I HAD just finished a series on the issue of faith and the kingdom of Heaven. The issues of faith and that of the kingdom of heaven have always been seen as the issues of religion. My aim of treating those topics as you might had been aware was to bring those topics down to the level of realistic, practical and mundane understanding. It is in that same spirit that I want to look at the issue of the mind and the kingdom of heaven. The survival of man today I believe is resting on the understanding of concrete knowledge. Religion too over the ages has always been seen as an avenue of knowledge. But the fluid nature of the knowledge religion has to offer especially in view of the many sided nature of its form making room for disjointed and sometimes opposing ideas has put religion largely in the mould of an abstract form of knowledge than a concrete one.
That is why up till now there might be no clear universal understanding of a vital topic like the kingdom of heaven. The world in the face of globalization however is becoming more and more sophisticated and for it to continue to make room for the abstract nature of knowledge to determine how to operate is to be operating on a slippery ground. The slippery nature of the ground on which we are operating now is largely responsible for the uneasy sense of an impending crash that we are all experiencing. It reminds me once more of that significant question from the bible in which Prophet Hosea said ‘My people perish because of lack of knowledge’. He was making reference to the children of Israel who at that time already had the Old Testament and the teaching of its prophets to guide them and yet they were drifting and as rudderless as a people who had no book of knowledge to guide them.
The Old Testament and its teaching of course is akin to what is called religious knowledge. But when a people has such credible knowledge at their disposal and they are still apparently perishing then you may have to agree with me that if the understanding of what you call religion is not intelligently handled, what is supposed to be the concrete aspect of what it must offer may be lost and the people generally may be at the level of its abstract understanding. This is when room is made for all comers and charlatans to come and offer anything that suits their fancy and selfish calculation. This must be the level to which religion must have degenerated at the time of Prophet Hosea that made him to declare despite the existence of the Old Testament among his people that they perish because of lack of knowledge.
Obviously there was knowledge among his people, but their mindset to knowledge made them to look as if they had no knowledge and they were perishing. The same scenario existed at the time of Jesus when his people were under the tragic leadership of the Pharisees. The OT was still very much among his people and statement of Jesus certainly made it obvious that the knowledge of the old testament and healthy religion generally was to lead to the understanding of the nature of the kingdom of heaven. But when Jesus said ‘the Pharisees would not go into the kingdom of heaven and they would not allow those who want to go, to go in’ it goes to show that the knowledge of religion was going wrong for this people under the pharisaic leadership. The knowledge that was going wrong then is what calls our attention to the topic of today. .
Ayo-Vaughan, a psychologist, lives in Lagos.
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