The Theory of General Devolution: A Call for an African Solar Renaissance

Abstract

Through its theory of general devolution, this article shows that as African holistic epistemology was pushed at the fringe of cultural and scientific practices, Africa lost the advances it enjoyed in precolonial time in the domains of equality of the genre, ethical norms, medicine, textile, astronomy, and so on, because African scholars could not defend the scientific validity and superiority of the holistic epistemology on which these traditional values are based. For the solution to this general devolution, solar renaissance is urged as the reintroduction of solar religion which will practically result in the parallel reintroduction of the initiatory education with its accompanying development of the potential for the freedom soul, a powerful tool against “epistemological obstacles.” The demonstrated scientific validity of African holistic epistemology will thus lead to the revalorization of our original cost-efficient and cost-effective traditional technologies.

Keywords

devolution Bukôngo renaissance African traditional religion Islam Christianity Egypt Sumer cosmology

Introduction

Africa and the West have always presented two different worldviews (Ballester, 1985). The meeting of these two worldviews led to the present experience of the African, an overall lower situation for the explanation of which many theories have been offered. These theories tend to justify Eurocentric hegemonic activities that led to this state of things (Lévy-Bruhl, 2002) or to point to its evil nature (Biko, 1987).

Although Darwin intended his theory of evolution to explain macro-evolutions or the natural processes of “the interactions of physics and the reactions of chemistry” (Newquist, 2000, chap. 6) in the animal and vegetal realms, unfortunately, eager to find an explanation to the supposed superiority of European culture, Darwinism was used in many areas including the justification of the alleged inferiority of Africans. Turner (2006) explains this use of Darwinism this way: “Social Darwinism, with its emphasis on conflict and struggle as the motors of evolutionary adaptation, provided a general social theory of historical development and social differentiation.”

Thus, in the domain of religion, this theory was used to explain the supposed lower posture of African traditional religion (ATR) in comparison with Western monotheistic faiths. ATR was in this way explained as having just risen above animatism (the irrational fear of nature) and being stuck at the second stage of theistic evolution (animism) which should lead to polytheism and culminate to monotheism. The discovery by Wilhelm Schmidt of lost memories of a Supreme Being among the autochthons of equatorial forest in central Africa led to the reformulation of the theory of the inferiority of ATR as being rather a degeneration from a Western kind of monotheism due to “isolation from prophets and religious books” (Brow, 1996, p. 4).

On the contrary, Africans begun to question the notion of their cultural and racial inferiority by using various approaches ranging from pan-Africanist wave infused by W. E. B. Du Bois, through the cultural pride and pathos of the poets of negritude and to the revisionist approach of Afrocentric scholars inaugurated by Cheikh Anta Diop and championed by Molefi Kete Asante. These last scholars work in a “self-conscious approach to the agency of African people” (Asante, 2007, p. 13) to replace the Black as the subject and agent of his history. The common nature of these approaches is that they are undertaken within the frame of Western epistemology or its academic venues.

In this article, we intend to offer a new explanation and solution to the present low condition of Africans. Contrary to the other approaches so far used by scholars, ours will capitalize on the existence of a naturalized epistemology of African indigenous knowledge (AIK), on the superiority of its bases compared with Western paradigm, on the scientific nature of the religion it implies, and on the fact that these epistemology and religion were shared by ancient civilizations of Egypt and Sumer (Luyaluka, 2016). The theory of general devolution will help us reach our goal by starting from the following presuppositions:

Before their encounter with Western thought (through Arabs and Europeans), Africans had an epistemology which characterized also ancient civilizations of Egypt and Sumer which we call solar due to its focus of the divine.

As brought in Africa by Arabs and Europeans, Western thought was marked by Grecian materialistic philosophy and a monotheism defined by the concept of a Supreme-Being-creator.

The encounter of Africans with Western civilizations led to the denial of the scientific validity of African solar epistemology and its scientific religion.

The denial of solar epistemology and religion coupled to the destruction of their educational system brought the general devolution of African culture.

The solution we urge to this situation is the restoration of solar religion which inevitably will lead to the parallel reintroduction of its initiatory educational frame. This solar renaissance will reinforce the many solutions used so far by enabling Africans to evolve in the worldview that marked the success of ancient solar civilizations.

