In this debate Jay Dyer defends the claim that Christians should abandon natural theology and Trent Horn critiques that claim.
Jay Dyer:
Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Suan Sonna:
Welcome to this episode of intellectual conservatism. Today, I’m here with and Jay Dyer, and we were discussing the resolution, Christian should reject natural theology. Jay Dyer is arguing in the affirmative, and in the negative.
Suan Sonna:
And obviously, if you’ve been paying attention to YouTube at all, you’re familiar with both of these gentlemen. I don’t think I have to give a strong introduction to either of them because they have a reputation as defending the Christian faith, especially they’ve gone around debating various atheists and other people online, spreading, of course, the truth of Christianity. And so rather than giving just a long introduction to both of them, I think I’ll just go into the format for this evening’s discussion.
Suan Sonna:
So we’re going to start off with 15 minute opening statements, followed by seven minute rebuttals, four minute second rebuttals, eight minute cross examination periods, 30 minute Q&A from you the viewers, and then we’ll close with five minute closing statements. So I think Jay is going first, and so I’ll get all that set up and ready to go. And when your time runs out, I’m just going to holler in the background. But really, my goal in this discussion tonight is just to be in the background and to kind of not exist. And so, Jay, are you ready?
Jay Dyer:
Yeah. One thing I would like to say is just from the outset, thanks to for doing this. And as I was telling beforehand, I’ve watched several of his debates, at least three of them, and I think he’s a really skilled debater. And the other thing that I appreciate about Trent is that he, I think he’s a sincere person. And a lot of times in this domain, people probably aren’t that sincere, at least not as often as we would hope, but I think that is a sincere guy. So I’m looking forward to a fruitful debate today.
Trent Horn:
Likewise, Jay, thank you.
Jay Dyer:
Sure.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Well, Jay, whenever you’re ready, I’ll get the timer going, 15 minutes.
Jay Dyer:
Oh, one thing before you start, I would like to add too is that I mentioned to you soon before, this that a lot of we’re going to be talking about is going to be pretty dense. So I will be referencing a lot of papers and articles, scholarly essays that soon as agreed to later tag below. So if I blow past something, and you want to look at it later, he does plan to put the references below.
Suan Sonna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep.
Jay Dyer:
All right. Are you ready?
Suan Sonna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jay Dyer:
All right, let me see. Okay. All right. So, when it comes to this issue, there’s a lot of nuance and a lot of clarity that needs to be made. So first of all, I want to say that I’m not defending a position that there’s no such thing as natural law. I’m not defending a position that there’s no such thing as moral law. I’m not defending a position that per se, there’s no such thing as natural theology simpliciter, because it really depends on what we mean by the term natural theology.
Jay Dyer:
One of our great theologians in the Orthodox Church soon to be a saint, Father Dumitru Stăniloae, wrote in his famous dogmatic work, Orthodox dogmatics, that, “For the Orthodox Church, there is no natural theology. And this is because we follow the teaching of Saint Maximas when it comes to the Christological character of the created order.” So in other words there’s a fundamental Christological element to the created order that doesn’t allow us to bypass that Christology or that Trinitarian theology to do something like natural theology. So from the outset, Stăniloae notes that when we look at the natural order, and when we do, what we might call natural contemplation, the content of the natural order and natural contemplation is the same as the content of scripture.
Jay Dyer:
And in Orthodox theology, in many places I will show, that is actually the doctrine of the. So although it might sound weird to those that aren’t familiar with this doctrine, Saint Maximus’s doctrine, which is really a logically consistent position of following through many centuries and councils in terms of working out their Christology. Maximus is really the summation of this doctrine of the and it really is the embodiment of Christ, we could say in the created order, which really comes to fruition after the resurrection and in anticipation of the eschaton.
Jay Dyer:
Other Orthodox theologians, for example, continuing this tradition to point out that there’s so many problems with the Hellenic idea of natural theology that really undergoes what we might say as a metamorphosis. Father in his essay revelation, Faith and Philosophy, Saint joseph Popovich in his chapter in Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ on the epistemology of Isaac the Syrian notes that this is also in Isaac of the Syrian and epistemology of the. And so the fundamental issue here is that as he notes and as points out, there’s a transformation of the terms in the words that the Hellenic philosophers use. The great convert to Orthodoxy, Jaroslav Pelikan wrote an excellent book that also touches on this topic that I recommend in more detail, where he talks about the metamorphosis of natural theology in the. And of course, the is going to play a huge role in what I’m going to try to get to today.
Jay Dyer:
So in other words, what we call the theology of nature or theologizing reasoning about the natural world is not itself the problem. It’s rather the reference of these things. It’s rather the grounding of these things in an epistemological sense. And so Saint Joseph Popovich goes into great detail to explain that Orthodox nosociology is unique. And it’s unique precisely because it’s a different metaphysic, a different anthropology, namely, centered around the doctrine of the noose.
Jay Dyer:
In Roman Catholic theology, to my knowledge, I don’t know of any place where there’s an explicit acknowledgement of the doctrine of the noose or the heart of man, which is the primary organ or faculty for knowing God. The doctrine of the noose will then play a central role in all Orthodox theologians that I’m aware of, in terms of how we would act study texts like Romans 1 or Psalm 19, which are typically used as sex to prove natural theology in a [inaudible 00:06:14] mystic sense. In this context, most Orthodox writers that discuss are actually the pastors they will actually refer to this in a Christological way, or in a reference to the energies of Christ.
Jay Dyer:
So in other words, the heavens declare the glory of God, the glory of God is actually not a creature. In fact, it is a energy that the saints themselves perceive and participate in. The world displays, for example, according to Romans 1, the divine dunamis, the dunamis, in the Greek, if you would look to, for example, the famous book by scholar Michael Barnes. Barnes’ notes in the power of God in quite a bit of detail, that the theology of dunamis in the Cappadocians, and in particularly in Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, is fundamentally about the potentia that God has, that he doesn’t always necessarily actualize, in other words, God does not have to create, for example, all the possible worlds, he only actualized this world, and he did that on the basis of the [inaudible 00:07:12] that he willed to actualize. There’s a great paper by Sarah from Hamilton in our discord rule of faith that I will post below as well about this position, an issue with regard to the actualized [inaudible 00:07:23].
Jay Dyer:
So in other words, Barnes notes that what is shown in the created order, God does not exercise every power necessarily. Another example of this would be when the son becomes incarnate, there’s a kenosis that occurs, according to Saint Paul in the Philippians. And in this kenosis the son becomes a baby. He doesn’t destroy the world at the same time, for example, as he walks on water. And what this shows us is that we can’t have a strict identification thesis doctrine of actus Purus because it would be then impossible for Christ to undergo economic state, enter into a mode of being proper to one hypostasis coming into time and space, in a unique mode that the other two hypostasis don’t do.
