{"id":352,"date":"2009-02-11T09:44:11","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T13:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=352"},"modified":"2015-04-24T00:29:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T04:29:09","slug":"dont-thinkwrite-like-a-contemporary-theologian-part-1-grouded-blabber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dont-thinkwrite-like-a-contemporary-theologian-part-1-grouded-blabber\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t think\/write like a contemporary theologian &#8211; Part 1 &#8211; &#8220;grounded&#8221; blabber"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: left;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/mommalcolm4.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><strong>This is the start of a series where I give some unsolicited advice<\/strong> based on things that make me want to throw the book across the room when I&#8217;m reading recent theologians. I&#8217;ll avoid naming names, but will sometimes use actual quotes. I offer it in love, though I admit I&#8217;m pretty cranky about it all. If you&#8217;re a philosopher or theologian, these are <strong>a series of &#8220;don&#8217;ts&#8221;<\/strong> &#8211; things to avoid. If you are a reader of theology or philosophical theology, these are some things to watch out for. If you detect a high density of them in what you&#8217;re reading, you may well be wasting your time in that book.<\/div>\n<p>Memo my theologian friends: <strong><em>please<\/em>, stop saying &#8220;grounded&#8221;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The doctrine of the Trinity is thoroughly grounded in the Bible.<\/li>\n<li>The unity of the persons is grounded in their <em>perichoresis<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>All of systematic theology is grounded in the doctrine of the Trinity.<\/li>\n<li>The threeness of God is grounded in salvation history.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why? Because you are <em>faking it<\/em><\/strong> when you say things like this<!--more-->, and everyone who paid attention in maybe two college classes in philosophy knows it. Let me explain. When you say <strong>&#8220;X is grounded in Y&#8221;<\/strong>, at most, all you mean is that Y is <em>some sort of<\/em> basis for X. Sometimes, I think theologians simply mean that X and Y have something important to do with each other. But more commonly, I think they mean that from Y, that is, assuming Y, one may infer X. Y provides us with a good reason to believe X.<\/p>\n<p>Well, dandy. If this is what you mean, then kindly show us how this works. &#8220;Grounding&#8221; is just a metaphor &#8211; it&#8217;s as if Y is literally underneath X, holding it up. <strong>This metaphor needs to be converted<\/strong> to the hard currency of literal, rational discourse. Some options:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>X can be deduced from Y. (It&#8217;s impossible for Y to be true while X is false; it would be inconsistent to affirm Y but not X.)<\/li>\n<li>Assuming Y (and usually, some other background assumptions), X is highly probable, X is more probable than not, X is to be expected, X is likely to be true, etc.<\/li>\n<li>The best explanation of Y is X.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Do you have any respect for your reader? <\/strong>If so, provide her with a reason to believe X. Show her <em>how<\/em>, assuming Y, she can infer X. Give her a reason she can understand, and thus be moved by. Don&#8217;t just assert that &#8220;X is grounded in Y&#8221;. What &#8211; is she supposed to just take your word for it, because you&#8217;re a PhD and she (probably) isn&#8217;t? You big faker. Are you just lazy? Or are you afraid that she&#8217;ll call your bluff once she understands what you&#8217;re saying? That&#8217;s just a risk inherent in speaking (writing) clearly.<\/p>\n<p>Naughty kids can be grounded. Electrical appliances can be grounded. Broken airplanes can be grounded. But doctrines or facts &#8211; they can be explained, expressed, asserted, and argued for &#8211; but discard this vague &#8220;grounding&#8221; talk, please.<\/p>\n<p>The same goes for &#8220;<strong>rooted in<\/strong>&#8221; (only plants are rooted in things) and &#8220;<strong>built on<\/strong>&#8221; (structures are built on foundations). Don&#8217;t talk about doctrines like you&#8217;re transplanting seedlings or stacking bricks. Tell us how, if doctrine 1 is true, that gives us a reason to think that doctrine 2 is true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the start of a series where I give some unsolicited advice based on things that make me want to throw the book across the room when I&#8217;m reading recent theologians. I&#8217;ll avoid naming names, but will sometimes use actual quotes. I offer it in love, though I admit I&#8217;m pretty cranky about it&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dont-thinkwrite-like-a-contemporary-theologian-part-1-grouded-blabber\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Don&#8217;t think\/write like a contemporary theologian &#8211; Part 1 &#8211; &#8220;grounded&#8221; blabber<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,13,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-complaints","category-theologians","category-theories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35269,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/35269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}