Methodological Approach

The methodology we will use in our endeavor entails, first of all, the demonstration of the scientific validity of kemetic cosmological argument (KCA), an argument which unfolds a systematic natural theology. Next, it induces the presuppositional use of KCA to demonstrate the validity of the bases of solar naturalized epistemology and the scientific superiority of the theology and theism of solar religion (including ATR) in comparison with Hellenic-influenced religions (Islam and Christianity).

Thus, the abandonment by Africans of solar epistemology and solar religion will be established as having led to the general devolution of their solar cultures and to the adoption of less scientific epistemic standards. Therefore, to restore to Africa its glory of yestertime, the restoration of solar religion and the parallel reintroduction of its initiatory education will be urged as an unavoidable additive solution to Afrocentricity.

On the Naturalized Epistemology of AIK

“Naturalized epistemology” is an expression coined by W. O. Quine in 1951; it alludes to epistemology as a science describing “the internal structure of the sciences and their evolution” (Sagaut, 2008, p. 13). The assertion of the “lack of indigenous written philosophical tradition in Africa, excluding Ethiopia and Egypt” (Anthony, 2014, p. 86), could be extended to the whole field of scientific lore, and this made impossible any textual descriptive study of African traditional science.

However, contrary to Western science, the naturalized epistemology of AIK unfolds through the analysis of the nature of higher African initiatory schools and of the content of their curriculum (Luyaluka, 2016). This analysis made through the three main Kôngo initiatory academies, the divine (Kimpasi, the sacerdotal mystery school that prevailed in the southern part of the Kingdom of Kôngo), the civil (Lemba, whose bastion was the north of Kôngo River), and the martial (Kinkimba, which reigned in the coastal area), leads to the assertion of the foundational truths of AIK as being

All reality is in God.

Any truth is revelation.

Any truth is comprised in the knowledge of God.

The physical is only a limited perception of reality which is spiritual.

These demonstrable bases are different from those a priori of the Western materialistic science, the four main of which are as follows:

Reality is material.

The universe is intelligible.

The senses do tell us truth.

The universe is uniform.

The very nature of the demonstrable bases of solar thinking implies an indefectible unity of the visible and the invisible, where ultimately the physical cannot be explained without the spiritual. This unity translates into the participation of religion in the scientific explanation of nature (Luyaluka, 2014, 2016). On the ontological level, this unity implies that the highest and true nature of the human being is the divine, hence the natural affirmation of the freedom of soul from the body and its possible peregrination to higher planes of existence. This posits intuition, revelation, oracles, and dreams as basic modes of acquisition of thoughts; even reason is seized as a series of direct and/or indirect revelations (Abioje, 2005; Luyaluka, 2016).

While solar science embraces a holism (Mabika, 2002) which translates into the participation of religion in the scientific explanation of reality (Luyaluka, 2014), the dichotomous worldview of the West (Igboin, 2012) results in a materialistic perception of reality (seen as being essentially physical) that restricts its science to the physical universe and excludes religion as a nonheuristic contributor to its explanation of nature (Magnan, n.d.).

The freedom of the soul which marks solar epistemology was underpinned in Egyptian ancient iconography as a bird or a butterfly hovering over a body or a corpse (Maspero, n.d.). The same feature is seen in Sumer where, according to Noah Kramer (1981), “the soul flies from Dumuzi’s body ‘like falcon flies against another bird’” (p. 297). This perception of the soul demonstrates that these ancient civilizations were evolving in solar epistemology; this led to the demonstration of the solar nature of their religions (Luyaluka, 2017a).

Essential Nature of Solar Religion

The existence of higher planes of existence, deduced from the revelatory peregrinations of the soul, implies the existence of a hierarchy of divinities which characterizes solar religion. According to Asante and Mazama (2009), ATR, that is, solar religion, includes the following elements:

A transcendent Supreme Being

A creator of the universe

Spirits

The belief in the intercession of the ancestors

Capitalizing on KCA and on the ethnography of Kôngo religion, Bukôngo, a recent publication (Luyaluka, 2017b), demonstrates the main features of ATR as being originally and more extensively:

The preponderance in the initiatory system of divine mystery teaching over the human (which includes the civil and the martial). The preponderance of civil mystery leads to the usurpation of the prerogative of the high priest in favor of the king as seen among the Baganda of Uganda (Welbourn, 1968), while the preponderance of martial mystery creates martial religions like the Vodun as evidenced by the existence in it of Gods of war and of witchcraft (Houessou-Adin, 2009), one of the weapons of war.