Jay Dyer:
So in other words, natural theology right away would propose a problem in terms of its Actus Purus presuppositions in regard to the doctrine of the incarnation. For example, in Edward Feser book Five Proofs, Feser literally says in the chapter on the Neo-Platonic proof that, “If this is the case…” And he thinks that it is a good argument for God supposedly, “then this God cannot enter into time and space because that would be to undergo change for that God, for that essence.”
Jay Dyer:
But Dr. Feser did not think about the possibility of how that might affect or negate or preclude the doctrine of the incarnation whereby one hypostasis does enter into the mode of being in time and space. For example, again, the action of creating the world by Christ is distinct from the action of walking on water. And neither of those actions is the same as destroying the world and the conflagration.
Jay Dyer:
So all of these things I think, are important to keep in mind. There’s an essay that I’ll recommend a paper by Dr. Bradshaw, where Dr. Bradshaw goes into quite a bit of exegesis in the Old and New Testament about this issue of the [inaudible 00:09:08] and then being really distinct in multiple scriptural passages.
Jay Dyer:
So the energies doctrine is not grounded in the Cappadocians or in Palamos. It’s actually grounded in New Testament, Old Testament theology itself, particularly Paul’s epistles, where he talks about the [inaudible 00:09:22]. Transposition, as I’ve heard it outlined in multiple debates, including with Ben Watkins is what I would classify not with the intention of mischaracterizing. And he can freely correct me at any point, if he thinks I’ve misread him, is something akin to a classical foundationalist approach. And the classical foundationalist approach especially in the Matt Dillahunty debate, we see a basic empiricists narrative that the classic Aristotelian type arguments for change, act potency, the problem here is that these all contain tremendous metaphysical baggage. God just is unlimited being Himself, He says. God is not composed. God is not in time and space. The observations of the world around us through just observing sense data then can lead us to this suppose to conclusions about this deity. He even says this is a first actualizer with no potentia et cetera.
Jay Dyer:
This is of course been subject to many, many, many examples of critique in the academic literature, particularly regarding the, not just modal collapse, but also what’s called the identity thesis. Radha Gollwitzer, his famous PhD thesis on this goes into great detail to show that in fact, the Roman Catholic doctrine of identity thesis is really part and parcel, especially in Aquinas, what we see in eunomia’s, and in fact Basil arguments against eunomius are quite the contrary to what we might expect. Basil does not accept eunomius Neoplatonic definition of simplicity, which underlies the very doctrine that I’ve heard Trent outline.
Jay Dyer:
Now the eternal actualizer point is actually ridiculed by Saint Basil and in his [inaudible 00:10:57], where Basil says that, “If it’s the case that God is an eternal actualizer then it stands to reason.” Like Aristotle thought that there’s also an eternal world that he actualizes. For him to have any meaning as eternal actualizer requires an eternal other than himself for him to perpetually move and actualize. This in fact is why Feser himself has given up the the project of using this line of causal chains, or reasoning back to a first cause as if you can prove or demonstrate creation as a specific [inaudible 00:11:24]. Feser just submits and says, “We can’t do that. It doesn’t work.”
Jay Dyer:
In fact, the problem at root here really isn’t about that. It’s about the meaning of the term and usage of the classical theistic attributes. The problem is outlined in the paper that I would recommend Dr. Gary B’s paper, which goes into great detail in demonstrating logically, informally, the actual fallacies involved in theistic, excuse me, in the idea of a generic theism. The idea that natural theology can actually arise to on the basis of theory neutral predicates, theory neutral attributes, the omniscience, omnipresence, eternality, freedom, goodness, creator status, sustaining status and personal status of this deity as well as according to for example, Swinburne as a typical, Thomas, that this deity is also deserves, reverence and worship. This deity also is the same in all the monotheistic religions because they have similar predicates. This is of course, a fallacy.
Jay Dyer:
The fact that these different religious systems have similar predicates for the deity, it does not follow logically that they are referring to the same deity. But this is a fact what underlies all natural theological argumentation about the Abrahamic monotheistic faiths. And in fact, I’ve heard Trent argued many times that the Abrahamic or monotheistic religion is a common core generic type of theism that we see in these authors. For example, it doesn’t work to say that all the predicates are referring to the same referent merely again, because they have different systems. Because I can give you multiple examples such as the quantifier ship fallacy, where, for example, if we were looking at the fact that because monotheistic religions all claim to believe in one God, it does not follow logically that they believe in or refer to the same God. Again, that is the quantifier shift fallacy, we can think of examples like, every girl loves one boy, therefore every girl loves the same boy, or every person is born of a woman, therefore every person is born of the same woman. It’s an obvious fallacy and doesn’t logically follow.
Jay Dyer:
This also relates to the what in law linguistic philosophy or logic is called the non substitutetivity of identicals in a linguistic intentional context. So in other words, we can’t just substitute words, as if they mean the same thing, because even if they might refer to the same thing. So for example, we could think of an example where I listen to you, I’m thinking of a man who is a famous Greek, a famous lover and promoter of philosophy, a very wealthy patrician, and his name is Aristotle.
Jay Dyer:
Now, we might both intend to have the same reference. But in fact, we aren’t thinking of the same thing because I might be thinking of Aristotle, the philosopher in the ancient world. You might be thinking of Aristotle Onassis, the famous billionaire of recent memory. These are good examples, as well as something like the, we can give another example such as the one true God is the Trinity. Aristotle believed in one God, therefore, Aristotle believed in the Trinity. Well, obviously, that’s not true. No one would accept that. And what that shows is that you can’t substitute the identity of identical words without looking at the intentional epistemic context. And this is again, just another problem that plagues the theistic, excuse me, the assumptions of basic generic theism.
Jay Dyer:
The other problem, of course, is that it ought to lead to perennialism. If there’s a common core religion, which is actually the presupposition of natural theology, in terms of its monotheistic predicates, then we are bypassing the Trinity and we’re actually arguing for something other than the content of the systems of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. So in other words, it would be a fourth core position that is the real position distinct from the other three.
Jay Dyer:
And in fact, as we saw in the Swinburne example, the attributes, one of those attributes heedless is that we should obey God. Well, the obedience required to God is mutually exclusive in these different systems. And Muslim doesn’t allow that you can obey the same God in the same way in Christianity, even though they might say or believe falsely that we have the same God. In fact, I could just simply refer to Jesus as explication of this notion in the New Testament. When from John 5, to John 9, this very question comes up, where Jesus says that, “Even if you think or reference the father, you don’t have any access to the Father apart from me.”
Jay Dyer:
And ultimately, what is the goal of apologetics just to mentally convince people of a position? No, it’s actually to convince them logically that there are good reasons or only good reasons or that Christianity is the only position that shouldn’t be accepted. In other words we aren’t intending to create more philosophers in a Hellenic pagan sense. We’re actually intending to convert people to Christ. Now, when I hear Trent’s approach, really what I want to drill down to is that Trent’s approach is based on a presupposition about how epistemology works. And Trent basically follows the ancient medieval worlds approach that metaphysics is prior to epistemology. Of course, after human kind the whole modern world questions this, and actually just asked for a justification for assuming that you can do your metaphysics before you do the legwork of your epistemology. In other words, you have now a gigantic epistemic bootstrapping agenda that you have to get through, if you want to demonstrate any of your first principles or arguments that would make on the basis of those first principles.
