What most seems to attract Sweet to abduction is Peirce's insistence that we formulate abductive hypotheses quite apart from conscious reflection, in an instinctual, non-linear fashion, so to speak.10 He insisted that there was something immediate and intuitive in the "guessing" of abduction.11 Accordingly, those preaching to postmoderns would do well to preach in such a way that their listeners are stimulated to consider new (abductive) solutions to the problems of life. To this end he insists that we make use of surprising stories and symbols that awaken the imagination to the possibility of the Christian worldview and a personal relationship with Christ through faith.

Advertisement

I am certain that abductive reasoning, used properly, has much to offer the preacher. One reason this is so is its usefulness in communicating a worldview.

Worldviews

The Christian preacher's task is not only to explicate a text, but also to present the Christian worldview clearly. Worldviews are communicated through four primary media: story, symbol, ultimate questions, and praxis.12 There can be no doubt that Sweet is urging us to preach in terms of both story and symbol. We dare not forget that Jesus told stories (parables) that demanded abductive interpretation. Our pluralistic society, replete with competing stories (metanarratives) of how life and the world should be understood, is very much like the one in which Jesus and his apostles lived. There is tremendous pressure upon believers to compromise and present the biblical story as just one local story among many other local stories, each of which is equally valid-but to do so would be not only illogical (because contradictory positions cannot both be true) but also untrue to Jesus' story, since he clearly intended for his hearers to understand that his story was singularly true. Jesus made use of stories (parables), visual symbols (baptism, Lord's Supper), and verbal symbols (metaphors, aphorisms). Therefore we must re-tell the same story that Jesus told in his preaching and his actions. Abduction can be very helpful in this regard.

Additionally, abduction offers us some criteria for evaluating the competing stories being told in today's society. While there are no universally recognized criteria for determining the likeliest case, certain criteria routinely come up. Louis Pojman mentions four: (1) Coherence — Is the theory consistent with everything or nearly everything else that we hold true in a given field? Also, is it internally consistent? (2) Simplicity — Is the theory simpler than its rivals, does it demand fewer ad hoc, or auxiliary, hypotheses? Simpler theories are less likely to fail because they have fewer opportunities to do so. (3) Predictability — Does the theory help us predict future events? (4) Fruitfulness — Does the theory lead to new insight and discoveries?13 To Pojman's four criteria I would like to add two more: (5) Comprehensiveness — Does the theory account for all the available data? Coherence and simplicity are much more easily attained if one disregards problematic data, but the conclusion is likely to be flawed; and (6) Consistency — Does the conclusion have the ring of authenticity? Which does it more nearly resemble: real-life explanation or conspiracy theory? Would something highly out of the ordinary have to happen for which there is no explanation for the theory to work? Abductive reasoning gives one the logical means to prefer one worldview over against all others according to criteria other than what one has always been taught or believed.14 By integrating these criteria into our preaching, we can preach both apologetically and evangelistically. In other words, we can demonstrate the insufficiency of non-Christian worldviews and false gospels while emphasizing the truthfulness of the Christian worldview. In this way, we can faithfully proclaim Jesus as the only Savior of the world.