The hierarchical nature of its theism.

The notion of the Word as the presence of the completeness of the divinity in and around the human being. The Word is symbolized by the conjunction of the male and female elements (Fukiau, 1969).

The existence of Spirits.

The necessity of the intercession of ancestors.

Moreover, all these characteristics of ATR are demonstrated through KCA as resulting naturally and logically from hierarchical monotheism (Luyaluka, 2017b). Solar religion thus defined is none other than Bukôngo, the continuation of the theology of ancient Egypt and Sumer. Solar religion is verifiable through a comparative study with KCA which is its systematic natural theology.

KCA as a Systematic Natural Theology

Cosmological argument starts from “the presence of the cosmos back to a creator of the cosmos” (Thompson & Jackson, 1996, p. 2). As used in Western philosophy and theology, cosmological argument is restricted to the demonstration of the existence of the ultimate cause of the universe. In KCA, cosmological argument has been extended into a systematic natural theology, a demonstration through deductive logic of the main features of solar religion. For the purpose of this article, KCA can be in summary introduced in the following manner:

This visible universe is made of individualities and particular circumstances; thus, it is individual, a particular nature which is a contingency.

According to the law of causality, a necessary cause exists which includes this universe and explains this contingency; being related to an individual universe, this cause is individual.

The individual nature of this necessary cause implies the existence of other ones endowed at least with potential causation.

The possession of individualities by these necessary causes requires an explanation;

According to the law of causality, an absolute necessary cause exists which includes all the above relative necessary causes and explains their contingency.

Being the ultimate cause, the absolute necessary cause is the Supreme Being. Thus, He is absolutely without any contingence and absolutely infinite, infinite in the nature of His individuality and in the quantity of individualities He includes, because any lesser essence will entail contingency.

Being without contingence, the Most-high is indivisible; thus each relative necessary cause, each Son of God, manifests the fullness of the Supreme Being, the Father. This fullness we call the Word.

As the Sons of God taken around any Son of God are a necessary individuality, this individuality manifests the Word. Thus, the Word is the fullness of God in and around any Son of God.

KCA and the Validity of ATR and AIK

KCA is a deduction from an empirical, observable, true element; now in a deduction, “it is not possible for the premises all to be true while the conclusion is false” (Ladyman, 2002, p. 264). Moreover, the conclusions of KCA about the dynamics (gravitation, rotation, and translation) of the universe at the astronomic and subatomic levels are in harmony with Newtonian physics; this solar holistic “theory of everything” has been verified through simple derivative mathematics (Luyaluka, 2014, 2017c). Therefore, KCA provides the proof of the scientific nature of ATR.

On the contrary, KCA depicts the Most-high as including all reality; from this demonstrated all-inclusive and absolutely noncontingent nature of the Supreme Being, it follows logically that any truth is comprised in the knowledge of Him and the physical realm is only a limited perception of spiritual reality (Luyaluka, 2016). Thus, KCA demonstrates a posteriori the validity of the basic truths of the epistemology of AIK while the a priori foundational presupposition of lunar epistemology, that reality is material, cannot be demonstrated.

The Word in Ancient Solar Civilizations and in ATR

KCA proves the existence of the fullness of the Most-high in any Son of God, the Word. The Word is seen in Bukôngo as the conjunction of male and female elements in Gods and human beings, the right part of the body being called male and the left female (Fukiau, 1969). Due to the absolute noncontingency of the Most-high, even in a state of fall due to sin (the bad use of free will), the human being is never deprived of the Word, though sin reduces it to mere potentiality. This fullness of the divinity (the Word) is called in the Bukôngo Kimahûngu (in Lêmba), Kimalungila (in Kimpasi), and Kitafu-Maluangu (in Kinkimba) (Luyaluka, 2016).

