Appeal: direct answer
From DEBATE: TRENT HORN VS. JAY DYER: SHOULD CHRISTIANS ACCEPT NATURAL THEOLOGY?.
- #8721:08:24upheld Jay Dyer epainos: direct answer (+1)
The council upheld the call: Jay Dyer earned 1 point.
“Does the Bible ever condemn using reason to know God exists? No. And in fact, don't believe that there's any dearth of evidence. I think that reason itself is can be used as a transcendental argument to prove God.”
Diogenes: Asked a question that cuts against his own resolution, he answers it plainly and without hedging rather than retreating into a definitional dispute as he had a moment earlier.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: Jay declared from the outset that he is not against reason, natural law, or moral law, only against natural theology as an autonomous discipline severed from Christological revelation; this answer is consistent with that standing position, not a departure. The question was put plainly and Jay answered plainly ("No") without hedging or redefining terms, in contrast to his more qualified answer to the adjacent council question; this is a genuine direct answer to the question actually asked.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "direct answer". Trent asked plainly, "Does the Bible ever condemn using reason to know God exists?" and Jay answered "No" straightaway before adding his own gloss about transcendental argument. This is a direct answer to the question actually asked, and it is consistent with his opening qualification that he is not denying natural theology simpliciter or the use of reason, only the autonomous Thomistic/generic-theism version of it.
- Plato uphold: On the record: Jay's opening and sustained position is that natural theology as an autonomous Thomistic discipline is illegitimate while natural law, moral law, and reason itself (deployed transcendentally/presuppositionally) remain valid; this answer is consistent with that distinction, not a departure from it. Trent asked two crisp yes/no questions in a row (has any council condemned natural theology, and does the Bible condemn using reason). On the first Jay contested the definition of natural theology; on this second question he did not retreat into definitional dispute but answered plainly "No" and volunteered his own affirmative view that reason can be used transcendentally. This is a genuine direct answer to the question as posed.
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