The postmodern theologians and Hermen Kroesbergen on the language of the spirit world in Africa

The author critically examines Hermen Kroesbergen's claim that southern Africans' references to the spirit world are responses to what remains mysterious and beyond expression. While Kroesbergen favors critical realist and postmodern theologians, the author sides with postmodern theologians in the context of Pentecostal West Africans' language about the spirit world. Building on Ludwig Wittgenstein's linguistic approach and William James's discourse on mysticism and consciousness, the author argues that Pentecostal West Africans' belief in the spirit world is neither metaphorical nor a response to the unexplainable. Using the Ifá divination system as a paradigm, the author shows that this belief undergirds an urgency to explain, control, and predict the spirit world.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In this paper, I critically assess Hermen Kroesbergen’s claim on the southern Africans’ use of language regarding the spirit world. Kroesbergen divulges that a careful examination of southern Africa’s references to the spirit world is a response to the world or what remains mysterious and beyond expression. While Kroesbergen assesses the critical realist and postmodern theologians concerning reference to the spirit world, I pitch my tent with the postmodern theologians within the context of the language of the spirit world among Pentecostal West Africans. Even when I admire Kroesbergen’s reliance on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s linguistic approach to religion as a theoretical framework, I build on the discourse on mysticism and consciousness by William James to defend the postmodern theologians. To strengthen my principal thesis that the Pentecostal West African response to the world is neither metaphorical nor a response to the unexplainable, I use Ifá divination system as a paradigm to show that Pentecostal West Africans and their belief in the spirit world undergirds the urgency to explain, control and predict the spirit world.