The male-female conjunction was affirmed even in ancient solar civilizations of Egypt and Sumer, although it is often confused as being couples of divinities. James (1954) affirms that, according to the Shabaka Stone (an inscription of the XVIIIth Dynasty [ca. 1539-1292 BCE] rescued by the Nubian pharaoh Shabaka), the Gods in ancient Egypt were described as being at the origin “male and female in the water” (p. 154). It is known also that the Sumerian Gods comprised a male nature and a female one. Speaking of Babylonians, an author, alluding to this feature, explains that they “could not conceive of a god without a goddess who stood to him in the relation of the feminine to the masculine gender. Out of Anu was formed Anat, the feminine counterpart of the god” (Sayce, 1903, p. 310). Now Anu was only the Babylonian name of the God An of Sumerians; thus, we have the following formulas for the Sumerian Most-high God, that can be extended to all other Gods:

An = An (male nature) + Antu (female nature)

Réné Garliet (1976) calls the male-female divine completeness of being the “elder son of heaven and earth” (p. 41). He mentions its presence under the name of Komo among the Mandés (Ivory Cost, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gambia Sierra Leone, and Senegal) and under the name of Do among the Senufo (Ivory Cost and Mali).

The notion of the Word, the manifestation of the fullness of the divinity, had many implications in solar civilizations:

On the ontological level, it translated into the perception of the male elements and the female ones as participating together in the completeness of being.

In Africa, this male-female unity led to the linguistic neutrality; most African languages have one word only for all the third personal pronouns. This is the case among the most widely spoken African languages which are: “Swahili, Bambara, Hausa, Lingala, Zulu and Fulbe” (Segueda, 2015, p. 4).

Finally, the concept of the Word resulted in the high social potential the woman enjoyed in ancient Egypt where she could be pharaoh.

This perception of the completeness of being was reverberated in the nondiscriminated role the woman enjoyed in south-Saharan Africa before the inception of lunar-trended worldview through Islam and Christianity, because the African woman could be priestess, queen, even army commander.

Grecian Influence on Christianity and Islam

The solar nature of AIK and the involvement of ancient Egypt and Sumer in solar epistemology (Luyaluka, 2016) coupled with the extension of Ethiopian influence across the Red Sea (Windsor, 1969) imply that the whole area of Middle East was immersed in solar epistemology prior to its invasion by Alexander the Macedonian. Thus, we can surmise that prior to the introduction of Grecian culture, especially its philosophy, the concerned populations were deep in solar religion despite the onetime Persian influence.

This hypothesis has been verified through the history of primitive Christianity (Luyaluka, 2017b). We have seen above that the great tenet of solar epistemology is the freedom of the soul from the body. This freedom translates into the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, the continuity of life in the beyond, and the central theme of the Egyptian book of the dead. After having demonstrated that one of the missions of Jesus and his disciples was to rescue this old doctrine from the Hellenic lunar influence introduced by the Seleucids, it can be added that

The Sadducees, first called the Hellenists, “were eager to bring [in] Grecian culture and thought.” . . against their traditions. They “did not believe that soul continued to exist.” . . after death, a position tantamount to the rejection of the solar epistemology based on the freedom of soul. Jesus and his disciples countered this trend by saying “the dead are raised.” (Luyaluka, 2017a, p. 501)

The affirmation by primitive Christianity of the continuity of life in the beyond can be read in the following sample of passages: Mathew 22:31-32; 1Corinthians 15:16; Corinthians 15:39-43; and so on. It has been demonstrated also that the resistance of primitive Christianity against the intrusion of lunar epistemology meant that solar religion was still marking the Middle East at the inception of Grecian philosophy.

Contrary to Hebrews, whether Arabs did fight to remain in solar epistemology, in which they were embarked with their Semitic Jewish half-brothers, remains to be demonstrated. What is sure is that they became immersed in Grecian philosophy. This new trait of their culture can be explained by the fact that Babylon became the novel base of Alexander the Macedonian who intended it to become “an eastern capital for his empire but he died shortly in 323 BC” (Ibrahem, 2012, p. 86).

Moreover, as an author affirms, “Under the successors of Alexander the Great, Assyria became the power base of the Seleucids Empire, which at its largest covered much the same area as the Assyrian Empire previously” and he adds that “the Seleucid kings pursued an active policy of Hellenization and laid great stress on their Macedonian origins” (Parpola, n.d., p. 15).

