THE FUNDAMENTAL ONTOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE IN IGEDE AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE
CONCEPT OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
INTRODUCTION
Every condition to which the process of becoming conforms in any particular instance has its reason either in the character of some actual entity in the actual world of that concrescence, or in the character of the subject which is in process of concrescence. This category of explanation is termed the ontological principle. This ontological principle is however fundamental to other principles. Thus, one may say that it is from this ontological principle that other principles emerged. Parmenides first inquired of the properties co-extensive with being, Plato then followed. However, it is in Aristotle that we first see the term “transcendentals. The transcendentals are; One(Unum), Truth(Verum) and Good(Bonum). They were so called as they transcended each of his ten categories. Aristotle discusses only Unity(Unum-One) explicitly because it is the only transcendental intrinsically related to being, whereas truth and goodness relate to rational creatures. The transcendentals are ontologically one and thus they are convertible. The transcendentals are not contingent upon cultural diversity, religious doctrine, or personal ideologies, but are the objective properties of all that exists.
The aim of this paper however, is to discuss from my cultural background the fundamental ontological principle and apply it to the immortality of the soul.
The cultural background of concern here is, The Igede Culture


BRIFLY ABOUT THE IGEDE PEOPLE
The Igede tribe is the third largest ethnic group in Benue State, with the first and second being Tiv and Idoma respectively. They are native to Oju and Obi local government areas. The word Igede, connotes both the people and the language they speak. They are predominantly farmers and practice Christianity and African Traditional Religion.
THE FUNDAMENTAL ONTOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE IN IGEDE CULTURE
For the Igede people, the fundamental ontological principle is called “Ohe.” Ohe literally means “the earth goddess.” Ohe is the most important deity in Igedeland; she is a source of fertility, an arbiter of harmony, and in close contact with dead ancestors of the clan.
Ohe is the Supreme Being for the Igede people, hence, the fundamental ontological principle. He created the universe and everything therein, thus, their first origin and support. All particular things that exist derive their existence from Ohe. On the ranking scale, while Ohe occupies the highest position, there are however other deities that perform particular functions. All these functions are performed in relation to Ohe, and they also reach their zenith(full actualization) in Ohe.
OHE IS ONE(Ohe lokpokpo): Ohe is necessarily one, otherwise it would not be a being, but several being. Just as a being continues to exist so long as it retains its unity, but ceases to exist when its unity is lost, such is Ohe. Unity does not add anything to Ohe, it merely indicates its entity’s indivision and denies division. Ohe exists necessarily, while other beings exist contingently.
OHE IS TRUE(Ohe rilehi): Truth is the conformity between the intellect and its object. The truth of Ohe is not an entity distinct from Ohe itself. By the very fact that Ohe is, it is true. Other beings are necessarily in relation to Ohe, since they depend on Ohe for their being. For the Igede people, other beings are in conformity to the divine(Ohe). Thus, Ohe being the truth is not mutable. Ohe is progressive in so far as particular things are capable of increase. For all particular things realize their prototype and they essence represent the immutable essence of Ohe.

