Jeremiah Sang's dialog paper

Jeremiah Sang is a third year student at Scott Theological College in Kenya. He wrote this dialog in partial fulfillment of the reuqirements in General Philosophy 204 in January, 2007 for Professor James W. Gustafson, PhD

Thesis: This conversation seeks to present the summum bonum of a Christian philosopher, a Muslim, an African traditional man and David Hume and then see the most plausible view.

(The dialogue is taking place around a cup of tea after the funeral of the wife of the African traditional man. Paul is the Christian philosopher, Mohammed is a Muslim and Koitalel is the African traditionalist with Hume being a skeptic philosopher).

Paul: (whispering to Hume and Mohammed) did you notice
any difference in today’s funeral?

Mohammed: The thing that was amazing is that Koitalel’s wife was buried without a coffin. She was only tied on her blanket with
beads, necklaces and a gourd. I do not understand why she has been abused that way, yet while reading her life history her brother said that she had done a lot of good things. She is the one who brought unity among the fighting tribes in this area, this must be absurd!

Hume: What is your problem you people! Is there any specific format of burying people? If I should die today and people decide to throw me in the bush, or burn me, I do not care. How can you say someone who is dead has been abused?

Mohammed: Please Mr. Hume; do not speak like that because Allah will punish you. You do not know that even the dead people deserve respect?

Koitalel: (stands up and pours some tea on the ground then he spits and utter some words) “Please my forefathers, receive my wife in your world, this tea I pour on the ground is a sign of fulfilling my duty to you which is the highest good I can do in this world so that I may have good life.” (turning to his three friends). Have you seen what I have just done? I am pouring this tea as a sacrifice to my forefathers, so that they may receive my wife in their world and give me good life on earth. I have heard you talking about the way my wife was buried. Let me tell you that the ancestors cannot receive someone placed in a coffin because if you do so, they will not be in a position to recognize the dead person and therefore will not exist in the world of ancestors. Again, I tell you that the highest good a man can do in this world is to please the ancestors by eating food together with them. In this way, one will be blessed to have a good life and live long just as my wife who was 85. I think I could have died some years ago because I had cancer, but because I offered many sacrifices to my ancestors, they were able to heal me, isn’t that a great thing.

Paul: Koitalel, let me ask you a question. Who made you and your ancestors?

Koitalel: It is God, he created everything and brought us right from Egypt and we followed river Nile, then we came and settled here.

Paul: Who then should you respect, is it the creator or the creature. It is not your ancestors who give you good life; it was not they who healed you, that was a miracle from God who created everyone of us.

Hume: What are you talking about? How can miracles happen? I do not belief in your fantasies, you are all dreaming. You do not know the reality and that is why your words are not coherent. Let me tell you the logic behind everything so that you will not waste time in irrelevant things. God does not exist and therefore miracles do not. Even if you claim for a miracle, no one can belief because those who report it are uneducated people with ill motives and only a few people of the same caliber are the ones who circulate all these lies. The only thing a man can aspire to do in this world is to seek education and be critical in everything so that one cannot be easily convinced by the folly of notoriously religious good for nothing men.

Mohammed: Friends, I think Hume is wrong by telling us that one needs to seek education to guard against being convinced by uneducated people. People have lived for a long time without education and they have been living a good life, no one has ever cheated them in anything. Again I belief strongly that God is able to bless people so long as one does well. If we seek education, it will just end in this world. We need to seek something that will take us to heaven after we die and be buried just like the way we have done to Koitalel’s wife. The highest good then a man can do is to worship God in prayer, giving to the needy, fasting, witnessing and pilgrimage to Mecca. That is the only thing a man can do in this world in preparation to the life hereafter.

