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deductive reasoning so that the premise "All fathers give good gifts" calls forth the insight that "the heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit"! Once this result emerges in the abductive reasoning, an inference is nearby that the presence of the Holy Spirit within earthly fathers will enable them to give greater gifts than they usually do. Similar to the reasoning about forgiving, the result of the deductive reasoning about giving (How much more does God give good gifts) becomes a newly discovered because-motive that extends beyond inductive and deductive reasoning (abductive result: God gives the Holy Spirit!). The emergence of this new insight generates a new result that also extends beyond inductive-deductive reasoning (fathers, if they have the Holy Spirit, will give greater gifts than earthly fathers regularly do).49 In a context where a rhetor has generated the result that extends beyond inductive-deductive reasoning, the new insight reduces the importance of the result of the deductive reasoning and creates a major inference that invites elaboration. One may naturally find other places in the Gospel of Luke that elaborate various results of the abductive reasoning (that is, "greater" behaviors in humans produced by the Holy Spirit in them). Willi Braun's analysis of Luke 14 exhibits people (including Jesus) distributing benefactions in a manner "greater" than conventional human action. This elaboration of the abductive reasoning emphasizes that the presence of the Holy Spirit in humans can produce "greater" giving than most earthly persons enact. Luke 14:11 characterizes this mode of giving beyond conventional social practice as "lowering oneself and being exalted." Thus, one lowers oneself to give, much as one lowers oneself to be forgiven. Once again, giving and forgiving intertwine in the enthymemic texture of Luke. Luke 14:12-24 elaborates the lowering by giving boldly to the poor, maimed, lame, and blind; the story of Zaccheus (19:1-10) shows how "giving" brings "salvation"; and Luke 18:13-14 displays how asking forgiveness in a position of lowering oneself (rather than asking in a position one may consider to bolster one's request, that is, having forgiven the debt of another; 11:4) puts one in a position to receive forgiveness from God. Lowering oneself either to give or to ask for forgiveness brings exaltation in the enthymemic texture of the Gospel of Luke. 49Cf. Lanigan, "From Enthymeme to Abduction," 63. Back |