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Back | 210 | Next cycle, the conclusion would be that the heavenly Father gives "better gifts" to those who ask him. Instead, the enthymeme uses abductive reasoning which makes constructions that "sometimes succeed in binding us to the underlying reality they imagine by giving us an intellectual tool-- a metaphor, a premise, an analogy, a category-- with which to live, to arrange our experience, and to interpret our experiences so arranged."44 As humans use abductive reasoning to create intellectual tools, they create openings that reach out beyond inductive-deductive circles of reasoning. In other words, humans remain inventive and creative as they organize and interpret their experiences. Abductive reasoning is the faculty of imagination, which comes to the rescue of sensation and logic by providing them with the intellectual means to see through experience and leap beyond empty syllogisms and tautologies to some creative representation of an underlying reality that might be grasped and reacted to, even if that imagined reality cannot be found, proved, or disproved by inductive or deductive rule-following.45 The reasoning in the conclusion in Luke 11:13, then, reveals another use of "abductive" reasoning to assist inductive-deductive reasoning. As the abductive reasoning leaps beyond inductive-deductive reasoning, it invites elaborative reasoning. We can see this reasoning if we display in three columns how the reasoning reaches out into a Lukan enthymemic network about giving. Deductive Abductive Elaborative [Rule. Your heavenly Father is greater than earthly fathers.] Case. All fathers, even if they are evil, know how to give good gifts to their children. Result. How much more will the heavenly Father give better gifts to those who ask him. [Rule. Your heavenly Father is greater than earthly fathers.] Result. How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (11:13)! Case. All fathers, even if they are evil, know how to give good gifts to their children (11:13). A: Setting: 14:1-2 B: Challenge/Question: 14:3 C: Response:    (1) Introduction: 14:4a    (2) Chreia: 14:4bc    (3) Rationale: 14:5 Amplification: 14:6, 7b    (5) Analogy: 14:7a,c-10    (7,4) Judgment and Contrary: All who exalt themselves will be lowered, and those who lower themselves will be exalted (14:11). 44Richard A. Shweder, Thinking Through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1991) 361; in Lanigan, "From Enthymeme to Abduction," 55. Back 45Shweder, Thinking Through Cultures, 361; in Lanigan, "From Enthymeme to Abduction," 55. Back Back | 210 | Next