Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe
Keywords: Tauya Chinama, philosophy, theodicy, humanist education, Zimbabwe
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
In-Sight Publishing, Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Correspondence: Scott Douglas Jacobsen (Email: scott.jacobsen2025@gmail.com)
Received: September 29, 2025
Accepted: November 8, 2025
Published: November 8, 2025
Abstract
The interview with Tauya Chinama explores the intellectual and emotional trajectory of a Zimbabwean philosopher and humanist who journeyed from theology to freethought. Trained for the priesthood, Chinama’s inquiries into theodicy—the reconciliation of divine justice with human suffering—provoked a philosophical transformation from belief to apatheism. Through critical engagement with theological defenses of evil, such as Augustine’s original sin and free will theories, he found these explanations logically inconsistent and ethically unsatisfying. His story embodies the struggle between inherited faith and emerging reason in postcolonial Africa. The dialogue situates his evolution within the broader humanist movement in Zimbabwe, connecting his critique of religion to his advocacy for indigenous languages and cultural preservation in education.
Keywords: African Humanism, Apatheism, Freethought, Humanism in Zimbabwe, Indigenous Languages, Philosophy of Religion, Problem of Evil, Secular Education, Theodicy, Theology and Logic
Introduction
This conversation documents Tauya Chinama’s philosophical evolution from a theological trainee to a secular humanist and apatheist. Emerging from Zimbabwe’s complex intersection of colonial religious education and indigenous intellectual revival, Chinama represents a new generation of African thinkers reclaiming moral autonomy outside religious dogma. His academic focus on theodicy—the problem of reconciling divine goodness with the existence of evil—became the catalyst for an enduring critique of institutional belief. The interview follows this transformation chronologically, highlighting the tension between inherited spiritual traditions and the pursuit of reasoned ethics. It also underscores Chinama’s belief that education rooted in indigenous languages sustains cultural identity and intellectual authenticity, reflecting his broader humanist commitment to justice, knowledge, and social progress.
Main Text (Interview)
Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Interviewee: Tauya Chinama
Tauya Chinama is a Zimbabwean freethinker, educator, and advocate for human rights and cultural preservation. Trained in philosophy and theology, he transitioned from religious study to humanism, emphasizing intellectual honesty, dialogue, and heritage-based education. As a teacher of heritage studies, he works to integrate indigenous knowledge and languages into learning systems, arguing that language carries culture, history, and identity. Chinama is active in Zimbabwe’s humanist movement, contributing to interfaith dialogues, academic research, and public discourse on secularism, ethics, and education reform. He champions the preservation of Shona and Ndebele while critiquing systemic barriers that weaken local language education.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When you were doing your training, what was your main specialization? What was the core research question?
Tauya Chinama: I had several questions, but my primary focus was on theodicy: the relationship between the existence of God and the problem of evil.
That was the question that led me to think more deeply. Years ago, I preached about an omniscient, omnipotent, all-good God. But then I looked at the reality: people who are disabled, people dying in natural disasters, people dying from diseases. Why is God not ending all this suffering? Where is he? Is he enjoying it?
The key issue is theodicy. The Greek words are theos (God) and dike (justice). Is it just for God to allow these things to happen? That question pulled me further. I came to feel that I could act more justly as a human being than the God being preached, who supposedly is capable of ending poverty, disease, disability, and natural disasters, but does not. Why should I believe in him? Why should I revere him?
The realization was: we are on our own. We are responsible, and we must act to address what is happening to us. That was the key lesson that pushed me from being a believer to an agnostic, and then to what I now call an apatheist—a person indifferent to God’s existence. Today, I describe myself as an apatheist with a touch of cosmopolitanism.
Jacobsen: For theodicy, what were the standard arguments? How did theologians justify evil, suffering, and pain?
Chinama: A number of them talked about free will. Others leaned on determinism. But this did not make sense to me. If we say that human beings have free will, then it means God is not omniscient—he does not know everything that will happen before it occurs. If he knows it all, then free will does not exist.
On the other hand, if determinism is true, then we are simply victims of a plan. We cannot resist; we can only follow the flow. We are what Martin Heidegger might call Dasein—a being-toward-death. We are thrown into existence, moving toward death, with limited choice. That line of argument, whether from free will or determinism, did not make sense to me.
It could not resolve the harm and suffering I saw in the world. The defences of theologians like St. Augustine of Hippo also did not persuade me. Augustine introduced the doctrine of original sin and linked sexuality to sin, claiming virginity was a higher state. But none of this made sense to me. He had emerged from Manichaean philosophy, which emphasized dualism—light and darkness, good and evil as opposing forces. His framework seemed more like a leftover from dualism than a convincing defence of Christian doctrine.
Jacobsen: Was it the weakness of the theological arguments for God in the face of evil that made you drift away? Or was it the strength of non-religious arguments that convinced you to adopt a non-religious way of looking at life?
Chinama: It was both. When you look at the theological arguments and test them through logic—a branch of philosophy about correct reasoning—you quickly see the conclusions do not follow from the premises. That leaves you confused.
So I moved from being a believer to an agnostic, saying, “Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I am right.” Over time, you sober up. Sometimes you even become militant, but then you realize militancy does not work. You calm down, or you risk messing things up.
I remember when I was training to be a priest. I confided in a particular Indian priest—I will not give his name—that I was slowly losing my faith. He told me something shocking: that many high-ranking figures in the Catholic Church, including bishops and cardinals, do not actually believe the doctrines they defend.
I was surprised. Here were people defending the Church’s teachings every day, yet privately admitting they did not believe them. He even told me he had gone through the same phase and had never fully recovered his faith. His advice was: “Do not fight it. Just go with the flow.”