Thus, the Arabic world according to Ibrahem (2012) “became an unrivaled intellectual center for [lunar] science, philosophy, medicine and education” (p. 87). By adopting lunar materialistic philosophy, the Arabic world abandoned solar epistemology; consequently, it has turned the back to solar religion that characterized its Sumerian and Babylonian background. This conclusion means the following:

The rejection of hierarchical monotheism and the adoption of Grecian polytheism which the prophet Muhammad will later fight.

The abandonment of the concept of the Word; this resulted in the introduction of a more materialistic anthropology.

As the male-female nature stressed by the doctrine of the Word implies the spiritual equality of all human beings, its rejection eventually led to the loss of the high social stand women enjoyed in the setting of the formerly solar culture of the Middle East where a woman even could be a pharaoh or a Queen. The Quran affirms that “men are superior to women on account of qualities which God gave men” (4: 34). For Segueda (2015), “Some scholars point out that, in comparison with Western religions, the patriarchal motivation is even greater in Islam” (p. 8).

Islam and the General Devolution of the Role of Women in Africa

Confirming the conclusions reached above about the rejection of the theology of the Word in Islam, Fatima Mernessi, an Arab feminist, explains,

In Western culture, sexual inequality is based on the belief in the biological inferiority of woman. In Islam, it is the contrary: the whole system is based on the assumption that woman is a powerful and dangerous being. All sexual institutions (polygamy, repudiation, sexual segregation, etc.) can be perceived as a strategy for constraining her power. (Segueda, 2015, p. 8)

Thus, the rejection of the theology of the Word in Islam once incepted into the cultural tissue of south-Saharan Africa would lead to general devolution as the erosion of the complementary perception of the male and female elements African cultures displayed along with Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations and the destruction of the decisive authority that African women enjoyed thanks to the solar religion.

Superiority of ATR Compared With Lunar Christianity

Although, as we have seen above, primitive Christianity resisted against lunar influence introduced by the new Grecian masters, this influence eventually prevailed in this religion and was accrued by the subsequent Roman conquerors of the Middle East who bathed in the same lunar worldview. Christianity which was at its inception a solar religion (Luyaluka, 2017b), as can be seen in the correspondence of its hierarchy of divinities with the Egyptian and Kôngo versions (see Table 1), finally became a lunar religion embracing Western monotheism.

Table 1.

Comparative Table of Hierarchy of Divinities.

Realm	Egypt	Kôngo	Christianity(Hebrew 12: 22-24)
Heavenly	The Unnamed Sole Lord	The angels of the celestial throne and the angels of the court of God the Most-high.	the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and an innumerable company of angels
Intermediary	Ra, the firstborn of Nut (the heaven).	Mbumba Lowa, the Kôngo equivalent of Ra.	assembly and church of the firstborn
Intermediary	Ptah, the God of order	Mpina Nza, the governor	God the Judge
Temporal	The “dead God”	Kôngo, the primeval ancestor.	the spirits of just men made perfect and Jesus (ancestors)

ATR has always evolved in hierarchical monotheism, a concept that will be shown to be more coherent and more scientific than Western monotheism where the Most-high “God is the creator and sustainer of the world” (Meister, 2009, p. 7). Thus, Biko (1987) is right in his affirmation that

It was the missionaries who confused our people with their new religion. By some strange logic, they argued that theirs was a scientific religion and ours was mere superstition in spite of the biological discrepancies so obvious in the basis of their religion. (p. 45)

Thanks to KCA, the supposed superiority of Western religious paradigm can be shown conclusively today to be a logical blunder, if not a cheat. Many elements allow us rather to positively affirm the scientific superiority of ATR, of solar religion, in comparison with lunar Christianity. In his book titled Introducing Philosophy of Religion, Meister (2009) gives some criteria of the evaluation of religious systems; they enable us to evaluate ATR, as represented by Bukôngo and KCA, in comparison with lunar Christianity.

Logical Consistency

One of the fundamental tenets of lunar Christianity is the monotheistic nature of its notion of divinity. It defines God as being “not only personal, but the creator of all and perfect in every respect” (Meister, 2009, p. 46), many other properties are recognized to Him including immutability and perfection.

