In common parlance, a devil's advocate is someone who takes a position for the sake of argument. This practice is generally an instructional technique in which one person argues a position that another is less familiar with, thereby teaching proper argument. The Devils Advocate is a canon lawyer appointed by the Pope to argue against the canonization or beatification of a person. ... Look up Idiom in Wiktionary, the free dictionary An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not compositional—that is, whose meaning does not follow from the meaning of the individual words of which it is composed. ... In logic, an argument is a set of statements, consisting of a number of premises, a number of inferences, and a conclusion, which is said to have the following property: if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true or highly likely to be true. ...

The phrase "let me play devil's advocate" or equivalent is used in group discussions to counter groupthink; the speaker is about to say something counter to the perceived group consensus and does not want to be personally ostracized for this. An example is Adlai Stevenson's prefatory remark "Someone in this group has to be a coward" before making an unpopular case for conciliation and negotiation in the movie Thirteen Days. Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. ... Thirteen Days (2000) is a Hollywood film about the Cuban Missile Crisis, directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, and Steven Culp. ...

Origin

Formerly, during the canonization process of the Roman Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latin Promotor Fidei), or Devil's Advocate (Latin advocatus diaboli), was a canon lawyer appointed by the Church to argue against the canonization of the candidate. It was his job to take a mskeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, etc. The Devil's advocate was opposed by God's advocate, whose job was to make the argument in favor of canonization. The office was established in 1587 during the reign of Pope Sixtus V and was abolished by Pope John Paul II in 1983. This abolition streamlined the canonization process considerably, helping John Paul II to usher in an unprecedented number of elevations: nearly 500 individuals were canonized and over 1,300 were beatified during his tenure as Pope as compared to only 98 canonizations by all his 20th-century predecessors. Icon of St. ... “Catholic Church” redirects here. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... Canon Law is the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church. ... Icon of St. ... A miracle, derived from the old Latin word miraculum meaning something wonderful, is a striking interposition of divine intervention by God in the universe by which the ordinary course and operation of Nature is overruled, suspended, or modified. ... The Devil, on the central gate of Notre-Dame de Paris, 1225, France. ... Gods advocate (Latin: ) is a participant in canonization proceeding of the Roman Catholic Church. ... 1587 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). ... Pope Sixtus V (December 13, 1521 – August 27, 1590), born Felice Peretti, was Pope from 1585 to 1590. ... Coat of Arms of Pope John Paul II. The Letter M is for Mary, the mother of Jesus, to whom he held strong devotion Pope John Paul II (Latin: , Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan PaweÅ‚ II) born   []; 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) reigned as the 264th Pope of... Year 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      The Pope (from Latin...

Such a dramatic increase suggests that the office of the Devil's Advocate had served to reduce the number of canonizations by complicating the process. Some argue that it served a useful role in ensuring that canonizations did not proceed without due care and hence the status of sainthood was not easily achieved. In cases of controversy the Vatican may still seek to informally solicit the testimony of critics of a candidate for canonization. The British born American columnist Christopher Hitchens was famously asked to testify against the canonization of Mother Teresa in 2002, a role he would later humorously describe as being akin to "representing the devil pro bono".^[1] Christopher Eric Hitchens (born April 13, 1949) is a British-American author, journalist and literary critic. ... Mother Teresa (born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu IPA: ) (August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997), was a Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Pro bono publico (often shortened to pro bono) is a phrase derived from Latin meaning for the public good. The term is sometimes used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment, as a public service. ...

References

1. ^ Christopher Hitchens, "Less than Miraculous." Free Inquiry, Volume 24 Number 2. reprinted here

Free Inquiry is a bi-monthly journal of secular humanist opinion and commentary, published by the Council for Secular Humanism. ...

See also

• Dialectic
• The Devil's Advocate (film)

In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue. ... The Devils Advocate is a 1997 thriller/drama horror film directed by Taylor Hackford starring Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino and Charlize Theron, and based on a novel by Andrew Neiderman. ...

External links

Look up Devil's advocate in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Article from the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia