Possible Impossibilities

Since antiquity an entity has been regarded as omnipotent, omniscient, invisible,invincible and indefatigable. He is adored, revered, respected and worshipped by all animates and inanimates in varied dimensions.

He is timeless. In the morning, he is constant of descriptions. Come noon, the perception of His disposition is unshakable. At night, this nonpareil remains a northern star, unshakable of motion and potentials.

The combined susceptibilities of space, clime and attitude have not in any way diminished the shining qualities and profound esteem in which this gargantuan feat is regarded by Man. This abstraction is so real yet so amorphous that he has been interchangeably described as divine, nature, providence, awesome, incomparable etc. All sorts of description implying larger than life traits have been established as being apt for identifying him.

So complex and excitingly complicated is this cynosure that a particular religion identities him with ninety-nine names. He is so pervading, indefinite and undeterminable that man’s successes and failures are believed to result from his whims.

This being is called God in English Language. Yoruba, a language spoken by about 10million persons in Western Nigeria and in the Diaspora variously sees Him as Olorun, Olodumare, etc. The Igbo language describes him as Chineke.

When these frighteningly relevant qualities of God are juxtaposed with human foibles and susceptibilities, can we conveniently conclude that God is capable of all we have attributed to him? Are we not endowing him with more than He merits? Indeed, are the proofs of his potentials incontrovertible?

These posers started agitating my mind, the day I heard some of my students arguing about certain incidents that bore close affinity with their studies.

They were actually praying. In the course of the Prayer, one of them calmly insinuated to the effect that, there is nothing God cannot achieve; another one retorted that there was not a feat God cannot achieve. And the group then sang series of songs praising God’s infinity.

I got into my car and drove off. However, as much as I tried to push the effects of the group’s observations from my mind, the more it stamped the authority of its pertinence on my consciousness. Of course I began a critical reappraisal, and my first port of call was the student’s domain.

A candidate registers for an examination, he is given a timetable, and instead of preparing for the exam by swotting reliably and honestly, he plays his time away. It is incontrovertible that the candidate will fail the exam; it is a logical conclusion. If for instance, the candidate passes, it should be obvious to any rational mind that, the candidate has cheated one way or the other.

Now, would it be right to ascribe the “success” of a student who passed an examination through cheating to God’s handiwork? I am sure the candidate would have sighed, after he must have successfully cheated, and said something like “thank God”. Is God to be thanked in such a situation?

Take the case of a home where the parents do not care two hoots how the children feed, how they get the other basic things of life, the children education and other welfare do not concern the parents. Yet the mother of the house prays daily for a successful adulthood for the uncatered, unmothered, and unfathered children. It is glaring that such children’s end has already being ordained in the present. In other words one does not need a Reinhard Bonke to know that the future of the kids has been ruined by the neglect of their parents. The only logicality is that the children will turn out to be dregs.

Suppose one of these hapless children becomes rich and prosperous, would it be rational to attribute such development to God? It has been almost conclusively proved that excessive cigarette smoking, heavy drinking lack of rest can be stressful, a condition which may lead to high blood pressure and allied conditions. Now a man freely indulges in these acts and in no distance future gets himself entangled in a health problem. In a fit of support and concern, his family members take him to a church for prayers. He experiences a reprieve after a couple of weeks only for him to recur to his old ways.

Soon, his health deteriorates again and he is rushed to the same spiritual home; he quits his habit and in no time he is fit as a fiddle. Would it be right for me to conclude that God has done wonders. September 11 will forever remain sadly green in the memory of America. A particular family in America looks forward to that day became the family see it as a red letter day; one of the members of the family was in one of the floors and he survived; in actual fact, he did not sustain any injury, minor or major.

Can one say that God aided the terrorists to succeed and allowed the survivor to come out of the debris alive?

I was once a heavy smoker. I was taken aback one hot afternoon when my nostrils caught a whiff of tobacco odour on the breath of my eleven-year old son. I was not totally convinced but I became watchful. I caught him on the third day with a live butt of a Benson and Hedges smouldering in his young fingers. My wife instantly became prayerful. A once indifferent to religion party – goer became a thoroughly convinced fast-lover. Three months into her charade my son remained constant; I was still a smoker.

Then it hit me: A father is a veritable role model to a son; whatever the father does is permissive to the son. I stopped smoking and my son also quit. Practical solution to practical problem you would conclude? But my wife till today believes her prayer made my son stop smoking. The most curious of the phenomenon occurred of recent. A religious body organized a seminar where it intended to invoke the spirit of God to touch Nigerian’s hearts so that the second most corrupt country in the world may not graduate to the first position in 2005. This is a society where everybody knows the people in power steal t

he country’s wealth with impunity. That is not all, they flaunt this stolen monies without respect for the sensibilities of the governed. It is a society where budgets are read but only 10% or less of the projects are executed and they are poorly done. Questions are asked by the concerned but politically less powerful ones; no answers are forthcoming. It is an environment where justice is sat on its head and forced to walk with the arms. The most ludicrous index that galvanized corruption into a national delicacy is that everybody is aware that these things are happening. The students in the tertiary institutions, the so-called future leaders, are aware; they are very conscious of the rot going on at the crannies of government offices. Anywhere the issue is raised, these growing elites always conclude that “we are waiting for our time” it is in this kind of environment that God is being invited to fight corruption. Is this call for divine intervention apt? My circle of reasoning is topsy-turvy! I am not too sure.