Jay Dyer:
So because he follows the peripatetic axiom of Aquinas, Aquinas accepts in Dave Artaud say the peripatetic axiom, at least as far as I can tell, Trent accepts it. I haven’t heard anything that makes me think he doesn’t. Then the peripatetic axiom literally states that, “There’s nothing in the intellect, there’s not first in the senses.” And of course, the devastating critique of this, that many modern epistemologists have pointed out is that that proposition itself is not evident, in sense experience. So in other words, now, Trent is in the horns of a dilemma, because if he wants to argue on the assumption of Aristotelian anthropology and epistemology, then he’s stuck in the position of affirming what Aristotle says, in posture analytics, prior analytics, physics, and I’ll reference these later that there’s two ways that we go about knowing things. One is that which is better known in itself and that which is better known by us. That which is better known by us refers to the empirical evidence that we have referring back to the first cause. And-
Suan Sonna:
All right, Jay. Try to wrap up your opening statement.
Jay Dyer:
How much time do I have?
Suan Sonna:
The time is right now, but I don’t want to cut you off, from whatever your final thought was.
Jay Dyer:
Okay. So essentially, this results in, I’ll get to this later, perhaps, but just a way to restate the point that the peripatetic axiom itself is not self justifying or self referential. And so this would mean that really, none of Trent’s arguments or claims from natural theology would get off the ground until he deals with the multiple well-known problems. This is my closing statement here of this. In modern epistemology, such as the myth of the given the under determination of data, the inability to justify the peripatetic axiom itself, that there are properly basic beliefs. Yeah, that there’s an external world, that the external world causally impresses itself upon our senses. So that’s… Well, I’ll end it there.
Suan Sonna:
All right, thank you, Jay. And I think in the future, what I’ll do is, if we have 10 seconds left, I’ll just kind of make the screen look like this. And you can see like, okay, 10 seconds left. But yeah, thank you, Jay. Trent, are you ready to go?
Trent Horn:
I’m ready.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Whenever you start talking, I’ll start the timer.
Trent Horn:
All right, well, I like… Thanks, Swan, for hosting the debate. I’m really glad Jay’s participating in it. For the purpose of the debate we can define natural theology using a definition from the first Vatican Council. God the source and end of all things can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things by the natural power of human reason. Eastern Orthodox philosopher Richard Swinburne describes natural theology as the task of reasoning about God, quote from propositions which theist and atheist alike can recognize as obviously true.
Trent Horn:
Now, let me be clear that people can come to know God apart from natural theology, like through religious experience. And human reason cannot cause us to desire God’s offer of salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way, “Man’s faculties make Him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God, but for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with Him, God willed both to reveal Himself to man and to give Him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.”
Trent Horn:
In the rebuttal period I’ll address why the case that Jay gave doesn’t refute natural theology. But for now, I’m going to offer five reasons why Christians should not reject natural theology. Number one, the Bible teaches that we have freedom in Christ. Saint. Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” 1st Corinthians 10 Paul says, “Christians could eat meat, offer to idols.” Romans 14, “They can celebrate Jewish feast days. Christians could also not do these things, if it made them uncomfortable, but they couldn’t demand other Christians do the same.” This means believers are free to pursue any kind of theology, as long as it doesn’t violate the teachings of the Church. So if my opponent says Christians have a moral duty to abandon natural theology, he’d have to show where the church has taught this. And I don’t think he’s made that claim tonight. It’s the default position that we can pursue it, unless we have a good reason not to.
Trent Horn:
But if Jay says we have a prudential duty, like it’s just not a good idea, then he needs to show why the greatest thinkers in church history like Aquinas, Augustine, Gregory the Theologian, John Damascus, Athanasius, the apostles, and our Lord Jesus Christ, why they were wrong in using this method to demonstrate truths about God.
Trent Horn:
Reason number two, the church has infallibly taught the validity of natural theology. No ecumenical council has ever condemned natural theology. And the first Vatican Council infallibly declared, “If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made by the natural light of human reason, let him be anathema.” So especially if you’re Catholic, you cannot accept my opponent’s position tonight.
Trent Horn:
Number three, natural theology has a long history in the Christian tradition, both in the Western and Eastern church. Saint Paul declared in Romans 120, “Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible nature, namely His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” My opponent agrees Paul is drawing from the Deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom, which says in chapter 13, “From the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their creator.” Even critics of natural theology like Andrew Moore say, “It is unquestionable that knowledge of God is here ascribed to man in the cosmos.” Paul also told the Greeks who wanted to worship him in Acts 14 to turn to the true God who, quote, did not leave himself without witness, for He did good and gave you from heaven reigns and fruitful seasons.
Trent Horn:
In these verses, we have the beginnings of teleological or design arguments for God. Saint Maximus the confessor said, “The Saints learned of the Creator’s existence from the things created by Him.” Design arguments can be found in Clement of Alexandria, the Office of Antioch, Augustine, and other church fathers, though with different illustrations. Saint John Chrysostom says, “That just as a ship won’t last a mile without a crew, the universe could not be ordered without a supreme intelligence guiding it.” Saint Basil the Great said, “The world is a work of art displayed for the observation of all people to make them know Him who created it.”
Trent Horn:
Gregory the Theologian gives an argument similar to the modern fine tuning argument, which says, “The laws of nature are not the product of chance or necessity, so they must have been designed.” Gregory writes of the world, “Do these belong to chance or to something else? Surely not to chance? And what can this something else be but God, thus, reason that proceeds from God leads us up to God through visible things, which is the task of natural theology?”
Trent Horn:
Saint Gregory of Nyssa said, “Should he say there is no God, then from the consideration of the skillful and wise economy of the universe, He will be brought to acknowledge that there is a certain over mastering power manifested through these channels.” So Saint Gregory talks about dealing with an atheist. My opponent has previously said natural theology can’t prove there’s only one God… that’s not what Gregory of Nyssa thought. He continued, “If on the other hand, he should have no doubt as to the existence of deity, but should be inclined to entertain the presumption of a plurality of Gods, then we will adopt against Him some such train of reasoning as this, and that includes arguments from monotheism.”
Trent Horn:
Paul said in Acts 17, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious, for as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, to an unknown God. What therefore you worship is unknown. This I proclaim to you.” So in this incident, Paul acknowledged that the Greeks used reason to correctly arrive at the truth that God exists. But they were ignorant about God’s saving nature. In order to find further common ground with them, Paul quoted Greek poets who said, “He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being.”
Trent Horn:
From this we see the seeds of the cosmological arguments, specifically the argument from motion. For example, in the ambiguous Saint Maximus the Confessor says, “Nothing moves without a cause. Then no being is unmoved except the prime mover.” Saint John of Damascus said, “For everything that is moved is moved by another thing. And who again is it that moves that. And so on to infinity till we at length arrive at something motionless, for the first mover is motionless, and that is the deity.”
