The Need to Improve Intellectual Culture in the Isese/Traditional Yoruba Spirituality Community, Particularly in Nigeria
Image of myself, left and Yoruba spirituality and philosophy and multidisciplinary scholar Toyin Falola, right, in conversation in his house in Nigeria, January 2025
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Compcros
Comparative Cognitive Processess. and
Systems
A person who cannot analyze a subject and present the differences between their own point of view and that of the person whose views they are criticizing, or who can sustain such analysis only for a short time, but chooses to degenerate into insults and threats, or mixes such venomous attitudes with efforts at critical analysis, is the situation of too many members of the Nigerian Isese, traditional Yoruba spirituality community.
This is in contrast to those members of the same community who are able to engage in such critical analysis, at various levels of sustained effort, keeping it free of attacks on the person of the individual they disagree with or unsubstantiated claims about the point of view they differ from.
I make these observations from following the debates ignited by Moyo Okediji 's challenges on Facebook to the Isese /Yoruba spirituality tradition.
The solution?
The heightened development of an intellectual culture in the tradition.
What is an intellectual culture?
An intellectual culture is a lifestyle of thinking things through critically.
It is often dangerous for spirituality.
Such efforts could lead a religious person to discover that the ground of ideas on which they stand in their religion is hollow, leading them to fall through the weak floor into empty space, to adapt an image from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, who devoted himself to such analysis of Christian faith in various works.
But such critical examination is necessary if one is to stand on solid ground, as Kant eventually did after moving from his former, less critical faith, to a richer, stronger faith, infused by his spiritual journey but different from the house of faith in which he had been living before his critical exploration.
Not all critical studies of faith are like Kant 's. The African Christian theologian St.Auguatine of Hippo is credited with describing theology as "faith seeking understanding", if I recall correctly.
A journey within the same constellation of faith, but taking pains to understand the logic of one's beliefs, even if in terms of various kinds of logic, from the emotional to the imaginative to the intellectual and possible in dialogue with one's experiences.
Why am I referencing Christian examples in a discussion of Yoruba spirituality, particularly since Christianity is often understood as being in conflict with this spirituality?
Because on account of my social circumstances represented by the kind of literature I had around me when I began to mature being largely Christian and Western philosophical literature and because some of the best work on African spiritualities, in general, and Yoruba spirituality, in particular, is written by Christians, such as Bolaji Idowu 's Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, the best book length study of Yoruba cosmology known to me, shaped by extensive study of the oral tradition.
Western philosophy and Christian history are also particularly illustrative of the struggle between and intertwining of faith and intellect in a manner that might not be as stark in other cultures.
By the time one reads various enquiries into the nature of religion, studies accounts of shifts in religious histories across the centuries, in different places, one could become less attached to the differences between one's faith and the views of others.
There is nothing in what one believes that has not been believed by others in a different form, leading to questions about this unity in variety of beliefs.
To what degree do these beliefs represent reality as different from what people think and to what degree are they human creations, are questions that may be ignited by such exposure.
A religious person could also benefit by learning as much as possible about their own faith, and reading is very helpful in this.
Its clear from the Facebook debate I am referring to that the state of knowledge in Yoruba origin spiritualities has added significantly to that achieved in the days of Bolaji Idowu and even that represented by Wole Soyinka 's works, among the best in the field, but this knowledge does not seem to be widely distributed in Nigeria, the origin of this body of ideas and practices before it's near global expansion.
Does this suggest a need for the current theologians of Yoruba origin spiritualities and thinkers in Yoruba inspired philosophy to do more about making their ideas accessible to the public?
A good degree of the best published work in Yoruba thought comes from scholars in the West, but pricing constraints and distribution limitations means that these works might not be well known in Nigeria.
Happily, however, such a recently published masterpiece as Toyin Falola's Global Yoruba: Regional and Diasporic Networks, is freely accessible on the website of the publisher Indiana University Press.
After publishing my compilation of as much material as possible from the ongoing Facebook debate inspired by Okediji's challenges, I could see what I can do to work with these theologians and philosophers I have encountered by chance on Facebook, people from Nigeria and other parts of the world, in expanding their presentations and sharing them with the world as my own discovery of the creme de la creme of Isese/Yoruba origin/Orisha spirituality and philosophy and allied bodies of knowledge.