It has been demonstrated that a Creator-Most-high God must either have always had a prior thought of creating which was activated for the sake of creation or have conceived it at a given moment. In both cases, at the moment of creation, God’s mind has changed and something must have prompted this change; this is logically inconsistent with the idea of the immutability of God. Moreover, a mutable God cannot be perfect due to the existence of possible essence He does not yet express due to His mutability (Luyaluka, 2017b).

It must be noted also that either creation happens within the creator, which implies an inner change, or it happens outside, which evokes the possibility of the existence of a greater reality that includes the creator and the creation. This last hypothesis is logically inconsistent in comparison with Anselm ontological argument which affirms that God is the greatest possible being.

The existence of a being greater than the creator is a fundamental tenet in hierarchical monotheism. KCA demonstrates this view of the Most-high as the only one which is logically consistent with the immutability and perfection of the Supreme Being. Moreover, the act of creation changes nothing neither in the being of the Most-high nor on the heavenly realm because it is only an illusory perspective of spiritual reality (Luyaluka, 2014).

Coherence of Overall System

Lunar Christianity exhibits the features of hierarchical monotheism, while claiming to be nonhierarchically monotheistic. This can be seen in the above comparative table of the hierarchy of divinities (see Table 1).

The incoherence of lunar Christianity vis-à-vis its affirmation of monotheism is confirmed in the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father who art in the heavens (ουρανοις), let thy name be sanctified, let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done as in heaven (ουρανω) so upon the earth” (Mathew 6: 9 Darby).

The question in regard to these stanzas is who is the “Father who art in heavens”? The Bible clearly affirms of the Most-high: “Behold, the heavens, and the heavens of heavens, cannot contain thee” (I Kings 8: 27, French Darby). Hence, the “Father which art in the heavens” cannot be the Supreme Being, because this one cannot be contained even by the “heavens of heavens.” Therefore, this citation of the Lord’s prayer is not in coherence with Western monotheism; it clearly alludes to a hierarchy of divinities.

Consistency With Knowledge in Other Fields

In lunar epistemic perception, science and religion are at odds (Magnan, n.d.). The role of God, if it is accepted, is limited to having set the initial conditions and the regularities of the universe; however, it belongs to scientists alone to discover and interpret them through their various scientific tools.

This dichotomous epistemological perception is not present in African solar worldview. Religion in AIK belongs to the domains of science. Solar science is thus holistic (Ani, 2013; Mabika, 2002; Wiredu, 1998) in its grasp of nature, “it embraces the whole universe in a single vision; thus, its domain of investigation is ideally the spiritual, but it includes the physical and the ethereal domains as limited perceptions of reality” (Luyaluka, 2016, p. 511).

Moreover, in its coexistence with science, solar religion, thanks to KCA, leads to an explanation of the movements and stabilities of the bodies of the universe in the astronomical and subatomic levels in a single theory: a holistic “theory of everything.” This deterministic explanation of the dynamics of the universe is mathematically verified. Thus, contrary to the unscientific lunar Christianity, ATR, solar religion, thanks to KCA, is mathematically shown to be consistent with classical physics (Luyaluka, 2014, 2017c).

Reasonable Answer to Fundamental Human Questions

The answer lunar theodicy offers to the question of evil and suffering is that through Jesus’s final destruction of Satan, “the power of evil will be destroyed for ever” (Dummelow, 1908, p. 1089). However, the free will theodicy advocated by famous lunar theologians, such as Saint Augustine (Van Til, n.d.), implies that the cause of evil is the free will God has endowed men and angels with. Therefore, the final destruction of Satan being not the final destruction of free will, the real cause of evil, this lunar theodicy does not offer a final solution to the problem of evil and suffering.

Solar theodicy as developed through KCA dictates that, due to the absolutely noncontingent, all-inclusive, and infinite nature of the divine consciousness which includes all reality, evil is an illusion caused by the bad use of free will; this illusion appears in a temporal consciousness of the creator. Moreover, the creator being a necessary being is moving back to the divine consciousness after the act of creation which involved his illusory descent in the temporal consciousness (Luyaluka, 2017c). This move condemns evil to a final destruction. Thus, men, the fallen Sons of God, being not deprived of the Word, will through spiritual understanding or through suffering inevitably arrive to the realization of the nothingness of evil; then, sin and suffering will be destroyed in their mind by the activity of the Word.

