Appeal: evidence
From Jay Dyer vs Pedro from Crucible Debate: Sola Scriptura and Protestantism.
- #15121:39:27upheld Pedro epainos: evidence (+1)
The council upheld the call: Pedro earned 1 point.
“For we must not allow even Catholic bishops if at any time per chance they are in error, to hold any opinion contrary to the canonical scriptures of God.”
Diogenes: Answering the quote-mining charge, he supplies further Augustine passages with volume and page references and invites the audience to check the context themselves rather than simply repeating the disputed citation.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: Pedro's opening thesis was that scripture's authority is self-attesting and that tradition must be judged by it, and throughout he sought to rebut the "quote mining" charge by producing sourced Augustine citations inviting the audience to check context — this line continues that same defense rather than departing from it. Throughout the debate Pedro's standing practice, when challenged on "quote mining" of Augustine, was to supply named, sourced quotations (he gave the "Deitate Ecclesiae" citation with volume/page just before this line, and earlier gave "Works of St. Augustine, Answers to Maximus... volume 18, page 282" for another quote). The quoted line is the second half of that same rebuttal ("We have another one...") continuing the identical practice of naming Augustine and inviting the audience to verify the context themselves ("Go and read it... on your own"). This is a genuine attempt to distinguish claim from checkable citation rather than a bare assertion, consistent with what he had done seconds earlier in the same exchange, so it fits "evidence" even though the volume/page for this particular sentence is not separately repeated.
- Socrates overturn: Read blind, found "non sequitur". Pedro offers this Augustine citation to rebut Jay's earlier "quote mining" charge and to support sola scriptura, but the quoted claim only establishes that bishops can err and must not be believed against scripture, a proposition Jay's own Orthodox position (inerrant scripture, fallible men) already affirms. It does not establish the actual point in dispute, that scripture is the *sole* infallible authority with no binding conciliar or traditional norm, so the conclusion Pedro draws from it does not follow, and he never engages the countervailing evidence Jay had already given about Augustine's acceptance of the Deuterocanon, councils, and tradition.
- Plato uphold: On the record: Pedro declared at the opening that Augustine and patristic testimony back his rule-of-faith position, and here, still defending that same claim against Jay's "quote mining" accusation, he produces a further attributed and largely sourced Augustine passage rather than abandoning the citation practice — consistent with, not a departure from, his running defense. Pedro's opening framework was to ground sola scriptura in patristic textual support, and throughout the debate he responded to Jay's "quote mining" charge (at ~37:00 and again near 99:00) by producing additional named, sourced Augustine quotations (one with explicit volume/page citation just before this one, this one continuing the same citation practice) rather than merely repeating the disputed line. This is a specific, checkable claim to a primary source used to rebut a specific charge, which fits the "evidence" category even if the pinpoint citation is slightly less precise here than the preceding quote.
- Thesmothetes uphold: By the rule: authority cited in place of a reason. The rule holds that citing an authority is sound and scores as evidence when the reason for the opinion is given and can be weighed, not a bare appeal to who holds it; here Pedro names Augustine and quotes a substantive normative claim ("we must not allow even Catholic bishops... to hold any opinion contrary to the canonical scriptures"), offered specifically to rebut the live "quote mining" charge and following immediately on a citation he had just sourced with volume and page. Socrates's objection goes to whether the quote proves the ultimate sola scriptura thesis, a separate question of argument-strength (non sequitur) from whether this particular move meets the bar for citing checkable, reasoned material rather than bare authority, and on that narrower question the rule favors crediting it as evidence.
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