Sweet rightfully trumpets the value of the unexpected. Good stories have plot twists, which draw readers (or listener or viewer) in and make them think. Most, if not all, of Jesus' parables were far more than simple morality tales-they were actually subversive narratives. Simply put, Jesus shocked his hearers not only with what he said, but also with how he said what he said. In other words, in this way Jesus used abduction. So if we want to be like Jesus, perhaps our preaching should be shocking, too!

But I must add another word of caution. We must not forget that what is gained by an abductive moment of insight may be lost in terms of clarity. What our hearers "get" might be something other than the Gospel. In other words, they may form explanatory hypotheses that are not actually explanations at all (and certainly not the Gospel of Jesus).15

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On the other hand, those of us who have preached to real-life congregations for any significant period of time know that whatever model of preaching we adopt we will be misunderstood by some. After all how many of us have never had the experience of being congratulated for preaching a message that we not only are certain we never delivered-no matter how often we tongeled our tangues-we also are positive we could not even have conceived? Does this mean that we should control the reaction of our hearers? Not necessarily. We are all aware of the impossibility of doing that, anyway. Who among us has not preached what we thought was a gem of a sermon only to observe absolutely no obvious reaction to it? Similarly, haven't we all had the experience of preaching what we thought was a below average sermon only to observe numerous decisions for Christ in response. This just goes to show that the Holy Spirit is not under our control. But this does not mean that we should not do all we can to ensure that our listeners hear what we are actually saying. In other words we must do all we can to make certain that our listeners are shocked by God's message, not ours. To this end, we must hear his voice before stepping into the pulpit. Such is, of course, the case whatever method of reasoning we adopt when preaching. But given its unpredictable nature, abduction is not something to be handled lightly or hurriedly.

Conclusion

No doubt there is much more that could (and probably will) be said concerning Sweet's proposal, but time and space do not permit me to do so. I hope that this article has helped some to understand abduction better and to consider critically whether or not it is boon or bane for preaching.

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Robert B. Stewart is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

1 Peirce also calls abduction "retroduction" or "hypothesis." See C. S. Peirce, Philosophical Writings of Peirce, ed. Justus Buchler (New York: Dover, 1955), esp. 150-56; 190-217; idem, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and Arthur Banks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935-1966), esp. 5:157-206; idem, Chance, Love, and Logic (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1923). For useful secondary studies on Peirce's abductive method, see A. J. Ayer, The Origins of Pragmatism: Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce and William James (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper, and Company, 1968); and K. T. Fann, Peirce's Theory of Abduction (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970). Citations of Peirce's Collected Papers refer to sections, not page numbers.