Trent Horn:
It is about 700 years before the time of Aquinas. And according to theologian Thomas Torrance, “It was in fact, on the foundations laid by John of Damascus, that Western thinkers like Saint Thomas based their natural theology.” You can also find the beginning of a moral argument for God’s existence in Romans 2:14, 15, where Paul says, “Gentiles who don’t have the law, Mosaic Law, “show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness.”
Trent Horn:
Saint Athanasius argues in a similar way, saying of idolaters, “For neither was the law for the Jews alone. The law, they were for all the world, a holy school of the knowledge of God.” Athanasius even said in the same passage that the holiness of the saints could be sufficient evidence that God exists. .
Trent Horn:
Finally, let’s consider the history of the argument from miracles. The Old Testament prophet Elijah demonstrated the superiority of Yahweh by challenging the prophets of baal to a miracle contest. Our Lord told His critics in John 10, “If I’m not doing the works of my father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father.”
Trent Horn:
Jesus is saying that even if you don’t believe His words, His miraculous deeds should be enough evidence to show He is the Messiah. In 1st Corinthians 15, verses three through eight, Paul presents a list of witnesses of Christ’s resurrection to answer doubts people had about the general resurrection. He also noted some of these witnesses were still alive, presumably so people can investigate them.
Trent Horn:
Saint John of Damascus said arguments for God are necessary for people who did not witness miracles firsthand, and they’re converting power. He wrote, “But since the wickedness of the evil one has prevailed so mightily against man’s nature, as even to drive some into denying the existence of God. So the disciples of the Lord and His apostles, made wise by the Holy Spirit, and working wonders in his power and grace, took them captive in the net of miracles, and drew them up out of the depths of ignorance to the light of the knowledge of God.”
Trent Horn:
Finally, the first Vatican Council infallibly declared, “If anyone says that miracles can never be known with certainty, nor can the divine origin of the Christian religion be proved from them, let him be anathema.” So we see in the West and the Eastern Church, going back 2000 years, a constant uniform belief that the natural power of human reason can lead people to understand basic truths about God His existence and nature.
Trent Horn:
Number four, natural theology is superior to its alternatives. My opponent advocates for a kind of presuppositionalism, that claims it is impossible to justify belief in logic, knowledge, or morality, without presupposing the God of what he calls Orthodox Christian faith exists. But my opponent’s case for presuppositionalism is refuted by the following dilemma. Either Jay is arguing from created things to God. And so he’s doing natural theology, or he’s arguing from the assumption God exists to created things in order to prove God exists, which is the logical fallacy of circular reasoning.
Trent Horn:
Consider the first option in the dilemma. William Lane Craig’s moral argument for God goes like this, “If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. Objective moral values and duties do exist, therefore God exists.” It sounds like if you read my opponent’s argument one way, he’s just taken out moral values and duties and replaced it with logic, knowledge and morality. If God does not exist, these things don’t exist. They do exist. So God exists. But if that’s the case, he’s doing natural theology, he has to prove logic, morality and knowledge exist, and they have no natural explanations for these things.
Trent Horn:
But maybe Jay is saying that actually, no, our ability to even have knowledge of these things or any knowledge whatsoever presupposes the God of Orthodox Christian faith. And so that needs to be the first premise of our argument. So instead of starting with created things and reasoning to the Creator, we get the other horn of the dilemma. Jay starts with the Creator, and uses that to show knowledge is possible, so we can know the Creator exists. But as the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig says, “Presuppositionalism is guilty of a logical howler. It commits the informal fallacy of petitio principii or begging the question for it advocates presupposing the truth of Christian theism in order to prove Christian theism.” We know this is the case because we could ask Jay, “well, why couldn’t we start with another piece of…”
Trent Horn:
Well this is the case because we could get asked Jay, well, why couldn’t we start with another presupposition, like atheistic nihilism that says we’re mistaken. And we live in an illogical, amoral, unintelligible universe. Atheistic Platonism, which says logic, knowledge and morality are just abstract concepts or brute facts. Polytheism, non-Christian monotheism or many forms of Christian theism. My opponent rejects like Van Tilian, Calvinist presuppositionalism, or just presupposing the God of Catholicism who’s absolutely simple exists. And once again, the dilemma raises its ugly head. If Jay offers arguments, which say these other presupposition don’t work and only his theology explains the world, then he’s doing natural theology, but in a kind of strange backward sort of way. But if he just asserts that his brand of theism just has to be our starting point, because it’s true because it’s true, but he is making an invalid argument.
Trent Horn:
We don’t have to take seriously because it’s assuming the very thing it’s trying to prove. Finally, number 5, the objections to natural theology are not sound, I’ll address more of Jay’s objections in my rebuttal, but I do have some common ones here that I have noticed and bring up before. One is on the issue of natural contemplation that I agree that natural theology is not like natural contemplation in Eastern orthodoxy. That is the second stage of contemplating God after you’ve practiced the virtues and the act of life, but Dionysus Scleros from the university of Athens, he says “while natural revelation is distinct from an argument from design in natural theology, natural revelation is nevertheless in the vicinity of natural theology. As it may include a short informal inference from perceived features of the world to the existence of God” even father Staniloae an Orthodox dogmatic theology says, “the rationality of the cosmos attest to the fact that the cosmos is the product of irrational being.”
Trent Horn:
So it’s there for rational people to perceive. We just might be having a semantic difference about who is able to perceive it and who isn’t. Another issue that comes with natural theology that Jay’s brought up is well, he’s brought up before the issue of empiricism that you have to start with the peripatetic axiom, everything is in the senses and that can be disproven. The problem with that is that he’s conflating tomism with strict empiricism. Thomas doesn’t do that. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy says “we should not attribute to medieval writers, the kind of genetic or blank slate in empiricism later found in the work of John Locke.” Aquinas said our knowledge arises [inaudible 00:32:46] “Partly from within and partly from without” and that there is some truth in the idea that “we already know that, which we learn.” So Aquinas’s epistemology is not subject to the self contradictions of strict and empiricism because that’s not what he’s doing. Then that means that we can infer and apply concepts when we see isolated things from a triangle to triangularity, a effect to causation and then we can reason from that up.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. And otherwise, I think I’ve covered all of that. I’ll save some of the other rebuttals here when I come back. But otherwise I think I’ve shown, remember Jay has the burden of proof. He’s got to give us the good reasons to think, we ought to get rid of natural theology, all natural theology you could even disagree with tomism and pick another natural theology. This debate is not about Catholic natural theology. It’s about natural theology in general and why we should give up something that first Peter 3:15 says “can always help us be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you yet with gentleness and reference.”
Suan Sonna:
All right. Thank you Trent. Yeah and so that completes the 15 minutes opening statements. And now we’re going to our seven minute rebuttals. Jay, are you ready to go?
