COVER • CONTENTS • ORDER
OCTOBER 2020 | Personal UPDATE
ARTICLE
Chris Corlett Educator
THE DUTY TO DEFINE
“T
here are two burdens every aspiring critical thinker must consider when making or evaluating an argument—the evidentiary burden and the persuasive burden.”1 Underlying these burdens are several duties necessary to meet them—in this article, we will consider what I call “the Duty to Define.” Words and phrases form the foundation of any argument and when their meaning is ambiguous or duplicitous, so is the position that relies on these words or phrases.
Have you ever said, “Jesus bless you” rather than “God bless you” to a stranger or even to an acquaintance? For the Christian, Jesus is God and God is Jesus. Consider what Jesus said about Himself, “I and the Father are One.”2 John’s Gospel begins with the concept that, “The Word was God. The Word dwelt among us.”3 And yet, even though the believer would agree that the two phrases are synonymous, the lack of specificity of the phrase “God bless you” can be a more comfortable salutation. (Come on, admit it! Or better yet, try it and see what you think!) Legislation underscores the importance of defining words. The word “definition”4 appears one hundred seventy-one (171) times in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.5 The subsequent legal and political challenges faced by what is commonly referred to as “Obamacare” were convoluted enough. Without these definitions embedded throughout the text of the legislation, its meaning and intent would be indiscernible and incomprehensible. 1 “Critical Thinking” by Chris Corlett, Free download available: https://store.khouse.org/products/criticalthinking 2 John 10:30 (NKJV) 3 Adapted from John 1:1,14 4 or some variant like “definitions” 5 Based on the document available at: http://housedocs.house.gov/energycommerce/ppacacon.pdf VOLUME 30 | ISSUE 10 |
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