OHE IS GOOD(Ohe higwu): Ohe has a real existence and it is good and perfect. The goodness of Ohe and its being are one and the same thing. Ohe is not only good in itself as having perfections essential to its nature, but also good for other particular things since other particular things derived their existence from it. Hence, for the Igede people, other particular things are good in so far as they share in the goodness of Ohe who is their ultimate origin and support.
The Igede people hold that, Ohe exists necessarily. It is a necessary being, thus necessary truth. Ohe causes every other particular thing to exist, hence, it exists outside those which it causes to exist. Particular things derive their existence from Ohe and are firmly attached to it in the ontological chain of relation. For the Igede people, any particular thing that exist shares in those tree attributes of Unum [One], Bonum [Good] and verum [Truth]. The Igede mythology has it that Ohe created Agba(the ancestral Father of the Igede people). To Agba is dedicated the famous Igede Agba(New Yam) festival. The Igede people owe a lot to Ohe and Agba for their successful sojourn from their ancestral homeland(Ora in Edo State) to their present location in Benue State.
Particular things and creation itself created by Ohe have no necessary existence but contingent existence. It follows then, that if Ohe created the world, then the world depends on it for its existence. Ohe is eternal and imperishable because it has an independent existence. It exists on/by itself. Since particular things created by Ohe do not exist by themselves, they are not eternal.
For the Igede people, Ohe is self-caused. Since particular things that are, derive their existence from Ohe, it follows that Ohe also possesses the characteristics of particular things. Ohe is the actual, though when considered in relation to particular things, it has potential features.
THE CONCEPT OF IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
Human beings seem always to have had some notion of a shadowy double that survives the death of the body. But the idea of the soul as a mental entity, with intellectual and moral qualities, interacting with a physical organism but capable of continuing after its dissolution, derives its Western thought from Plato and entered into Judaism during approximately the last century before the Common Era and thence into Christianity. In Jewish and Christian thinking it has existed in tension with the idea of the resurrection of the person conceived as an indissoluble psycho-physical unity. Christian thought gradually settled into a pattern that required both of these apparently divergent ideas. At death the soul is separated from the body and exists in a conscious or unconscious disembodied state. But on the future Day of Judgment souls will be re-embodied (whether in their former but now transfigured earthly bodies or in new resurrection bodies) and will live eternally in the heavenly kingdom.
Although Aquinas’ concept of the soul, as the “form” of the body, was derived from Aristotle rather than Plato, Aquinas too argued for its indestructibility. Kant offered a different kind of argument for immortality—as a postulate of the moral life. The claim of the moral law demands that human beings become perfect. This is something that can never be finally achieved but only asymptotically approached, and such an unending approach requires the unending existence of the soul. This argument also is open to criticism. Are humans indeed subject to a strict obligation to attain moral perfection? Might not their obligation, as finite creatures, be to do the best they can? But this does not seem to entail immortality.
It should be noted that the debate concerning arguments about the immortality of the soul and the existence of God has been as much among Christian philosophers as between them and non-Christian thinkers. It is by no means the case that Christian thinkers have all regarded the project of natural theology as viable. There have indeed been, and are, many who hold that divine existence can be definitively proved or shown to be objectively probable. But many others not only hold that the attempted proofs all require premises that a disbeliever is under no rational obligation to accept but also question the evidential assumption that the only route to rational theistic belief is by inference from previously accepted evidence-stating premises.

APPLYING THE CONCEPT OF OHE TO THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
The French philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), a modern Thomist, summarized the concept of the soul as follows: “A spiritual soul cannot be corrupted, since it possesses no matter; it cannot be disintegrated, since it has no substantial parts; it cannot lose its individual unity, since it is self-subsisting, nor its internal energy since it contains within itself all the sources of its energies.” Consequent upon the above, one can unequivocally hold that the soul is one, good and true just like Ohe. Hence, the two are homogeneously inseparable.
Just as the harmony of the different parts of the body is coordinated by the soul, so also is the harmony of particular things coordinated by Ohe. A body that doesn’t possess the soul is reducible to mere matter that its existence cannot reach a transcendent phase, the same holds for particular things cut-off from Ohe. Ohe determines the full actualization of particular things. Just as the soul is immortal and imperishable, so is Ohe immortal and imperishable.
If it is established by the Igede people that Ohe is the fundamental ontological principle, and that Ohe is one, good and true, and these qualities can also be said or affirmed of the soul, then it follows that Ohe and the Soul are related. What the Soul does for the body, Ohe does in a deeper sense for particular things that exist.

CONCLUSION

Consequent upon the afore-discussed, philosophical discussion on the concept of the soul has centred mainly on the idea of the immaterial soul and its capacity to survive the death of the body. Plato, in the Phaedo argued that the soul is inherently indestructible. To destroy something, including the body, is to disintegrate it into its constituent elements; but the soul, as a mental entity, is not composed of parts and is thus an indissoluble unity.
Unum [One], Bonum [Good] and verum [Truth] are called transcendental properties of being, because they can be affirmed of everything that is real. These transcendental properties add nothing to being, but present it under a special aspect. Thus a being is called one, because it is undivided in itself; true, because it is knowable; good, because it is desirable. Though other properties may be essential to every being, yet the above three are the most important, and are those of which metaphysics(Ontology) treats more particularly. These three properties can be affirmed of OHE.
Oori, Odeh Kenneth
Kennethferdinandoori@gmail.com