You’ve probably heard of Inductive Bible Study. I don’t like it.
I think the thing itself is just fine. My criticism is for the label. “Inductive” is just not the right term for it.
Harvey Bluedorn summarizes the common perception well when he states:
A deductive approach moves from the rule to the example, and an inductive approach moves from the example to the rule.
Bluedorn’s article is quite excellent, apart from this near-fatal assumption that drives his use of terminology. But Bluedorn’s terminology faithfully represents the popular wisdom. So “inductive” Bible study often gets billed as the way to allow the details of Scripture to shape our thinking, since we eliminate preconceptions, begin with the details of a passage, and build a belief system from there.
The problem is that inductive reasoning does not work this way. The difference between induction and deduction has little to do with whether one begins with particulars or with generalities.
From my college logic textbook (Patrick J. Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic, 6th Ed., Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1997):
The distinction between inductive and deductive arguments lies in the strength of an argument’s inferential claim. In other words, the distinction lies in how strongly the conclusion is claimed to follow from the premises (p. 32).
Deductive arguments are those that involve necessary reasoning, and inductive arguments are those that involve probabilistic reasoning (31).
There is a tradition extending back to the time of Aristotle which holds that inductive arguments are those that proceed from the particular to the general, while deductive arguments are those that proceed from the general to the particular…It is true, of course, that many inductive and deductive arguments do work in this way; but this fact should not be used as a criterion for distinguishing induction from deduction. As a matter of fact, there are deductive arguments that proceed from the general to the general, from the particular to the particular, and from the particular to the general, as well as from the general to the particular; and there are inductive arguments that do the same (36-37).
Here’s another text for you:
The difference between inductively strong and deductively valid arguments is not to be found in the generality or particularity of premises and conclusion but rather in the definitions of deductive validity [certainty] and inductive strength [probability] (Brian Skyrms, Choice & Chance: An Introduction to Inductive Logic, 3rd Ed., Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1986, p. 15.).
And one more:
Some logicians have sought to distinguish between deductive and inductive arguments on the basis of the generality or particularity of their premisses and conclusions. Deductive inferences, it has been said, ‘move from the general to the particular,’ while inductive inferences ‘move from the particular to the general.’ But this way of distinguishing the two families of argument proves unsatisfactory, as a closer analysis will reveal (Irving M. Copi & Carl Cohen, Introduction to Logic, 10th Ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998, p. 27.).
I’ll stop there. Suffice it to say, we’ve mistakenly co-opted a wonderful term from the realm of logic to describe a beautiful thing wrongly.
That’s why I don’t write about “inductive” Bible study. I prefer the term “OIA Bible study,” which stands for observation, interpretation, application.
My wife thinks I’m too much of a curmudgeon on this issue. Perhaps she’s right. I concede that usage determines meaning. But in this case, common usage is founded upon an ill-fated and mistaken assumption accompanied by a tantalizing facade of sophistication. Though “OIA Bible study” is both a more accurate and a less reproachable label than “Inductive Bible study,” my crusade likely remains destined to crash and burn. So I’ll just sit here weeping silently and exuding remorse for what might have been. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus!
Hear, hear! When I saw that you were quoting Hurley, I was hoping you’d follow it up with a quotation from or anecdote about Professor Fleming. Alas…
I don’t think you’re being a curmudgeon. After all, the only thing necessary for the triumph of bad grammar is for good men to do nothing.
On with the fight! 🙂
Actually you are on the right track, but conventional wisdom in Christendom is sadly ruled too often by popular speakers, teachers, etc such as Kay Arthur’s Inductive Bible Study courses.
This article succinctly backs you up and just like Deductive Reasoning is the better way Deductive Bible study is also the better way- https://ministrymapping.net/2011/06/04/the-problem-with-inductive-bible-study/
Thanks for taking the time to comment and share that article, Jay. I read it, and unfortunately the article makes the same mistaken assumption about the definition of “inductive” that I denied. And in the process, the article equivocates on what it means by “inductive Bible study” and thus sets up a straw man to knock down. So I’m not convinced it quite backs up what I’m saying.