Jay Dyer:
Yeah.
Suan Sonna:
All right. And once again, I felt kind of bad stopping you at the end. And so when you have 10 seconds left, I’m going to expand the screen like this, all right. Whenever you start talking, I’ll start the timer.
Jay Dyer:
Right. Well, I’m glad that Trent affirmed Richard Swinburn because it was exactly the reference in the Gereby paper that is critiqued. And the first thing that comes up of course, Trent says that theist and atheists alike agree that these things are true. That’s the very thing that I’m calling into question, not whether people think that they have things in common, but whether they can justify the things that they believe are in common, Trent goes on to say that he believes that this demonstration shows a personal God. There is no generic conception of personhood that is not theory Laden. I’m surprised that Trent thinks that there is because it’s not very hard to see in the history of the debates of the church and to how they went into noting that the notion in a person and Christian theism is actually a revealed category.
Jay Dyer:
It’s not something that’s revealed or known via natural theology. And even in his theology, he thinks he could bypass the Trinitarian relationships to get to some sort of personhood that doesn’t specifically reference or pick out the Trinity. The problem here is that in most of Trent references he didn’t actually address the issue that I’m bringing up, which is about Richard and flacid designators. Trent just assumes that all the references in these various quotes that he quote mine actually prove his position. When the very thing that I’m asking is about reference themselves. Natural theology is premised on the presupposition, that the word God is itself for the word monotheism is itself a rigid designator. It’s not, it is not a pronoun. It does not pick out a specific reference within scripture itself. We have many examples of the word God being used in this flacid way.
Jay Dyer:
For example, God can pick out demons. God can pick out the persons or the essence or the attributes of the one true god, God can pick out human beings who are God’s to Pharaoh. For example, in the case of Moses, I have said you are all gods. So the word God is just a bait and switch in the premise of all of the natural theistic and especially the mono Theistic argumentation. Now, Trent is apparently unaware of the fact that the Capidocians and nobody before the time of the 1600, namely in at least in English, the character of Henry Moore, the 1600 as Dr. Branson has shown throughout his work, use the word monotheism. He just presuppose that when the Capidocians use the word mono or arque that they’re talking about monotheism. Now I’m not disagreeing with the meaning of a single God, but in the theology of the Capidocians the reference of the one God or the monarchy is the person of the father.
Jay Dyer:
It is always picked out as the person of the father. In fact, the Nicino Constantipolitan creed says, I believe in one God, the father, all mighty so we have the permanence of personhood. And in any Trinitarian theology, we pick out the person of the father. And that’s the only way in which the mode of person exists. There’s no such thing as a generic mode of person, for Trent’s arguments to work at all for him to say that there’s a generic conception of personhood, or that God has a generic person who that permeates the universe that he knows apart from father, son, and spirit, which is what his position necessitates is literally impossible. There is no such thing. And again, the fallacies that are listed in the Gereby papers show in multiple ways. And in multiple examples, how the word God is simply not a rigid designator, it’s flacid.
Jay Dyer:
So it doesn’t tell you what it’s picking out without the context of the rest of the beliefs. And I gave examples from contrasting it with Islam, or we could contrast it with something even absurd, like a cult, right? It there’s plenty of cults that say, well, I believe in Jesus. You believe in Jesus. Does that mean the reference is the same because it’s the same word. No, it’s begging the question. And Trent acting like these are not real philosophical questions that you can’t demonstrate this in a formal logical way, which the Gereby paper does in which I gave multiple examples showing it now again, as we move on the Greek word of polytheia is usually contrasted by the Capidocians and the Early church fathers to the monoarchie, monoarchie is not the same thing as monotheia, monotheia, which again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with it.
Jay Dyer:
It really depends on the context and the embedded meaning that it has in the theory in which it’s embedded. And so this is how words and language work. And so Trent is acting like there’s been no development or no questions that are relevant that have been since the ancient and medieval world, but the ancient medieval world didn’t typically ask theory Laden presuppositional paradigm level questions that human and Kant do ask. So it’s fine if Trent doesn’t want to address the types of things that human can’t bring up in regard to linguistics and somebody like [Veco 00:38:57] and later linguistic philosophers bring up in regard to reference questions, but that’s precisely of the type of question that I’m asking. That’s what the Gereby paper critiques in the fallacy that underlies the assumption of general theism. There is no general theism, unless Trent can show how somehow a priori or somehow from the created order, he has a generic conception of personhood that at the same time matches up to the Muslim conception of personhood, but also somehow matches up to personhood in Christian Trinitarian theology.
Jay Dyer:
But guess what it doesn’t. If you ask a Muslim, any Muslim go into the Muslim system about what the personhood of God is, it does not mean what the Capidocians and saint Cyril and the church fathers who wrote tons of pages explicating, what pros upon and hypostasis means doesn’t mean that at all totally different, totally different. The fact that there’s overlap does not prove a common core religion anymore than two card games that are played because they have cards and because they have rule in common share, therefore, a common core card game, there’s nothing in common between crazy eights and poker, simply because there’s cards and rules. This is the fallacy that his whole position rests on is that there is that thing. Now he went on to cite Auguste, Aquinas, Athanasius Gregogy, Nazaianzus, as if they teach the same thing. And they don’t, that’s a preposition, which multiple writers, Dr. Bradshaw, the Rodagawas thesis shows that they do not in fact teach the same thing.
Jay Dyer:
He mentioned that God’s eternal power is seen quoting the text that I quoted God’s eternal power I don’t even think in your view is created. Do you think that creatures can see the eternal power in this life? I don’t think he thinks that because he believes in the Beatific vision. You don’t have a direct of God in this life, especially not in the analog doctrine of Aquinas. Now he tried to cite Maximos as if Maximos texts about natural law or natural contemplation proved natural theology in his system. But in fact, Maximos, according to Suchenski at Roman Catholic, now Orthodox scholar of the filioque in the middle age says to utilize the language of later theology Maximos’s program, is that there can be no analogia entis tu without the analogia fide.
Jay Dyer:
So if I were to give you a chart to show how this works in Maximos system, it’s actually directed this way. We perceive creatures witch direct us of the principles, which direct us to the logia rectus us to the logos. The logos is a rigid designator. It means the second person of a Godhead. It does not mean something like the logos of the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. And so that logos is another good example of the fact that the word were Omnisiants or eternal or one God is you used is irrelevant to actually demonstrating what the reference is. Is that my time or?
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. That’s your time, Jay, but thank you. All right, Trent, are you ready to go?
Trent Horn:
I am.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Seven minute rebuttal starting whenever Trent begins speaking.
Trent Horn:
All right. So remember Jay has the burden to show us that we cannot use reason to show basic facts about God. I’m not saying that reason can prove everything about God. I don’t really know any theists that believe that I know some theists that go pretty far and think you can use reason to prove the Trinity or prove almost everything in theology. I’m not prepared to affirm that most aren’t, but so I’m not saying reason can prove everything about God, but man through natural human reason can come to a firm shared proposition. So let me try to get through some of these arguments that Jay brought up, essentially his primary argument seems to be natural theology rests on the idea that there is a generic theism that can be defended because we all disagree about God’s properties, his attributes, his intentions. There is no such thing as this generic theism.
