The aesthetics of prophetic induction

Now there's a title to discourage further reading. But since my wife says nobody reads this blog anyway (she's such a sweetheart), the risk is minimal.

Induction is a kind of reasoning in which a set of established facts provide enough information to make a general observation beyond those facts. For example, if a dozen people bombed an airplane and all 12 of them were from one country, it is reasonable to be worried about someone else from that country boarding airplanes. This is not bias or prejudice. It is inductive reasoning.

The flip side of induction is deduction. Deduction makes an observation internal to the established facts. For example, it is deductive to say "Mr. Brown is a man." The established fact is the "Mr." That is all you need to further deduce that he is a man.

Which leads to the question of writing and texts.

You might say that a grocery list encourages deductive thinking while a poem stirs inductive thinking. "Bread and wine" on a grocery list simply means "buy bread and wine." Did you deduce that?

But: "bread and wine" in a poem, well, that could mean a whole lot of things.

And you don't even need a poem. "Bread and wine" in prose will do. Already in prose, "Bread and wine" can mean a whole lot of things. And our world is much better for it.

I mean to say that there is an aesthetic dimension to inductive reasoning. When we induce, we encompass the possibility of the beautiful.

Now, the Word of God is not all poetry. But it is no grocery list either.

The Word of God is prophetic. That's what it is. How do we know this? Well, it says that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." And Jesus is the Word -- the Logos -- of God.

And so when the prophetic Logos says "God is love," you don't deduce that it applied only to John, who wrote it.

You induce to the point that it includes you, who receives it. God is Love, to you.

You induce to the point that it includes the world. God is Love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

And that is a beautiful thing.

Logos2Go

Revelation 19.10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God." For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

1 John 4.16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.