Hi Peter. It was not the only article that backed you up. Unfortunately, the term ‘inductive bible study’ seems to have hijacked ‘deductive reasoning’ and I have not the time to research when this happened. Inductive Reasoning uses evidence more than logic when it says ‘all these are true, so that should be true too’. This can result in a more uncertain and probabilistic conclusion than the more contained and certain Deductive Reasoning. Inductive arguments are hence always open to question as, by definition, the conclusion is a bigger bag than the evidence on which it is based.
So somewhere along the line ‘Inductive Bible Study’ came to light as the sure way to be certain of an Interpretation instead of ‘Deductive Bible Study’ but when you look at the Definitions of the 2 it is Deductive that leads to a more certain Interpretation because the reality is Inductive Bible Study can be influenced by feelings, impressions and other components that skew the end meaning of a Study. They can be both used for study though as this Slideshow implies that 2 different passages could be preached differently based on what is written- https://www.slideshare.net/bigineurope/the-preachers-forum-exploring-inductive-and-deductive-preaching
Be blessed.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply. I think you may be confusing some of the terminology. For example, you say “inductive reasoning uses evidence more than logic,” but evidence vs. logic is not a legitimate dichotomy. Evidence could be used logically or illogically, but evidence is not inherently opposed to logic. Both induction and deduction require evidence.
And you are correct that induction yields probable conclusions while deduction yields certain conclusions. It does not follow, however, that induction is therefore “influenced by feelings, impressions, and other components that skew.” Not at all. In fact, though deduction is certain while induction is not, it remains a fact that *almost all* human reasoning is inductive and not deductive. Science is almost completely inductive. Literary analysis is inductive. Decision-making is inductive. We could not have politics, meaningful relationships, wisdom, leadership, or even this discussion without induction.
Deduction makes up such a small proportion of all logical reasoning done by humans that it’s not reasonable to oppose deduction and induction outright. That’s why the problem I raise in my article is not with induction in itself, but merely with how people misuse or misdefine the term.
It may sound that I am confusing the 2 but I am only relaying the research on the 2 types of study used in Science as well as Bible Study. The 2 at times can be confused, inter-twined, etc but they both can be used together as well.
The Inductive study method that can be influenced by feelings, impressions I only take from what I found posted online from scholarly sources. If you read the Sherlock Holmes novels it is stated that Holmes only used Deductive reasoning, hence we use the term today ‘I deduced my decision based on the facts’.
Part of the confusion also comes with this “Inductive reasoning is sometimes confused with mathematical induction, an entirely different process. Mathematical induction is a form of deductive reasoning, in which logical certainties are “daisy chained” to derive a general conclusion about an infinite number of objects or situations.”
I can find the origins of Deductive & Inductive reasoning in the realm of science/math/logic but I cannot seem to find where the origins of Deductive & Inductive Bible Study started. That would be most helpful to clear up the confusion.
The main benefit to the method is that it does lend itself to close examination of the Scripture. You have to slow down and pay attention and that does yield results. The problem is that proponents of the method do not adequately acknowledge that we are all bringing baggage (good and bad) with us as we study. I have seen the method presented in a way that suggests that inductive Bible study is “removing your glasses” and “permitting the passage to speak for itself” etc. But I approach every study believing things like ‘God is real,’ ‘the Bible is the Word of God’ and ‘Jesus is the Son of God.’ And the presuppositions can be quite complex, such as The Trinity, which I’m not convinced one could conclude from an inductive Bible study.
Some more academic treatments of inductive Bible study deal with these topics, but what you begin to figure out as you study those is that what they are pushing you toward is Biblical Theology. A 19-year old Sunday school student could do some real damage using the inductive Bible study method on a book like Ecclesiastes, for example. It’s interesting to me that an inductive Bible study coach will begin to draw sharp boundaries for kids who “discover” all kinds of heretical ideas from passages…guiding them toward a more orthodox conclusion. And for all the criticism that gets leveled at theology geeks, the coach will proof-text a student out of danger all while pretending that he isn’t doing systematic theology.
