Essays on Ghanaian Philosophy – EA Ammah Essay2 – The 3 Schools of Thought: God’s, Son of God, and Sceptics

God's school of thought
The God's School of thought has various hymns which expound [a] synoptic view of the universe as a whole; but we have selected three for the purpose of this thesis. An interesting and satisfying point which is held and enriched in each stage of advance in thought is that our thinkers steadily maintained and vigorously defended the Sovereignty of God—each recital mentions the name God—Nyonmo. The words of the first hymn are:

Earth life man life God,
And earth life.

Asase nkwa lomo nkwa Nyonmo,
Ni asase nkwa.

This hymn which forms the twilight of Ghanaian thought covers four important themes: earth, life, man and God. It could be realized that the four themes mentioned, or the hymns as a whole have passed the age of speculative concept into the concrete stage of coherent, stable thought. Earth is, life is, man is, and God hath life in Himself (John 5.26).

The recital makes it abundantly and factually plain that the earth is charged or pulsated with life inert and magnifies or elevates and designates man as Lumo, Lord, ruler or duke, and as it were, attributes life to God, while man is designatedLumo, lord of creation. The earth and God are in [a] qualitative sense equal—all possess life—and are therefore co-eternal, but the mere mentioning of God makes a very big distinction in cosmic meaning, more than Professor Alexander's notion of 'towards Deity.'

The thinkers of the second stage made a far-reaching contribution to knowledge—scientific and theological.

The hymn is:
Earth life God life man
Earth energy which sustains us,
But God is Elder.

Asase nkwa Nyonmo nkwa lumo
Okremedu amo ni kuraa wo
Ei Nyonmo dzi Onukpa.

Earth Sustains
The first line balances what was not stressed in the first hymn; namely, life is man. God in this present hymn—the first line seems to have no 'life,' the strange thing is, earth is still charged with life. The second verse of the second hymn contains a new term—Okremedu amo—for earth, this word raises scientific thought or knowledge. Du is a short form of Adu, God, and amo is also a short form of Lumo, heat; so the earth is now thought to be energy or energetic or life force, dynamic.

The thinkers (philosophers, scientists and theologians of highest level) did not stop there, but added that it was the energetic earth that sustains us. We are told that 'all the substance of earth, and all the eternal energy are derived from the sun.' (Great Design, p.95)

These great thinkers imputed divinity to matter, therefore, theological. In the domain of theology, Okremedu amo is nothing less than God's immanence in nature. Herein lies the depth and value of what was earlier postulated as 'one in three and three in one.'

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