Hume: I think we will not get in terms if we will still argue. But I want to tell you that you cannot use the trend of events in the past to prove that things will be like that every now and then. You cannot say that because people have lived without education and their life has been good is not a guarantee for the future. It is impossible to observe how things will happen ahead of time. Now ………

Mohammed: Wait a minute; I told you I am seriously preparing myself for heaven. It is now 4pm and I need to pray. You can just watch me do that. (He bows; his head touches on the ground and he repeats it five times, on seeing this, Koitalel laughed loudly until he cried and fell down.)

Hume: Koitalel, why don’t you just be diplomatic instead of acting like an idiot. How can you laugh until you fall down and cry, what is it that is amusing here. (Mohammed comes back and sits down)

Paul: I can see that our conversation might not end well because we are not respecting one another. But since every one of you has talked about the highest good one can aspire for in life, I also need to tell you what I belief. Since Mohammed and Koitalel have believed that God created man, I also take that view. Mohammed will also agree with me that man himself broke the fellowship between God and man when he disobeyed God. May I extend by saying that the fellowship was restored by the death of Jesus on the cross, which was a great miracle and hope to all human beings. The highest good then, which one can do, is to belief in Jesus Christ who is the Son of God. The salvation that Christ brought to us is free and we do not need to perform good works in order that we may go to heaven. The good works that Christians do flows out of faith in Christ. The good works are the fruit of the Holy Spirit who enables every Christian to live a life that pleases God.

Koitalel: I almost believe what Paul is saying because in our creation myth we say that it is man who caused God to be angry and to withdraw from them. If there is a person who came to die for us, then that is what I do not know and I would want to know him. I have offered sacrifices for a long time in order that my sin might be forgiven; it seems that this Jesus is so powerful that he can forgive me so that I will not be wasting my sheep for slaughter every month.

Hume: I will never ever belief what you are saying, how can the disobedience of one person make the rest disobedient yet they are innocent. We never participated in what you are calling disobedience. Is sin inherited? And if so, then you need to take me to a laboratory so that I may see the degree of my sin. Anything that can follow people like that is proved empirically. If this is true, then sin is not depravity, but a disease.

Paul: If sin is depravity, then we need a savior, if it is a disease, then we need a doctor. A doctor is a savior because he saves peoples’ lives and a savior can be a doctor. I am now talking about the spiritual doctor, one who removes the disease of sin. Even the Koran says that men have a disease and therefore we need a doctor.

Mohammed: It is true that the Koran says that men have a disease, but it doesn’t say that Jesus resurrected. In fact it says that the disciples stole his body.

Paul: Mr. Hume, could you please tell us how one can analyze if a miracle that is being reported actually happened.

Hume: That is what I wanted to say in order to refute your claims. The first one is education. The disciples were uneducated people. Another thing is motivation, the disciples had left their profession and were self-deceived to follow Jesus, and they could not let the one whom they have followed the whole of life to just go. Reputation is another one, and the disciples were not risking anything. More so, there was no good number of witnesses.

Paul: Please, go and read the Bible well, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were they not educated people? Were the disciples not risking their work of fishing, yet they earned life from there? Do the Bible and other historical books say that the soldiers were bribed to lie about the resurrection? Please go and read the Bible seriously. I still stand on my point that everyone needs to believe in Christ so that you will have a good life.

Koitalel: I think believing in Jesus makes sense because even if you do so, you will not lose anything. I admire Jesus, and I am going to give a trial by believing in him.

Mohammed: You cannot convince me that Jesus resurrected, therefore I cannot belief in him.

Koitalel: Thank you everyone for attending my wife’s funeral. I think I should now go and make supper because I am the only one remaining in the house. (They all walked out to relax and bask in the evening sun).



Bibliography
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Farzul Rahman, Islam. 2nd Ed. Chicago press: Chicago. 1966

James W. Gustafson, The Quest for Truth, An introduction to philosophy, 4th Ed.Needham, MA: Simion and Shuster, 1998.

Wilhelm Windelband, A History of Philosophy. Vol II. Harper and Row Pub. N. York.1958.

William James E, Introduction to philosophy. McGraw Hill Inc: N. York. 1992.