Lorelei Blackburn

Augustine, Erasmus, and Fell used scripture as successful rhetorical appeals, but with the rise of empiricism in the 18th century, scripture began to be perceived as ineffectual and inferior to classical rhetoric.  The now-canonical rhetorical works of Francis Bacon and John Locke emphasize the tension that existed between the classical, accepted rhetoric and the idea of a new rhetoric. And in challenging the place of disputation and scholasticism in favor of science and inquiry, these fathers of empiricism ushered in a paradigm shift.  However, their new “reality” was an illusion; even Locke himself admitted that materiality could never be proven or fully understood and that human beings are not capable of complete objectivity, which is a core tenet of empiricism. Further building on Locke’s flawed philosophy, Hume insisted that religious beliefs weren’t reasonable or logical; however, he accepts that he can’t access truth using the senses.  So, in effect, he rejects faith but can offer no reasonable alternative. 

I contend that further exclusion of scripture from the rhetorical canon will lead to additional biased and constrained theories that do not authentically reflect reality.  This paper briefly examines new discoveries in quantum physics and neuroscience, to illustrate that, as during the Renaissance, rhetoric is again positioned on the cusp of another paradigm shift—this time away from empiricism and toward holism. In this paper, I maintain that faith in a higher power and in the veracity of scripture cannot be considered less scholarly than the acceptance of an unsubstantiated empirical rhetoric.  This paper also challenges the common mindset that would subordinate pre-classical Hebraic scripture and categorically dismiss it as unreasonable. Instead, I argue that rhetoric and faith are not mutually exclusive; scripture is a reasonable scholarly rhetoric and as such, should be canonized and recognized as a viable—and even requisite—rhetorical discourse.