Trent Horn:
Therefore there can’t be natural theology, but that falls apart when you start to think about it, to say that God is this rigid designator, and it always has to refer to the Trinity. That’s false. Did Abraham believe in God? Did Moses believe in God? Yeah. Did they believe in the Trinity during their earthly lifetime? Maybe they had an implicit knowledge of it, I don’t know, but they certainly did not have the theological knowledge of the Trinity that Jay has or I have. So they did not believe in the Trinity like we do yet we could say they believed in God. And I think the problem here is that we have to understand that terms can differ in sense and reference. Okay. So when I say that Kal-El and Clark kent are well, that’s the same person. When I say the morning star is the evening star.
Trent Horn:
You know, Hesperus is phosphorus. I’m talking about the same planet, Venus. We just give it two different names based on how it appears in the sky. And we can do something similar with God, understanding that people can make arguments and affirm truths about God and the God they’re talking about. They’re talking about the same reference, but it differs in sense. I’ll give you a parallel argument. I believe water exists and Aristotle believed water exists. But I believe also that water is H20 Aristotle didn’t do that. Aristotle and I have very dramatically different views about what water is. But can still both affirm that water exists. Water is wet, water quenches thirst, even though we don’t agree on all the propositions related to water in its existence, we agree on the most important core ones and the paper that Dyer is referring to.
Trent Horn:
I think it’s from some atheist professor in the university of Budapest. I remember reading it a while ago. He misses this in saying that. Yeah. Just because something shares something in common doesn’t mean it’s the core, but it’s an essential property, you take it away it loses its essence and its identity. So even though natural theologians disagree amongst each other, they can still affirm the same propositions about that reference. They can affirm, there is one God. That polytheism is false. That God created the world. That God is immaterial. That God is beyond time. That God is all powerful, worthy of worship. And we do see this in natural theology among the classical theologians. Avocena, Aristotle, Aquinas, Onsen for 2000 year history. They affirm even more divine imutability simplicity. Other things like that. Now you might reject some of that natural theology like divine simplicity.
Trent Horn:
That’s okay. We’re not debating particular natural theologies. We’re debating the concept itself. So I think Jay’s main concern here is, okay. You know you can use this, he said earlier, well, you’ve got a bunch of metaphysical baggage in trying to affirm Catholic theology and orthodoxy doesn’t have metaphysical baggage, un-created energies, energy essence distinction. I’m not saying those things are false. I’m just saying that Jay will have to do the same kinds of natural theology explanations that I would for the attributes that I believe in. He just calls it by another name by this priest oppositional. The fact that all monotheists believe in one God. And we can say that they’re worshiping the same God does not commit the quantifi shift fallacy because I could say every astronomer believes there is one star in our solar system.
Trent Horn:
And it follows from that basic truth. Every astronomer studies, the same star in our solar system because they’re all committed to the view. Our solar system has only one star. We can say the same for the fathers of the church for even other world religions. If someone’s committed, there is one ultimate infinite creator, then they’re giving worship to this being, but they disagree about it. They disagree about the propositions that are involved. And as I said before, Jay’s presuppositionalism wisdom just, well, we’ll just presuppose the God of Orthodox Christian theism that doesn’t get a us out of the lurch because you could easily presuppose any of these other competitors. He hasn’t given us an independent reason to see otherwise. Instead, what he’s given us is something that practices circular reasoning to say, well he hasn’t defended as much since debate.
Trent Horn:
That’d be my question to him. If we don’t use natural theology, how would we demonstrate to people that God exists? And the view he’s endorsed previously is just, well, we know that the foundational truth that Jay says, we can’t believe in foundational truths, but he hasn’t given an argument by the way to say that we can’t believe in foundational truths like foundational, I mean, self-evident by either way that we don’t need other reasons to believe in these truths. Otherwise you’d have an infinite regress. He has not given us a reason to think there aren’t self evident truths that are immediately available to us from which we can reason about reality. And then to reality’s origin, self-evident truths. Like I exist, I experience mental change. I am having perceptions. Perceptions may not be accurate, but I’m having perceptions of some kind. And then building from these self-evident truths to say, well, I’m limited, I’m contingent.
Trent Horn:
I’m changing that there has to be some kind of explanation. Given other things that we perceive, Jay said that, Hume showed that we can’t have these basic truths about causality, Hume’s, just wrong about that frankly, we can get into that more into my next rebuttal. But yeah, ultimately, if the arguments Jay is making against natural theology would also apply to presuppositionalism the only way he can get out of it is to say, well, no presuppositionalism just is true. It just is our starting founding point and we know that because it’s the true revelation, which of course is circular reasoning. It’s like saying the Bible’s word of God. The Bible says God exists. Therefore, God exists. Circular arguments are invalid in said natural theology provides us the valid way to show that God does exist.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Thank you, Trent. We’re now getting into our four minute rebuttal section. So this is now Jay’s four minute rebuttal, Jay, whenever you’re ready. Just go right ahead.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah I’m glad that Trent referenced something as easily philosophically just to devastating to his position, like the Cartesian position that I can have a self-evident knowledge of my own existence. I mean, this has been savagely refuted by both Kant and Birch and Russell in numerous ways to demonstrate that there is no self-evident positions and the epistemic bootstrapping thing that Trent system is committed to is impossible for him to do. In other words, he affirmed a position which is known there as a kind of strong foundationalism. The problem with strong foundationalism is that for something like Descartes position to make the statement, to be meaningful that I exist assumes a host of things that he’s not justified. And the whole point with his position is that you shouldn’t affirm things that you can’t justify in terms of starting points. So Trent is misunderstanding that I’m critiquing the starting points of his position.
Jay Dyer:
I’m not saying that I don’t have to do legwork and that orthodoxy doesn’t have metaphysics. It’s an issue of accounting for the metaphysics. It’s not an issue of, do I believe in metaphysics? Do we share metaphysical notions in common like teleology or causation? It’s a question of justify giving an account for and grounding those principles. JTB and of course the fourth position, if we look at the [inaudible 00:50:19] problem, now he continues to say that reason can say some things about God. And again, this response just presupposes that God is a rigid designator. He attributed to me the position that God must be a rigid designator. It’s going to pick out something that’s common to the religions then, yes. I mean, is Trent arguing for a generic God that isn’t picked out somehow? No, of course. And the fact that he goes into attributes, like person or personal shows that this, again, doesn’t work because there’s no generic theory, neutral concept of person apart from in the Christian paradigm, the Trinity. Trent doesn’t have a basic understanding of what the prepositional argument is.