All this leads some people like myself back around to the beginning of the maze: each passage teaches one truth for all time, but can have many applications. So the goal is to discover that truth, and understand it’s relationship to all the truths of Scripture; i.e. Biblical or Systematic Theology. So one might do well to use the “inductive” method as it is called, and put off Calvin until the end (if at all) of “Interpretation” as the method requires. Or, he/she may do just as well by consulting Calvin in the middle, or in the beginning, or at whichever point it might be expeditions to consult Calvin during a study. Whenever I consult him, I may agree or disagree with him, but I will not have improved myself by putting Calvin off until the end so I can think I have not been influenced by him. There is no need to put on and pretend that we aren’t doing the same work as Calvin, as though we are starting from scratch in a world where Calvin never lived.
I have decided that the best approach is to know what you are before you come to the study. I am a premillennialist. I MIGHT be wrong. While studying the Scripture, I may change my position, and that might change my life. But I’m not going to pretend I’m NOTHING and go through this system only to discover that I am a premillennialist. Because that is exactly what happens, only something worse than usual follows. The student is even more convinced that the presupposition he failed to acknowledge is absolutely true, because he “discovered” it through “Interpretation, Observation and Application.” The method is still good for getting us to look at the passage slowly, but the real meat of matter is this: i am a man, and I have ideas. Some of those ideas are bad. I have to put my ideas to the test by applying Scripture to them, and change my mind and my behavior when I am found to be in error. But for any of that to work, I have to know what my ideas are. I can’t change an idea I’m unaware of….like when I approach the Scripture with a Bible study method that tells me that Biblical truth is discovered by forensics, as though I am a detective.
Biblical truth is axiomatic. Confessions and Creeds are deductive. The inductive Bible study method is a useful way to practice grammatical-historical hermeneutics, but only as part of the greater work of doing theology. Some have even added an extra step, “Correlation” to the steps of inductive study. As excited as people get over the technicalities of inductive Bible study, I wonder why they do not enjoy theology. But then I realize that it is because no one is teaching them theology, and theology has gone out of style, and if you call something theology you are putting it in a box where it cannot grow and cannot change your life. But in my view, a huge consequence of Theology is changed BELIEFS, and the applications that result from that are life-long and essentially limitless. Inductive Bible study gives too much credit to itself as an end in itself, and may result in some temporal behavior modification but may not result in that acquisition of final authoritative truth….that moment when you realize it is YOU who is under the microscope all along, not the Words of God. At it’s best, it may be the doing of theology without calling itself that, in which case we might as well learn to consider theologians with at least as much thoughtfulness as we extend to bible study coaches on youtube.
But, maybe I’m being too hard on the whole matter. As I mentioned above, there does seem to be a movement toward something deeper…even though many people complain that the good material I’ve seen sounds like textbooks. Maybe the whole thing will lead to more than people drawing clouds and birds in their Bibles and get on to a revival of interest in hermeneutics and theology.
The inductive method is entirely ‘me’ centered. It’s goal is to get to what you need to do. You read a scripture, learn a principle, then go do it. With every study, your list will grow longer. It assumes that there must be a specific lesson in every verse or verses you read. Understanding the context and what it meant to the first readers or audience is minimal at best. You lose sight of the larger story of God and do not learn how to read the text for the larger trajectory of scripture. Inductive study is the quick and easy, self contained method for people in a hurry who want to get the point and go do it. I do not see that as the purpose of scripture nor what God wants for his people.
The better, but longer method, involves a more comprehensive approach, including: reading larger passages than just verses, grasping the context of the situation at hand of what comes both before and after the passage in question, understanding the literary type (poetry, narrative, metaphor, apocalyptic, epistle, etc.), text analysis (word tense, repetition, comparisons, symbols, lists, parallelism). If you are not trying to fully understand the passage in its context and what it meant to the first readers, then you can come away with something other that what the author intended. Once you determine, as best you can based on your study, what the original intent was, then you can make a bridge to our context of what is still relevant for us. But, you should also consider that it may be a story for their time, not ours. What we observe are the actions of God towards his people and their response in a specific setting. Sometimes the point may be to see God’s faithfulness, or to watch how others respond to God’s initiatives. This can have weighty implications on us, which can often be more dramatic than a specific application.