A person who cannot analyze a subject and present the differences between their own point of view and that of the person whose views they are criticizing, or who can sustain such analysis only for a short time, but chooses to degenerate into insults and threats, or mixes such venomous attitudes with efforts at critical analysis, is the situation of too many members of the Nigerian Isese, traditional Yoruba spirituality community.
This is in contrast to those members of the same community who are able to engage in such critical analysis, at various levels of sustained effort, keeping it free of attacks on the person of the individual they disagree with or unsubstantiated claims about the point of view they differ from.
I make these observations from following the debates ignited by Moyo Okediji 's challenges on Facebook to the Isese /Yoruba spirituality tradition.
The solution?
The heightened development of an intellectual culture in the tradition.
What is an intellectual culture?
An intellectual culture is a lifestyle of thinking things through critically.
It is often dangerous for spirituality.
Such efforts could lead a religious person to discover that the ground of ideas on which they stand in their religion is hollow, leading them to fall through the weak floor into empty space, to adapt an image from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, who devoted himself to such analysis of Christian faith in various works.
But such critical examination is necessary if one is to stand on solid ground, as Kant eventually did after moving from his former, less critical faith, to a richer, stronger faith, infused by his spiritual journey but different from the house of faith in which he had been living before his critical exploration.
Not all critical studies of faith are like Kant 's. The African Christian theologian St.Auguatine of Hippo is credited with describing theology as "faith seeking understanding", if I recall correctly.
A journey within the same constellation of faith, but taking pains to understand the logic of one's beliefs, even if in terms of various kinds of logic, from the emotional to the imaginative to the intellectual and possible in dialogue with one's experiences.
Why am I referencing Christian examples in a discussion of Yoruba spirituality, particularly since Christianity is often understood as being in conflict with this spirituality?
Because on account of my social circumstances represented by the kind of literature I had around me when I began to mature being largely Christian and Western philosophical literature and because some of the best work on African spiritualities, in general, and Yoruba spirituality, in particular, is written by Christians, such as Bolaji Idowu 's Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, the best book length study of Yoruba cosmology known to me, shaped by extensive study of the oral tradition.
Western philosophy and Christian history are also particularly illustrative of the struggle between and intertwining of faith and intellect in a manner that might not be as stark in other cultures.
By the time one reads various enquiries into the nature of religion, studies accounts of shifts in religious histories across the centuries, in different places, one could become less attached to the differences between one's faith and the views of others.
There is nothing in what one believes that has not been believed by others in a different form, leading to questions about this unity in variety of beliefs.
To what degree do these beliefs represent reality as different from what people think and to what degree are they human creations, are questions that may be ignited by such exposure.
A religious person could also benefit by learning as much as possible about their own faith, and reading is very helpful in this.
Its clear from the Facebook debate I am referring to that the state of knowledge in Yoruba origin spiritualities has added significantly to that achieved in the days of Bolaji Idowu and even that represented by Wole Soyinka 's works, among the best in the field, but this knowledge does not seem to be widely distributed in Nigeria, the origin of this body of ideas and practices before it's near global expansion.
Does this suggest a need for the current theologians of Yoruba origin spiritualities and thinkers in Yoruba inspired philosophy to do more about making their ideas accessible to the public?
A good degree of the best published work in Yoruba thought comes from scholars in the West, but pricing constraints and distribution limitations means that these works might not be well known in Nigeria.
Happily, however, such a recently published masterpiece as Toyin Falola's Global Yoruba: Regional and Diasporic Networks, is freely accessible on the website of the publisher Indiana University Press.
After publishing my compilation of as much material as possible from the ongoing Facebook debate inspired by Okediji's challenges, I could see what I can do to work with these theologians and philosophers I have encountered by chance on Facebook, people from Nigeria and other parts of the world, in expanding their presentations and sharing them with the world as my own discovery of the creme de la creme of Isese/Yoruba origin/Orisha spirituality and philosophy and allied bodies of knowledge.
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