, groups and denominations.
In the Bible, the Apostles and those who they preached to accept Jesus Christ as their lord and personal savior all spoke in tongues. The Bible reports, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit gave them utterances……And they were all amazed and marveled saying one to another, behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we everyman in our own tongue, wherein we were born”. Acts 2:4-7.
The controversy inherent in speaking in tongues of our own new generation churches today which the orthodox churches criticize and abhor is the fact that what is been spoken as tongues have no meaning and linguistic impact upon the listeners. Those critics infer that anyone who speaks in tongues if he is an Igbo man must be able under divine auspices and auction to speak French or Latin without studying same in school. Meaning that a Yoruba or Hausa person, who speaks in unknown tongue, should be able to speak Effic or Igbo language without studying it- To them this is speaking in tongues as is evident in Acts of the Apostles.
Without going further on the argument for and against speaking in tongues, it is imperative to assert here that under normal and intellectual circumstances speaking in tongue should be within the sphere of Naphology which is an intellectual umbrella that x-rays issues on all manner of phenomena and events which are reported to exist or to have happened, but for which there exist no scientific explanation.
Many natural phenomena, events, and occurrences within the domain of religion which at one time were mysteries and were a source of fright and awe to man have already been scientifically explained. Lightning and thunder for instance, were once thought by men and primitive religious men to be caused by angry gods. Today and with the advance of science, however man discovered that lightning and thunder are natural phenomena. No extraordinary significance is now attached to either lightening or thunders hence it is the coming together of two different winds.
Esoteric science infers that Naphology fills in the vacuum left by the lack of scientific knowledge. Speaking in tongues is part of it. Some may disagree with me here as each and everyone is entitled to his opinion and thought; but the truth remains that speaking in tongue is an act of God designed to confuse the evil forces and to edify the church.
As a philosopher, I find it very difficult to rejoice while others are rejoicing and to weep while others are weeping. The reason for this is because I look beyond the moment euphoria to the period of reality, at the expiration of same when pain, sorrow and agony await familiarity. I’m not guided by what the Denish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard referred to as “…the life of the moment…” I’m guided by tomorrow that started yesterday.
In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas states, “Natural things are intermediate between God’s knowledge and ours; for we get our knowledge from natural things of which God, through his knowledge, is the cause.” Things that are natural are sources of our knowledge but could be controversial or contentious following the school of thought where the scholar belongs.
However, the creator of human race is the cause of nature and He teaches us beyond the natural phenomenon which intermediate between his knowledge and ours in line with St. Aquinas view. This dimension of knowledge could only be acquired outside our normal academic curriculum. Though, this is not my point of argument for now as my intention in this article is to prove beyond every human reasonable doubt that we need to hold our leaders accountable, thereby making them to do the right things the right ways.
Though by faith, so many states rejoiced for been rescued from the hands of some men that saw governance as a means of attaining opulent thereby impoverishing the masses. For instance, for more than 16 good years Abia state has been in the cave and has not been able to meet with reality of life until Gov. Alex Otti was elected,
In the words of George Orwell, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary act.” No wonder our leaders find it very difficult to understand what is very simple to understand. Yes, the most difficult thing to understand is why anything should be understood. In the difficulty of understanding lies the complication of simplicity. This informs why Anthony de Mello enthuses, “He who understands the hidden truth is a lonely man.” In the spectrum of same, the allegory of the cave as part of the basis of this article is justified. The reason for all this analysis is to enable my reader follow me in my line of thought which on the other hand, may be very difficult because if a million people follow you, you need to ask yourself a serious question of where you have gone wrong.
Over 2,000 years ago, Plato, one of the Greeks elder-statesman and very famous in philosophical thought, explored the question of whether reality exist in his famous allegory of the cave. The allegory of the cave begins with a scene painted of a group of prisoners who have lived chained to the wall of a dark cave their entire lives. Every day these people in the caves watched shadows projected on a blank wall. For them these shadows are real and they shaped their entire reality. Now, imagine that one of the prisoner’s leaves the cave and walks outside into the sunshine. For the first time in his life he sees the sunshine, he will be amazed in the first instance and will certainly be happy. He will feel librated from ignorance and bondage.
The great question then is, what will he then think of his companions back in the cave? He certainly felt very sorry for them and their limited reality. If he returned back to the cave and told them about what he saw, they’d probably laugh at him and think he was crazy.
The Platonic allegory of the cave explores the tension between the imagined reality that we think is “real” (shadows) versus the reality that is the “truth” (outside the cave). At this point it is very imperative to infer like Sir William Osler would say, “The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.” Today, in seeing wisely, Imo has become one of the less corrupt states in Nigeria; I would love to be disproved here by my associates in the media. For the first time in Imo state, we see a sitting Governor prosecuting his loyalist for alleged fraud and land grabbing. This is a process of leading Imo out of the cave!
Our governor is actually trying to properly interpret the political tongues he is speaking. In the just concluded election in Imo, he won 27/27 and recently the Tribunal judgment affirmed it and some political parties and opposition groups frowned at it and vowed to challenge the judgment in the Court of Appeal. The Gov. Hope I know is not a Naphologist, but he knows how to understand what others fear. He does not speak in tongues but he interprets every political tongue spoken in various ‘holy political temples.’
If Gov. Hope was in the Platonic cave, he would have created a better state in the cave by leading the cave people to their promised political land. I am not praising him here but I sincerely have spoken the truth about our governor. Now that he has promised conducting Local Government Area election in Imo state, it is a good sign though coming very late. We expect him to equally interpret various tongues of all the political parties in Imo state.