Training the Prophetic Voice, Part 6: Classical Rhetoric for the Modern World

In my last post, I explored the concept of internalization. Students need to internalize the truth in such a way that it impacts their lives personally. Obviously this will look different for each individual, so there is no formula. I like to think of each person as embarking on a journey during which they will be transformed by their experiences of truth. It is the truths that are owned by the individual that become powerful messages that spring from the heart and soul of the modern prophetic voice. Having internalized the message of truth, we can now pursue a framework for communicating truth effectively. We begin by reviewing Aristotle’s work The Art of Rhetoric.

Previous articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer

Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message

Laying a Foundation in Classical Rhetoric

Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric is a starting point for my students as they begin working on their senior theses. We read Aristotle to understand the central tenets of rhetoric that helps to ground their work upon solid principles. Let’s take a look a few central ideas in Aristotle. Rhetoric consists in persuasion – not for the sake of mere persuasion, but to arrive at truth, goodness or justice – in the public sphere. The production of opposing arguments allows an audience to consider the best decision or course of action. Aristotle writes:

“Furthermore, we need the capacity effectively to urge contradictory positions, as also with syllogism, not so that we may adopt either of the two (it is quite wrong to persuade men to evil), but that we should be aware how the case stands and be able, if our adversary deploys his arguments unjustly, to refute them. So, while none of the other sciences produces opposing arguments, this is done only by dialectic and rhetoric, being both concerned in the same way with opposition.”

Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric (trans. Lawson-Tancred; Penguin, 1991), p. 69 (1355a)

A well-trained student, then, needs to be able to consider multiple, even contradictory, positions on any number of topics. Aristotle demonstrates that this skills acquired through the study of rhetoric transcend the other domains of knowledge, making these skills applicable in fields such as theology, history or science. There is a tension here, then, in teaching truth to our students. We want them to acquire knowledge of truth, goodness and justice. But there are multiple opinions and perspectives on what is true, good and just. Not only that, there is considerable debate on how truth, goodness and justice should be applied in society. This is why educators should carefully avoid approaching teaching as a dissemination of dogma. Instead, effective teaching enables students to consider the many facets and angles of what is true, good and just. Students should be challenged to demonstrate how they arrived at an answer and not just produce the “correct” answer. They should be able to identify opposing arguments and consider where the two sides might be correct and in error. This comes through discussion, dialogue and debate.

There are numerous common elements to persuasive speech that efficiently and effectively enable the rhetorician to communicate his or her perspective on the truth persuasively. Aristotle elaborates, “Scientific explanations belong to education, and, since this is impossible in this case, proofs and arguments must be contrived from commonplaces.” (ibid.) What he means here is that when we have our moment to speak into the marketplace of ideas, we are not given years upon years to develop our audiences understanding of multiple topics and the proofs we are deriving from them. We can give our audience all they need to know in the few minutes we have at hand. We cannot fully educate our audience. Instead, we have a few moments to provide some proofs and arguments to support our perspective. Aristotle references the common topics that help define and shape the necessary support for one’s perspective.

Residing as we are in the information age where we are glutted by an abundance of evidence, the use of common topics to define and exemplify what we want to communicate about what is true, good and just is essential. Finding good examples, analogies or comparisons helps support the point one is making. There is so much to sift through on the internet and in libraries. Yet, it really only takes a few pieces of evidence to establish your point. We really cannot arrive at a comprehensive knowledge of all that is out there on any given topic. This is true even for professional experts, let alone we who must be generalists in most every subject.

Persuasion not only occurs through the words spoken, but also through the character of the speaker and the disposition of the audience. Aristotle writes: “Of those proofs that are furnished through the speech there three kinds. Some reside in the character of the speaker, some in a certain disposition of the audience and some in the speech itself.” (Art of Rhetoric, p. 74; 1356a) We can summarize this with the words ethos, pathos and logos. Our choice of words matters, as well as the inflection and tone we use. But equally important is whether the rhetorician is perceived as a truthful, good and just individual. Character and competence matter in the way we present ourselves. We can say all the right things, but if we are perceived as flawed, the words will ring hollow.

One concern that Aristotle addresses is the ability to persuade the fickle audience with showy sophistry. An audience can get riled up by emotional appeals. Knowing this can be an advantage to the rhetorician, since we can inject humor, passion and anger into our speech. But the emotion of an audience can also be unreliable. To this end, we must also be aware that our opponent can also rile up the audience. Therefore, we need to be all the more careful in the way we present ourselves and in assuring that our speech is well grounded in good evidence and argumentation.

In practical terms, here are some objectives for teachers to consider in middle and high school. Students should become aware of their audience as well as reflect on their own character and competence as a writer/rhetorician. You can read more about this in my article on… Beyond just learning the structure of the ten-sentence paragraph and the five-paragraph essay, students should learn the basics of the common topics (definition, comparison, circumstance, relationship, testimony), becoming familiar with how to use these common topics to expand upon basic essay structures. Ultimately, students should learn how to write with clarity, efficiency, and vibrance. There’s a tension here, since we want to throw more words in to clarify our thoughts, but efficiency pushes us to reduce the number of words. Vibrance or eloquence challenges us to find interesting words and phrases to express our thoughts, but this can interfere with either clarity or efficiency.

