Benue State University, Makurdi

Reality of Death and the Meaning of Life: An African Perspective

Hyginus Chibuike Ezebuilo, PhD

Philosophers through the ages have provided answers to the question of what makes life meaningful. Much of their answers are construed as accounts of which final ends a person ought to realize in order to have a life that matters. But can existence really be meaningful if death is its definitive end? Employing the phenomenological method, this paper examines how, for the African, life can be meaningful (if it is ever possible) given the reality of death towards which every created thing tends. The finding of this paper is that for the African, death is not “a necessary end” as some would have us believe. Death is only a beginning of a new life, and meaning of life depends on harmony with God’s purpose for the individual. For the African, the account of meaning in life is that the better one fulfills a purpose God has assigned the more one’s existence is significant. The idea is that God has a plan for the universe and that one’s life is meaningful to the degree that one realizes God’s plan for oneself. The paper, thus, concludes that fulfilling God’s purpose by choice is the sole source of meaning, with the existence of an afterlife necessary for it. If a person failed to do what God intends him/her to do with his/ her life, then, on the African perspective, his/her life would be meaningless.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE (CLICK)