Jay Dyer:
It’s not a circular argument that just says it’s true because therefore it’s true. And I cite it in, therefore it’s true. It’s nothing like that. It’s a comparison of paradigms because it’s a meta logical question. So Trent keeps collapsing every question into logical questions. When the very question I’m raising to him is metalogical. I’m asking prior questions to metaphysics about the epistemology that’s behind doing the metaphysics. And that’s what the modern philosophers ask. I’m not saying that David Hume is right in his skepticism. I’m merely asking his questions. That doesn’t mean that I’m committed to Humenism or Kantianism. I’m asking the questions that they ask to foundationalist systems, especially strong foundational systems, which Trent just affirmed in the I exist. Well, are you not aware that I exist, presupposes that language has meaning it presupposes that there’s an I or a self. It presupposes that there’s time determination, existing is occurring.
Jay Dyer:
Those are heavy metaphysical claims and baggage that are not demonstrable on Descartes foundational Cogito they’re assumed and the business of philosophies to question assumptions. And that’s precisely what I’ve been doing in this debate and Trent just says, well, they are just self-evident things that doesn’t get you out of the circularity problem that you say you’re here to avoid, foundationalism is circular. And that’s why we say that there’s two different orders of things in this question of paradigms. There’s the day to day or mundane type of argumentation that I would do about logic or this or that proposition, or fact, but metalogical questions cannot be resolved in that same way. Look at something like Gödel’s incomplete theorems, which show that you can’t solve those types of problems in a mono singular way because they reference outside the set. So he’s literally trying to repeat something like Birch and Russell would say to Gödel. And I’m just simply saying that set theory shows you as an example, as an analogy that you can’t just refer to the set itself to justify the set it extends outside of itself. And the fact that you appeal to foundationalism shows that you’re just self referencing and doing the very thing that your position says is impossible.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Thank you, Jay. Right on time. All right, Trent, your four minute rebuttal starts whenever you start talking.
Trent Horn:
All right, well, I’ve showed why Jay’s arguments against natural theology don’t work. What about the arguments that I gave in defense of natural theology? What has he said about them? I gave five arguments. We have freedom in Christ. So natural theology is the default. We’re free to do it unless we have an overwhelming reason to think that we shouldn’t, Jay hasn’t attacked that reasoning. And he hasn’t given us any overwhelming reason. I mean, I think he’s trying to say we shouldn’t do natural theology because it doesn’t work and he’s come nowhere close to establishing that principle. Number two is the church in foully defense, natural theology. I know Jay isn’t Catholic, but I’m just saying it because it’s true. And that hasn’t come up and that hasn’t been challenged at all, as to my citation of scripture and the fathers, Jay just kind of said, well, he’s quote mining them.
Trent Horn:
And he hasn’t discussed. He hasn’t refuted in any way, the arguments I’ve brought up, showing that natural theology, using reason to show God exists and go back and re-listen to what I said from the fathers, especially the fathers from the east, they’re not talking about natural contemplation. They’re talking about ways of showing nonbelievers. Gregory of Nyssa is talking about this. And in the section from Gregory of Nyssa great catechism. I shared an excerpt where he talks about showing atheist God exists and showing polytheist that there is only one God, so you can read it for yourself. I’ll upload a document with my citations after this debate if you want to read that, my fourth argument was that presuppositionalism doesn’t work and we’ve started talk about that a little bit, but here’s the thing with justifying knowledge. This is called agrippa’s trilemma. There’s only three ways to justify, proposition X is true.
Trent Horn:
You either have an infinite number of other propositions that support it. An infinite regress. If that’s the case, you have no knowledge whatsoever. Knowledge disappears under infinite regress. You could have a circular argument, but circular arguments are invalid. We agree that it’s invalid. Jay himself even said that in logic, circular arguments are invalid, but he claims ah, yes, but if it’s metalogic, a metalogic question, then we can use circular reasoning. But here’s the problem. Circular reasoning doesn’t stop the invalidity, the fallaciousness of circular reasoning. Doesn’t stop just because the circle gets bigger. If Jay says, well yeah, circular reasoning doesn’t work. And any of this stuff, except for me proving the whole system that it comes from the God of Orthodox Christian faith. Then he’s now just special pleading. He’s saying yes, circular reasoning is bad, except for the one thing I need it for here.
Trent Horn:
And once you know the whole rigid designator thing I would ask these questions was Mohamed, correct when he said there is one God? Now he didn’t fully understand God, but was Moses correct when he said there is one God or Abraham? They didn’t fully understand the Trinity or God either yet. They understood these propositions. We can look at a series of propositions and see their truth value and the evidence that is behind them. So Jay also claimed that so foundationalism, self-evident truths that they’re actually not true or that they’re circular, but he gave us no evidence to believe that or why we should believe that. And I can use elimination. We know you can’t have an infinite regress. We know circular reasoning is invalid, no matter how big the circle gets. So we have to start with things that are self-evident and ultimately Jay’s position his alternative with presuppositionalism. You’ll see the shocking circularity, ask him why presuppose the God of or Eastern Orthodox Christian faith. Why is that our presupposition? Instead of all the other presuppositions I gave the answer Jay will have to give is because it’s true. And that my friends is circular reasoning. Instead we should not use fallacious reasoning in our theology for God. We should use valid reasoning. And that’s why Christians should not reject natural theology.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Thank you, Trent horn. Now at this point, then we’re going get into our eight minute cross examination periods. Jay is going to lead the first eight minute session and then Trent will lead the next eight minutes. And so what I’ll do is when you have 10 seconds left, I’m going to disappear from the chat or disappear from the stream. When you have 10 seconds left, I’ll reappear. So I’ll just use kind of visual cues instead. So yeah, Jay, whenever you start talking, I’ll start the timer
Jay Dyer:
Again. The question here is about presuppositions, for sure. And I’ve listed many things and many problem for the foundational approach that you’re advocating. You applied with something to the effect that well, we there’s a tridilemma that we could refer to. And there’s really not many other options here. Well, the fact that you don’t think there’s many other options actually doesn’t count as a justification for the starting point. In other words, you started with properly basic beliefs. And all I have to ask you is that, do you think that the notion of properly basic beliefs to themselves is self-evident?
Trent Horn:
Do you mean the idea properly basic belief?
Jay Dyer:
Well, if I said only beliefs that are self-evident or encourageable or evident to the senses are properly basic. The problem is that you are in an infinite circular regress, because the proposition itself, in terms of you knowing it is not part of your sense data, nor can you show that it’s properly basic without assuming it.
Trent Horn:
Well, I would agree that the idea of a properly basic belief may itself not be properly basic, but one could just have…
Jay Dyer:
No, that’s not what I asked.
Trent Horn:
Okay. What did you ask?
Jay Dyer:
The proposition itself about properly basic belief? Is it properly basic?
Trent Horn:
The proposition there are properly basic beliefs.
Jay Dyer:
The proposition only beliefs that are self evident or encourageable or evident to the senses are properly basic.
Trent Horn:
Well, I would say that it’s true. You’re saying, how do I know what properly basic beliefs are?