The Superior Authority of the ATR

According to Gifford (2005), the religions of the word draw their authorities from three sources: their Holy Scriptures, their tradition, or the charisma of their leaders. Islam and Lunar Christianity in their present configurations use these three authorities while Eurocentric scholars tried to confine the authority of ATR to tradition (Bittremieux, 1936; van Wing, 1956).

The naturalized epistemology of AIK shows that religion is one of the three components of science in African traditional conception. This nature of African religion has been verified (Luyaluka, 2017b). Thus, it has been demonstrated that the main theological doctrines of ATR can be proved through a cosmological argument, KCA, which is its systematic natural theology.

It results from KCA that

While the authority of Islam and lunar Christianity is essentially based only on the revelatory nature of the Quran and the Bible, the main teachings of ATR are scientifically confirmed by KCA (Luyaluka, 2014).

Thus, solar religion is the only religion whose essential theological tenets can be stated rationally through a deductive logic, because in lunar worldview, science and religion are at odds (Magnan, n.d.).

To the revelatory nature of the ATR conferred by the revelatory nature of reason in African epistemology (Abioje, 2005; Luyaluka, 2016) is added the mathematical verification of the cosmology drawn from its natural systematic theology (Luyaluka, 2014), thus leading to a solid scientific stand.

It is obvious from the scientific nature of KCA that the introduction of Islam and lunar Christianity in Africa resulted in the general devolution of African spiritual culture because it consisted in the replacement of a science by a set of superstitious, that is, scientifically nonprovable “system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith” (Woolf, 1977, p. 977).

Superiority of the Ethics of ATR

Lunar ethics is not restricted to religion, it has been since the Hellenic philosophers like Plato a philosophical, that is, speculative, episteme. However, the progressively widening gap between science and religion in the West has turned the balance of contribution in the development of ethics toward philosophy.

Solar ethics, on the contrary, has been demonstrated to be based on solar religion. Thus, it has scientific foundations; hence, its normative nature (Luyaluka, 2017d). Solar ethical principles are based on the double nature of the Word as the manifestation of the completeness of the divinity in and around man. This double nature imposes on man that his concern for the “I” must be reflected by his concern for the “us.”

Thus, compared with lunar ethics where with the advent of postmodernism, the speculative philosophical bases led to ethical relativism, “an idea that has had pernicious consequences” (North, 1989, p. 44), the scientific bases of solar ethics must allow the Blacks to resist any pernicious development of downgrading morality in Western culture. Hence, any replacement of solar ethics by the lunar, caused by the abandon of solar science and religion, entails a general devolution of African moral culture.

Devolution of the Educational Standard of Africa

Lunar pedagogy is characterized by two theories developed by famous French scientists. Rabelais enforced the principle of the well-filled head while Montaigne urged the idea of a well-done head. This approach of education aims to equip man with the ability for rational thinking.

This lunar approach of education is not in line with a holistic perception of traditional Africa whose unity of the visible and invisible implies the epistemological necessity of the freedom of the soul which enthrones revelation, intuition, oracles, and dreams as the highest means of the acquisition of new ideas. To reach its aims (the freedom of soul), the solar approach of education relies on the purification of thought. This nature of African holistic pedagogy is seen in the presence in the two human traditional initiations (the civil and the martial) of divine mystery teachings (Luyaluka, 2016).

The evolution of lunar science can be cumulative or revolutionary; this last trend requires overcoming what Gaston Bachelard calls “epistemological obstacles” and implies “a spiritual revolution necessitated by scientific invention” (Dantier, 1999, p. 6). Friedrich August Kekulé’s revolutionary discovery of the circular nature of the molecule of benzene through a dream shows the great potential of the freedom of soul in overcoming “epistemological obstacles.”

The persistent holistic nature of African worldview, the demonstrated superior scientific nature of the bases of the epistemology of AIK, and the power of the freedom of the soul in breaking “epistemological obstacles” are proofs that the mere replacement of solar educational approach by the lunar was a general devolutionary trend, as far as Africans are concerned.