A good textbook is “Grasping God’s Word” by Duvall or Gordon Fee’s two books on reading scripture.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, but I can’t help but wonder what sort of study you’ve experienced under the label “inductive method.” I would concur ferociously with your description of “the better, but longer method,” which, believe it or not, is essentially inductive. I think your beef is not so much with an “inductive method” as it is simply with shoddy Bible study.
Yes, it could be that some were just not that good and poorly led. But I have experienced these in various churches over the years and I always end up being quite frustrated with them. What I hear most often resembles more opinion than investigated conclusions. The groups I have been in spent very little time considering the larger context or researching the story, but jumped very fast to “what do you think this verse means,” followed by “how will you apply this in your life?” I don’t recollect anyone ever asking what it meant in that day, in that setting, and why did they act or say or respond that way in the story. Nor did they understand how it fits into the larger story of scripture and what it means for God’s people or God’s purpose. More of a here’s a group of verses, here’s a principle we can pull from it and here’s how we live it out. Honestly, that is shallow and leaves a lot to be desired. And it can leave people confused about scripture. They are always looking for a principle to apply as if that is what scripture is, a set of principles to discover and live out. I would probably not fully agree that the longer method I mentioned is inductive. I don’t want to get stuck on a term, but the two process are different as I understand them. Question – do you think people today can stand for the longer method, and is it worth the effort?
Absolutely and most certainly. This website exists to those very ends (to help people stand for robust Bible study and to show it’s worth the effort). You may want to poke around a bit more, especially checking out the series that explains the full process.
God gave to certain men the gift of Pastor-teacher (Eph. 4:11), having the spiritual gift to study and teach doctrine, and divine authority to teach the Word in a local church. My pastor studied Hebrew and Greek before he went to a renowned seminary, then upon graduating with highest honors continued to study and teach for 50 years. While I am still ultimately responsible for my spiritual life, I believe finding and trusting in the teaching ministry of a qualified pastor (whose teachings will be proven in your life through application, if you are not objectively producing the fruit of the spirit then you should probably change your pastor) is far more productive than trying to look at passages from scratch and trying to work it out for yourself.
Such an outlook of finding a good teacher instead of digging into the Bible yourself is not Biblical. See these verses from Acts.
Acts 17:10-13 10 As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.
Study the bible for yourself to make sure what you are being taught is biblical.
This is the most click-baity thing you have written Peter hahaha
Have you taken a course in the Inductive Bible Study Method or read Robert Traina’s foundational text, Methodical Bible Study, on this subject? It is foundational because the first publication of it was much earlier than these more popularized texts.
First of all, your OIA method is quite similar to the IBS method, but you do not include the observation, interpretation of a book of the Bible as a whole. Doing so is quite helpful with books like the first five books of the Bible as well as the Gospels for example. There are literary laws or literary structure of a book as a whole which raise interpretive questions. Our observations called for us to give our own titles to major sections of a book, etc. We were to look for answers to the interpretive questions within the book as a whole, the Bible as a whole and then tools of biblical study minus commentaries to begin with. We only used them after completing the whole interpretive, application, correlation steps of the process. We look at them to see if we missed something or maybe they missed something. We were taught that deductive Bible study starts with the commentary instead of ending with the commentary.
Second, your outlook on the words inductive bible study appear to be based more on philosophy and personal experiences in churches. I find this to be terribly weak.
Third, the OIA is so close to the IBS that I wonder what resources influenced you in finding this method? I did notice in one review of your book that a person rightly called it an inductive Bible study method.
May God bless your ministry!
Thanks for taking the time to write, John. Yes, I have read Traina’s seminal work. I acknowledge my debt to it in my book. I see my work as essentially building off of his and making it more accessible to “ordinary people.”
So yes, I have tried to be clear that I am not opposed to the inductive method itself—as that is what I am doing—but only to the nomenclature for it. I never call what I am doing “inductive,” as, I argue, that is a misuse of the term. Therefore I simply label it “OIA.”
I have written much on book overviews. For example, see here and here. I agree completely with their value.
Yes, my outlook on the word “inductive” is based on its meaning in philosophy, because the word is consciously borrowed from philosophy! But sadly, the words inductive and deductive have been borrowed as descriptors of Bible study without a proper understanding of what the words mean.