Giving Blood: A Fresh Paradigm for Preaching

by Leonard Sweet

Abduction is creative philosophic inquiry, proven through experience and action. Hypothesis or inference is a posteriori, not a priori. A priori knowledge is conceptual and independent of experience, based on reason alone. A posteriori justifies a hypothesis, proposition, or assertion and is based on experience. A posteriori arguments cannot be based only on reason but must be proven through experience, or in a phrase Jesus used that Peirce liked to quote, “You may know them by their fruits.”21 You cannot reasonably assume that those who claim to have their hearts rooted in God live the life of the incarnated Christ unless their “fruit” is edible and ethical. Jonathan Edwards called this “remanation.” As God emanates the light of Christ into one’s life, one reflects back to God the light of Christ within. In other words, one’s life is a “sign,” a visible sign of the invisible presence of Christ in the heart. Jesus often told his disciples to stay awake and pay attention to the signs of God’s presence. To help us read the “signs” of God’s presence, Jesus told multiple parables describing the “kingdom,” which Christ himself has signaled by his own presence in the world.