Appeal: non sequitur
From Jay Dyer vs Pastor P Debate Orthodoxy vs Protestantism, Sola Scriptura and Church History.
- #130630:03upheld Pastor P psogos: non sequitur (+1)
The council upheld the call: Pastor P gave away 1 point.
“Yes. It does. Because if there's a thousand people watching out there or 10,000 people watching out there, they want to know, wait a minute, which one's right?”
Diogenes: That an audience wants an answer does nothing to show that disagreement between traditions is itself an argument against either, which was the point he was asked to defend.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: Pastor P's declared position from the opening is that Scripture is an objective, perfect absolute standard, yet throughout the middle of the debate he repeatedly treats the existence of disagreement or the audience's need to choose as if it bore on which tradition is objectively correct; this line is a clear instance of that recurring slide, not a one-off, and is not a departure from a different stated position so much as an internal tension in his standing case that Jay is entitled to press. Jay's stated claim was that mere disagreement between traditions "doesn't constitute an argument" bearing on truth or falsity; Pastor P responds "Yes. It does" and supports that conclusion only with the premise that an audience of thousands "wants to know... which one's right." The audience's desire for a verdict is simply irrelevant to whether disagreement itself is evidence of truth or falsity — the conclusion does not follow from the premise offered, which is a genuine non sequitur and part of the same disagreement-equals-relativism move that recurs through the debate and that this bench has already credited Jay for correctly flagging elsewhere (e.g., at 53:53).
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "non sequitur". Jay had just said the mere fact of East/West disagreement "doesn't have anything to do with the truth or falsity of each position," to which Pastor P replies "Yes. It does" and justifies this only by noting that the audience "want[s] to know... which one's right." That the audience desires an answer does not show that disagreement itself bears on which position is true; the premise offered does not support the conclusion he's defending, and he goes on to insist "it's begging the question" simply because a decision must eventually be made, never actually answering why disagreement is evidence of anything.
- Plato uphold: On the record: S1's declared framework treats Scripture as authoritative and doesn't hinge his case on audience sentiment; here, having just been told by Jay that mere disagreement between traditions doesn't constitute an argument for either side, S1 insists it does, but the reason he supplies, that an audience of thousands wants to know which is right, is a non-answer to that specific logical point. The premise that viewers want an answer is true but irrelevant to whether disagreement itself is evidence of truth or falsity; it doesn't rebut Jay's point, it merely restates the practical stakes of the disagreement, so the reply is unsupported by what follows it.
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