Paul and Augustine on Rhetoric

As we consider the value of rhetoric, it is helpful to draw upon a biblical and theological evaluation of rhetoric. There are aspects of rhetoric that require refinement in light of a critique of what we might call empty rhetoric. Looking at Paul and then later Augustine, we will find a cautious but pointed appropriation of rhetoric.

In First Corinthians, Paul provides an extended consideration of his rhetorical strategy in chapters 2-4. As he opens his argument, he tells the Corinthians:

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

1 Corinthians 2:1-2

The concept of lofty speech connects us to the notion of empty rhetoric. Paul is careful not to use a form of rhetoric that is overly ornate and manipulative. It is clear, though, that Paul had a well-formed rhetorical strategy. He continues:

“And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

1 Corinthians 2:3-5

Picture for yourself the nervous public speaker or the student who speaks in front of the school for the first time. This is the rhetorical ethos Paul chose in his proclamation to the Corinthians. He based this strategy on his reasoning that if there were too much Paul in his proclamation, it would diminish the full realization of the power of God thereby undermining the faith of his audience. Despite his rhetorical strategy, the Corinthians still fell prey to their human inclination by saying “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos” (1 Cor 3:4). It is for this reason that Paul elaborates his rhetorical strategy, to continue to undermine the Corinthians confidence in human speech so that they can grow in godly wisdom.

Sophistry has no place in prophetic proclamation, and yet there is a role for rhetoric that is centered on conveying the truth from above. Paul writes, “Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.” (2 Cor 2:6). A mature faith is a philosophical faith, one that loves divine wisdom. Paul seems to be aligned with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in their condemnation of the sophistic school of rhetoric. In his Nichomachian Ethics, Aristotle writes, “The boaster is the opposite of the truth teller.” (1127b; ἀντικεῖσθαι δ᾽ ὁ ἀλαζὼν φαίνεται τῷ ἀληθευτικῷ) Compare this with Paul’s thoughts on boasting, “For our boast (καύχησις) is this: the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.” (2 Cor 1:12) For Paul it is important to “boast (καυχάσθω) in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:31), by which he seems to mean presenting the gospel with rhetorical skill. (Note how Paul uses a different word for boasting than Aristotle, framing this kind of boast more positively.) And yet this must be done with simplicity and sincerity. Here we see an anti-sophistry alignment between Paul and Aristotle.

A similar sentiment can be found in Augustine’s Confessions. He recounts his desire to become a great public orator prior to his coming to faith. Augustine writes:

“This was the society in which at a vulnerable age I was to study the textbooks on eloquence. I wanted to distinguish myself as an orator for the damnable and conceited purpose, namely delight in human vanity. Following the usual curriculum I had already come across a book by a certain Cicero. . . The book changed my feelings. It altered my prayers, Lord, to be towards you yourself. It gave me different values and priorities. Suddenly every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of wisdom with an incredible ardour in my heart. I began to rise up to return to you. For I did not read the book for a sharpening of my style. . . I was impressed not by the book’s refining effect on my style and literary expression but by the content.”

Augustine, Confessions (trans. Chadwick; Oxford, 1991), p. 39

From Augustine’s reflections we can see how vain and empty style works contrary to the genuine search for truth. His shift away from empty rhetoric coincided with and ultimately led to his turn to the Lord. Rhetoric properly understood, then, becomes a vehicle for divine truth to be conveyed.

From Paul and Augustine, we can conclude that training in rhetorical skill enables students to cultivate their prophetic voices. To that end, we as teachers can share the conviction that rhetoric is not about empty or vain style. Instead, we are providing tools to help our students find optimal modes for expressing the message God has placed upon their hearts.

Wisdom and Witness

In his book (Re)thinking Worldview, Mark Bertrand suggests an approach to engaging our culture that is worthy of consideration. He develops an understanding of wisdom that moves Christians from being consumers of culture to people who become discerning critics of the influences of culture. To be a discerning individual, one must have the thinking tools to engage the world for oneself. You can’t just download someone else’s thoughts and think that you’ve been discerning. Critical thinking means that you can extrapolate what is good and worthy in our culture from that which is evil or unworthy. Bertrand writes:

“Discernment is not about flipping a yes/no switch or pigeonholing other people. It is about individual judgment based on knowledge – knowledge of self, knowledge of the world, knowledge of God, and knowledge of the think being judged. Given that, you can see that it is as difficult to be discerning for someone else as it is to think for another. First and foremost, attend to the beam in your own eye.”

