IGWEBUIKE AS AN IGBO-AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE OF THE MEANING OF LIFE

Abstract

One of the questions that loom at the horizon of human existence is the question bordering on the meaning of life: does the universe have any meaning of purpose? Does human life have any purpose of meaning? If my life has meaning, is this meaning dependent on me as an individual? Is it possible that life has no meaning at all? If life has meaning at all, what form or forms does this meaning take? This piece focuses on articulating what makes the life of the human person meaningful from an Igbo-African perspective, and this would be based on what meaningful conditions have in common among the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria. This paper will employ the Igwebuike holistic method of interpreting the reality of the meaning of life; and this interpretation will mediate between the super-naturalistic concept of the meaning of life, which understands the meaning of life from the angle of engaging in the right way with God and the naturalistic perspective, which holds that the human life is meaningful in a world that is merely physical. The Igwebuike perspective is an eclectic perspective of both positions. It discovered that from the Igbo-African perspective that the human life has meaning, and that this meaning is not detachable from the nature of the Igbo-African worldview.