Solar Renaissance as a Solution to General Devolution

The several, nonexhaustive, aspects of the general devolution of African culture demonstrated above imply that the encounter of Africa and lunar thought resulted in:

The loss of the high social stand enjoyed by the woman in Africa.

The erosion of the normative bases on which the original African ethics stands, erosion due to the adoption of speculative Western standards.

The exclusivist adoption of an educational system which is at loggerhead with the African traditional holistic worldview.

At the base of these general devolutionary trends are the facts that solar epistemology is being pushed at the fringe of African cultural and scientific practices. Now, this elimination of solar epistemology and the seeming impossibility of nowadays-African scholars to defend its scientific validity and superiority led to the abandonment of the cheaper and more efficient technology AIK involved because it could not be explained on the bases of lunar epistemology. Thus, Africa lost the advances it enjoyed in precolonial time as seen in the following:

Medicine:

Laparotomy and reduction fractures by osteosynthesis (Obenga, 1990).

Successful cesarean as was seen in Uganda (Diop, 1987).

Mastery of anesthesia by the autochthones of central Africa (Trilles, 1932).

Textile: Kôngo fabrics were called a wonder by Europeans (Pigafetta, 1881).

Solar Locomotion and communication technologies, indispensable assets for the maintenance of a centralized state 4 times bigger than France that was the Kingdom of Kôngo (Luyaluka, 2016).

Astronomy: the knowledge of Sirius B by the Dogon; “a star so small, so dense, so difficult to perceive with bare eyes” (Obenga, 1990, pp. 297-298).

And so on.

The demonstrated validity and superiority of solar epistemology, the cost efficient and cost effective nature of its technology based on the scientifically verifiable existence of spirits (Luyaluka, 2016), the need for the diasporic Africans to identify with the whole of African continental culture, and the need to find original solutions to the problems of Africa in harmony with our holistic worldview induce the necessity of solar renaissance, the reintroduction of solar religion.

Solar religion, in its practical import, necessarily implies the parallel inception of the initiatory sacerdotal initiation which develops the freedom of the soul. This is the easiest way for Africans to reintroduce into the fabrics of African scientific community the use of solar epistemology as a powerful tool for breaking “epistemological obstacles.” Moreover, the scientific defense and reintroduction of solar epistemology would naturally lead to the valorization and reinsertion of its accompanying solar technologies.

According to Mazama (2015), “there is not and there cannot be a universal religion, because any religion represents necessarily a particular cultural and historic experience and a particular vision” (p. 25). This remark highlights the importance of a renaissance based on the reintroduction of solar religion, because solar religion has a scientific content, which is KCA, which can serve as a federative element of the different trends of ATR because it is not contingent to a particular African culture.

Conclusion

Many theories are offered for the explanation of the present lower situation of Africans; in this article, we have worked to offer a new explanation based on epistemological considerations. It results from our theory of general devolution that the encounter of Africa and Grecian-influenced Islam and Christianity brought the erosion of the higher posture enjoyed by women, of the normative bases of African ethics, and led to an exclusivist adoption of an educational system at loggerhead with our holistic worldview.

At the base of these general devolutionary trends is the fact that solar epistemology is being pushed at the fringe of African cultural and scientific practices; this resulted in the loss of the advances Africa enjoyed in precolonial time in such domains as medicine, textile, astronomy, and so on; a sad situation consequence of the seeming inability of the African scholars to defend the scientific validity and superiority of the holistic epistemology on which solar technologies are based.

For the solution to this general devolution, solar renaissance has been urged as the reintroduction of solar religion which will practically result in the parallel reintroduction of the initiatory education with its accompanying development of the freedom the soul, a powerful tool against “epistemological obstacles.” This will necessarily lead to the valorization of solar technologies.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Kiatezua Lubanzadio Luyaluka

Author Biography

Kiatezua Lubanzadio Luyaluka has a PhD (hon.) degree in theology (option apologetics) from Trinity Graduate School of Apologetics and Theology, Kerala, India. He is currently the director of the Institut des Sciences Animiques, a research and initiatory center based in Kinshasa, focusing on African spirituality and epistemology. His publications are centered on a defense of African spirituality and epistemology.

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