J. Mark Bertrand, (Re)Thinking Worldview (Crossway, 2009), p. 151

This comports with what I mentioned in my previous post about internalizing the message God has revealed. A chief objective we have as educators is to enable our students to become wise through their own independent operation. We cannot merely express a set of doctrine and expect our students to have the kind of discernment Bertrand describes. Logic, discussion and debate are some of the tools available to us in training our students in critical thinking.

Bertrand’s goal, however, is not just to make a bunch of cultural critics, and it’s here that I find Bertrand to be so helpful. He reconsiders what it means to have a viable witness in today’s world. We are not only consumers of culture, but also contributors to culture, and Bertrand wants to move us along a pathway from consumption to critique and ultimately contribution. He writes:

“Witness isn’t a method or technique. It’s the sum total of our expression, what we say and what we don’t, what we do, who we help, and who we harm. Our actions and reactions, taken as a whole, constitute a message to the world we live in.”

Bertrand, (Re)Thinking Worldview, p. 182

I like thinking about the prophetic voice as an act of expression. Obviously there is a verbal aspect to articulating our witness in language, which is why we need training in rhetorical skill. But we also express the prophetic voice in our actions. Aristotle would agree inasmuch as the ethos of the rhetorician is established in the good and just actions that contribute to his or her character.

The vision of our educational renewal movement seeks to counter the progressivist agenda of reducing education to a series of outputs, namely college acceptance and job placement. We often frame our educational objectives around equipping our students to be lifelong learners and to live good lives. These are worthy objectives to which can be added this notion that Bertrand articulates about witness as “someone making truthful, positive attempts to shape the culture.” (p. 187). Living good lives and aspiring to lifelong learning are great as long as what we mean is not grounded in consumption. We learn and live in order to contribute something to this world.

Not Throwing Away Our Shot

Preparing students to encounter and engage our world is part of our mandate as teachers. As I think about training the prophetic voice, we are drawing on ancient wisdom to equip our students to meet the challenges of today. There is a technical training component to the art of rhetoric we must have in view. But there is also an imaginative and creative aspect that enables students to take their learning in new and undiscovered directions.

There are very specific challenges we face today for which our students need both the technical and creative skills to address. They won’t be able to solve some of our cultural problems if we approach their learning in the standard lecture, test, forget method. When we train with a holistic approach by nourishing their souls with God’s revealed Word, by creating dynamic learning environments where they can encounter God’s active presence, and by enabling them to engage in today’s current issues through discussion and debate, our students will be able to take their shot at speaking into our culture when the opportunity presents itself.

Training the prophetic voice is as important now as ever. Our students have the opportunity to meet the challenges of our day and to use some of the new formats available to them. Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer hint at this in their book Winsome Persuasion:

“Rhetoric is not merely sitting alone in a room and thinking of arguments – accompanies by strong emotions – to support your position or cause. Rather, it is thinking through how to present those emotions and arguments to a particular audience through the use of symbols. Symbols can be any ‘mark, sign, sound, or gesture that communicates meaning based on social agreement,’ such as music, paintings, films, advertisements, televisions shows, and Facebook or Instagram photos.”

Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer, Winsome Persuasion (InterVarsity, 2017), p. 25 (quoting Harrick, The History and Theory of Rhetoric).

We can add to this list blog posts, podcasts and Broadway shows. The point is that rhetoric is not just an academic exercise. It is an art that enable people to speak with their prophetic voice into the world around them.

I conclude with a consideration of a very modern mode of symbolic rhetoric, the Broadway hit Hamilton. It struck a chord in recent years because it operated as a vehicle for Lin-Manuel Miranda to express some of his deeply held convictions through an unexpected mix of musical genres. He created something new out of materials available to him, some of which were rather old. One of those old things was the character of Alexander Hamilton. In the show we see the brash, self-educated Hamilton entering the scene as an intellectually astute and forward-thinking revolutionary. For me the most poignant moment comes when he is writing the Federalist Papers. The rest of the cast sings about how he writes “day and night like you’re running out of time.” It is through his rhetorical production that Hamilton became a central figure in shaping the constitutional form of government. This momentous episode in the plot sees Hamilton take on more and more responsibility eventually being asked to take a position in the Washington administration. The piece concludes with Hamilton repeating the refrain “I am not throwing away my shot.”

This episode pictures for me the potential every student has to learn deeply so that they are able to take their shot when their moment comes to speak with a prophetic voice in our world. Hopefully this series on training the prophetic voice has provided for you some inspiration to equip your students for lives of active witness. Along the way there have been some practical methods that I hope have helped you in the craft of teaching. Now may the God of all grace enable us as teachers to use our own prophetic voices, but more especially to raise up a new generation of prophetic voices.

Previous articles in this series, Training the Prophetic Voice:

Part 1: The Educational Heart of God

Part 2: Speaking Truth to Power

Part 3: The Schools of the Prophets

Part 4: Jesus as Prophetic Trainer

Part 5: Internalizing the Prophetic Message