But I felt I was too honest to live that way. I could not simply go along with something I did not believe.
Jacobsen: In the end, was your decision to leave a faith-based position and move to a non-religious position more an intellectual exercise, or more about changing how you felt? Or was it a little of both?
Chinama: It was both. Several factors led me to change. It was an intellectual practice, but also an emotional realization that what I thought religion was turned out not to be. The whole motivation collapsed, and I was left with no choice but to withdraw.
I do not regret it, but it was a hard decision. There is stigmatization, ostracism, and other consequences that come with choosing such a path. It is serious—you need to be mentally strong. For me, it was primarily intellectual, but I also required mental resilience to overcome it.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time today, Tauya.
Discussion
Tauya Chinama’s reflections reveal a deeply introspective yet socially engaged freethinker whose intellectual honesty led him beyond orthodoxy. His interrogation of theodicy exemplifies the enduring philosophical dilemma of faith confronted by empirical reality. While traditional theologians rely on constructs like free will and divine mystery, Chinama dissects these notions through logic, concluding that such reasoning collapses under moral scrutiny. His disillusionment with clerical hypocrisy—priests who privately disbelieve the doctrines they preach—illustrates a crisis of authenticity within institutional religion.
Yet his departure from faith is not marked by bitterness but by clarity. By adopting apatheism—a stance of indifference toward divine existence—Chinama reframes human responsibility as self-generated rather than divinely assigned. His evolution aligns with a broader movement of African secular intellectuals reclaiming ethical discourse from religious monopoly. Parallel to his philosophical journey, his pedagogical work in heritage studies demonstrates that the preservation of indigenous languages like Shona and Ndebele is a moral act of cultural resistance. Language, for him, is not merely communication but a repository of collective memory and ethical orientation.
The dialogue ultimately positions Chinama within Zimbabwe’s emerging secular humanist network, bridging philosophical critique with practical reform in education and human rights. His insistence that moral progress depends on intellectual freedom situates him among Africa’s most reflective voices challenging inherited hierarchies of belief and identity.
Methods
The interview was conducted via typed questions—with explicit consent—for review, and curation. This process complied with applicable data protection laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), i.e., recordings if any were stored securely, retained only as needed, and deleted upon request, as well in accordance with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Advertising Standards Canada guidelines.
Data Availability
No datasets were generated or analyzed during the current article. All interview content remains the intellectual property of the interviewer and interviewee.
References
(No external academic sources were cited for this interview.)
Journal & Article Details
- Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
- Publisher Founding: March 1, 2014
- Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com
- Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada
- Journal: In-Sight: Interviews
- Journal Founding: August 2, 2012
- Frequency: Four Times Per Year
- Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed
- Access: Electronic/Digital & Open Access
- Fees: None (Free)
- Volume Numbering: 13
- Issue Numbering: 4
- Section: A
- Theme Type: Discipline
- Theme Premise: Theology
- Theme Part: None
- Formal Sub-Theme: None.
- Individual Publication Date: November 8, 2025
- Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2026
- Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
- Word Count: 944
- Image Credits: Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
- ISSN (International Standard Serial Number): 2369-6885
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges Enos Mafokate for his time, expertise, and valuable contributions. His thoughtful insights and detailed explanations have greatly enhanced the quality and depth of this work, providing a solid foundation for the discussion presented herein.
Author Contributions
S.D.J. conceived the subject matter, conducted the interview, transcribed and edited the conversation, and prepared the manuscript.
Competing Interests
The author declares no competing interests.
License & Copyright
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012–Present.
Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.
Supplementary Information
Below are various citation formats for Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe.
American Medical Association (AMA 11th Edition)
Jacobsen S. Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe. November 2025;13(4). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/chinama-humanism
American Psychological Association (APA 7th Edition)
Jacobsen, S. (2025, November 8). Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe. In-Sight Publishing, 13(4).
Brazilian National Standards (ABNT)
JACOBSEN, S. Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe. In-Sight: Interviews, Fort Langley, v. 13, n. 4, 2025.
Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (17th Edition)
Jacobsen, Scott. 2025. “Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe.” In-Sight: Interviews 13 (4). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/chinama-humanism.
Chicago/Turabian, Notes & Bibliography (17th Edition)
Jacobsen, S. “Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe.” In-Sight: Interviews 13, no. 4 (November 2025). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/chinama-humanism.
Harvard
Jacobsen, S. (2025) ‘Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe’, In-Sight: Interviews, 13(4). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/chinama-humanism.
Harvard (Australian)
Jacobsen, S 2025, ‘Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe’, In-Sight: Interviews, vol. 13, no. 4, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/chinama-humanism.
Modern Language Association (MLA, 9th Edition)
Jacobsen, Scott. “Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe.” In-Sight: Interviews, vol. 13, no. 4, 2025, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/chinama-humanism.
Vancouver/ICMJE
Jacobsen S. Conversation with Tauya Chinama on Philosophy, Theodicy, and Humanist Education in Zimbabwe [Internet]. 2025 Nov;13(4). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/chinama-humanism
Note on Formatting
This document follows an adapted Nature research-article format tailored for an interview. Traditional sections such as Methods, Results, and Discussion are replaced with clearly defined parts: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Main Text (Interview), and a concluding Discussion, along with supplementary sections detailing Data Availability, References, and Author Contributions. This structure maintains scholarly rigor while effectively accommodating narrative content.
#AfricanHumanism #Apatheism #Freethought #HumanismInZimbabwe #IndigenousLanguages #PhilosophyOfReligion #problemOfEvil #secularEducation #theodicy #TheologyAndLogic
