A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HOLY TRINITY AND QUADRANT DIVINITY IN ANYIAM-OSIGWE’S SAGE PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

There is a God who created the universe and everything that is in it. However, the nature of the God figure has remained a perplexing issue in all of man’s existence. God possess the attribute of the divine the divine is pure in all ramification. Thedivine is found in every religion of the world. According to the different religions of the world especially Christianity, we have different interpretations of the divine. The Christian religion interprets the divine in a triad of manifestation; a three person in one God. Attributes are ascribe to three different beings who operates separately but are one and indivisible. The divine stands in hierarchy of God with each principality based on its special duties. Africa is seen to be a continent of rich religious heritage but AnyiamOsigwe, a sage in Africa steps away from the octave manifestation of force in the African traditional religion. In the octave of force and its existence in the African religion, man is the manifestation of the divine intelligence. This implies he can grasp and provide explanations about the mystery of the divine. In the metaphysics of the divine, Anyiam-Osigwe deviates also from the ‘trinity’ as upheld by the Christian metaphysics. He postulates what he calls the ‘quadrant principle of God phenomenon’. In his sagacity, he advocates for a quadrant divinity where there is one God but four persons. Instead of the usual trinity of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, Anyiam-Osigwe believes that the equation is not complete. Thus, he added ‘God the mother’ not as a new person in the God nature but one that cannot be omitted. Drawing his inspiration from the Christian theology, he argues sternly that there should be a fourth person in the divine nature of God.He was influenced by the important role a mother plays in the family. In this research, we set out to investigate into the sagacious philosophy of Anyiam-Osigwe. Can his theory survive rigorous criticisms? What will be the nature of the fourth person he advocated for? If we accept the ‘God mother’ notion, can people gender God based on how it suits them? To unravel this mystery, the research employs both a critical and comparative position. The similarities and differences between Anyiam-Osigwe quadrant divinity and that of the trinity in Christian religion will be reviewed. If the Christian religion ascribes Mary as just the earthly mother for Jesus, the Son of God, does AnyiamOsigwe provide in his theory the adoption of Mary as God the mother or a different personhood as God the mother? Just as we have the blessed trinity today, can we talk about the blessed quadrant? Anyiam-Osigweis of the view that if we neglect the relevance of ‘God the mother’, then the ‘salvinic’ mission of Christ won’t have been possible. He writes for the epiphany of the mother principle into the divine. In the research, the question of gender equality would also be raised on the theater of moral comprehension.