Appeal: direct answer
From DEBATE: TRENT HORN VS. JAY DYER: SHOULD CHRISTIANS ACCEPT NATURAL THEOLOGY?.
- #86543:36upheld Trent Horn epainos: direct answer (+2)
The council upheld the call: Trent Horn earned 2 points.
“… we have to understand that terms can differ in sense and referent... I believe water exists, and Aristotle believed water exists. But I believe also that water is h two o. Aristotle didn't do that.”
Diogenes: He meets Jay's rigid/flaccid designator objection with the sense-reference distinction and a worked parallel case, which is exactly the question Jay put.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: Trent has held throughout that natural theology can establish shared true propositions about God across different theological systems despite differing further beliefs; this line is a direct engagement with Jay's core rigid/flaccid designator objection, not a departure from his position. Jay's objection was that "god" is a flaccid designator with no common referent across systems; Trent directly answers by invoking the sense/reference distinction and the water/H2O worked example, showing how two parties can share a referent while differing in descriptive content—this is squarely responsive to the question Jay put, not a dodge or restatement.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "explicit argument", on the same ledger as the callout. Responding directly to Jay's rigid/flaccid-designator objection (that shared predicates don't establish a common referent across religions), Trent lays out a clear premise-conclusion move: terms can differ in sense while sharing referent (Hesperus/Phosphorus, Aristotle's 'water' vs. modern H2O), so disagreeing theists can still be talking about the same God even with very different descriptive content. This is a genuine philosophical rebuttal on point, not a dodge or rhetoric standing in for argument.
- Plato uphold: On the record: Trent has held since his opening that reason can establish shared truths about a single divine referent across differing conceptions (his generic-core-theism move); this line is a direct defense of that standing position against Jay's specific rigid-designator challenge, not a departure from it. Jay's rigid/flaccid designator argument (from ~34:39–38:28) was that shared predicates or shared terms like "god" or "one god" do not entail a shared referent across systems, so natural theology's generic-theism premise fails. Trent's opening and running position has been that natural theology can establish shared truths about a shared referent even amid differing theological elaboration. Here he directly engages the referent question with the sense/reference distinction and the water/H2O-Aristotle worked example, explicitly arguing that differing "sense" (theory-laden content) is compatible with sameness of referent -- which is precisely the logical point Jay's rigid-designator objection turned on. This is a substantive, on-topic explicit argument answering the question actually raised, not a dodge or restatement of something else.
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