WRITING THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT WELL, Schemes and Mind Maps of Theology

Download WRITING THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT WELL and more Schemes and Mind Maps Theology in PDF only on Docsity!

WRITING THEOLOGICAL

ARGUMENT WELL

Starting Points

Adapted from Chapter 3 of Writing Theology Well: A Rhetoric for Theological and Biblical Writers, Lucretia B. Yaghjian

WHAT IS THE GENRE OF ARGUMENT?

WHY DO PEOPLE WRITE IT?

• The word “argument” comes from the Latin arguo, whose first meaning is “to make clear.”
• Argument is a means of persuasion that people use when addressing an audience that may or may not accept their claims, or assertions, at face value.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

AN ARGUMENT AND AN ASSERTION?

• An “argument” is a mode of public discourse in which one:
• Makes a CLAIM in answer to an explicit or implicit QUESTION
• Backs it up with WARRANTS and EVIDENCE
• Anticipates objections to the CLAIM and refutes them
• Concludes by summarizing the ARGUMENT and/or suggesting its implications for future action

FOR EXAMPLE:

“Theology does not consist simply of assertions or propositions. It involves the giving of reasons, evidence, grounds, or proof for statements. Theology involves argument for its assertions by offering... [a] basis for accepting them over against other assertions.” Owen Thomas, Theological Questions

WHAT IS THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT?

WHY DO THEOLOGIANS WRITE IT?

• Theological argument is another dialect of the language theologians use to make sense of their world and to communicate “the hope that is in them” (I Peter 3:15).
• Writing theological argument is writing theological reflection in a more formal, public language that spells out all of the “dance steps” of one’s argument.

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

THEOLOGY AND ARGUMENT?

“Christian theology is best understood as persuasive argument.... Theologians are always seeking to persuade others [and themselves] of a particular understanding of the Christian faith. The goal of Christian theology, then, is faithful persuasion .”

David Cunningham, Faithful Persuasion: In Aid of a Rhetoric of Christian Theology (5)

FOR EXAMPLE:

• Major premise: All unjust laws

are laws that one has no moral responsibility to obey.

• Minor premise: All segregation

laws are unjust laws.

• Conclusion: All segregation laws

are laws that one has no moral responsibility to obey.

WRITING THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

WELL: THE INDUCTIVE PATH

The “inductive path” leads into the

claim from a particular question,

situation, experience, or observa-

tion from which one arrives at a

general conclusion (claim).

SHOULD THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT BE

“DEDUCTIVE” OR “INDUCTIVE”?

“Audiences judge [theological writing] not on the basis of deduction alone, nor even on the basis of deduction accompanied by induction, but, rather, according to their ability to synthesize diverse information and to infer a conclusion from a wide range of argumentative premises.” David S. Cunningham, Faithful Persuasion: In Aid of a Rhetoric of Christian Theology (175)

HOW NOT TO WRITE THEOLOGICAL

ARGUMENT WELL

ENGAGING THE QUESTION

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

ANSWERING THE QUESTION

WITH A CLAIM

“… perhaps the answer is simply one: one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet, a small jazz combo working in the background.” Billy Collins, “Questions About Angels”

DEVELOPING A THESIS PARAGRAPH

“The question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin has long been shorthand for ridiculous, trivial questions that the medieval scholastic theo- logians supposedly obsessed over. This particular question seems to be a mockery of real questions in Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, where he discusses whether two angels can be in the same place at the same time, and how an angel may be said to occupy a physical location.... If the head of a pin is taken to be shorthand for a geometric point, Aquinas’ answer to the question is “one,” but if it is taken to be an actual pinhead, the answer is “all of them.”

STRUCTURING THE ARGUMENT

• State the claim Because angels are immaterial, not corporeal, an infin- ite number of angels can dance on the head of a pin.
• Define terms and/or presuppositions I presuppose that angels exist, and define them as....
• Provide evidence and warrants for the claim While Aquinas does not answer this question directly, we can infer from his treatise on “The substance of the angels” that angels are immaterial, not corporeal (Summa Theologica, I, 50, Article 1).
• Make counter-claims to opposing viewpoints While Collins argues for one angel dancing on the head of a pin, Aquinas’ view is more credible because....