Jay Dyer:
No, I didn’t ask if it’s that’s true. I’m asking is that notion itself properly basic?
Trent Horn:
So you’re okay. So you’re saying that if it is properly basic, it creates some kind of circularity. If I say that?
Jay Dyer:
Yes.
Trent Horn:
Okay. Well as I said before, I don’t know if the description of an idea might be properly basic, but the experience itself is, and then we have terms to describe what the experience is.
Jay Dyer:
It doesn’t matter how you redefine it, because the point is that there’s no self-evident or encourageable propositions like that found in sense data. So what’s the justification for that?
Trent Horn:
The justification is that there are some propositions that we encounter and upon entertaining the proposition, the justification is also immediately apparent. And so it is not…
Jay Dyer:
That’s circularity. That’s the problem of properly basic beliefs.
Trent Horn:
No, it’s not.
Jay Dyer:
You just said it’s immediately apparent that’s circularity.
Trent Horn:
No, because…
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [01:00:04]
Jay Dyer:
You just said it’s immediately apparent, that’s circularity.
Trent Horn:
No, because-
Jay Dyer:
It’s [begging 01:00:04] the question.
Trent Horn:
Okay, it’s not that because if I say, for example, I am having an experience right now, I am just reporting something that is happening to me.
Jay Dyer:
That’s not all you’re doing. No, I gave you multiple examples. What you said I didn’t do in critiquing the [Cogito 01:00:20].
Trent Horn:
Like what?
Jay Dyer:
Of all of the metaphysical things that are assumed in the sentence.
Trent Horn:
Okay. But even if I don’t understand all of the concepts that are involved, we can also-
Jay Dyer:
It doesn’t matter, this is about justifying the beliefs.
Trent Horn:
Okay. So it sounds like you’re saying to me, natural theology is false because there are no self evident truths.
Jay Dyer:
I’m critting your position of a strong foundationalism.
Trent Horn:
Okay, but even if someone picked a weaker form of foundationalism, I think a-
Jay Dyer:
That’s not what you picked so.
Trent Horn:
Well, [crosstalk 01:00:52]okay what I would say-
Jay Dyer:
That’s not the position you defended five minutes ago.
Trent Horn:
Okay. But even the position that I have, I would just say a lot of people, even people who are non-believers or atheists, would agree there are just basic facts about existence that we have agreement on. And from there, we can build arguments on.
Jay Dyer:
Okay, so you’re going to appeal to the mass that’s actually a fallacy, it’s not a justification.
Trent Horn:
No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that it’s [inaudible 01:01:14] [crosstalk 01:01:14].
Jay Dyer:
Well, I asked for justifications. So what’s the justification for the [inaudible 01:01:17]?
Trent Horn:
Your problem is Jay I gave you a justifications but your system just won’t allow it because [inaudible 01:01:21] [crosstalk 01:01:21].
Jay Dyer:
Those aren’t justifications, those are fallacies.
Trent Horn:
No, I told you that some propositions that we encounter-
Jay Dyer:
That’s begging the question.
Trent Horn:
[inaudible 01:01:30] is immediate and we do not have to infer them.
Jay Dyer:
I’m asking for the justification. You’re just saying that it’s immediate, but that..
Jay Dyer:
That rests on the assumption that the external world is properly caused to impress upon your sense of.
Trent Horn:
I would say the justification that the self-evident truths in my epistemology are true would be the same as whatever justification leads you to believe that the God of Christian orthodoxy is the alternate foundation.
Jay Dyer:
I’m not subject to that problem, I don’t make the strong foundationals claim that you just did. So I don’t have that problem. I admit circularity at this level.
Trent Horn:
Okay. But only at that level.
Jay Dyer:
Right, because it’s a methodological question where circularity’s unavoidable, that’s the point with said theory and the.
Trent Horn:
Okay. Are there any other circular… So circular reasoning with God being the ultimate found of reality, that is not invalid. Are there any other kinds of-
Jay Dyer:
No, no. Suitable by the nature of the system itself.
Trent Horn:
Okay, so it’s not invalid. Are there any other kinds of circular reasoning apart from God that have nothing to do with God that are also not invalid?
Jay Dyer:
Yeah, sure. The categories themselves have to be presupposed for the possibility of knowledge. So in other words, the way I make the argument is just simply that knowledge presupposes the categories, the categories themselves are grounded in God.
Trent Horn:
Okay. So the categories themselves, their foundation is not circular, their foundation is in God.
Jay Dyer:
Well, they’re circular when we’re considering whether we can justify them at the human level. They’re circular.
Trent Horn:
So we can’t say that logic is true because the laws of logic themselves show that they’re true. It sounds like you’re saying circular-
Jay Dyer:
That’s circular.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, it sounds like you’re saying circular reasoning is invalid except when we’re talking about God being the foundation of the universe.
Jay Dyer:
I’m saying that every system at root is circular and the that’s what I’m demonstrating to you in your strong foundationalism. And I’m showing that that’s not going to be then how we justify or explain the different systems themselves. It’s a comparison of systems and not a comparison of evidences.
Trent Horn:
I feel unfair, I shouldn’t ask you questions. This is your time. We can do whatever you want.
Jay Dyer:
Well, let me move on to another issue, which was in the-
Trent Horn:
Because I have a lot of questions my own, but it’s your time.
Jay Dyer:
That’s fine.
Jay Dyer:
So you did ask me to go through different points that I haven’t addressed, and not just because of time, it wasn’t because I was trying to avoid any of the points that you made.
Jay Dyer:
But again, I think that a lot of what you said, again, I understand that you’re attempting to say that, well, we can say that God’s personal, but what I want to know is do you think there’s a generic conception of person that doesn’t reference the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit?
Trent Horn:
I think that one can believe… Well, there is a problem. There are a lot of different natural theologies. I don’t believe God is a person because I’m a classical theist. There are others who hold that view. But I think that we can talk about God in being and something that is shared among the three persons of the Trinity, that God is not a person, but he has personal qualities. God is intellect. God has will. And so that is something shared by the three members of the Trinity. And that’s something we can know intellect will moral goodness. We can get the that from natural theological arguments.
Jay Dyer:
So it’s not an appeal to person. It’s not an appeal to father.
Trent Horn:
It’s not an appeal to the father himself, that particular member of the Trinity.
Jay Dyer:
That’s my point is that in the Trinitarian theology developed in the councils, there’s no such thing as personhood apart from father, son and spirit.
Trent Horn:
Well, whatever I say that is true of God, at least true of the divine nature, is also going to be true of the persons minus special revelation. So if I say, God is eternal, the father, son, and Holy Spirit are all eternal. The other attributes will follow.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the specific development of the notion of person and hypostasis and how unique it is to the early church and her revelation. It’s not a doctrine that comes out of paganism.
Trent Horn:
Right, but person, the term person like Hypostases and prosopon, their meaning changes over the centuries, how they’re used among different philosophers.
Jay Dyer:
Exactly agreed.
Trent Horn:
So like Aquinas, when we talk about the Trinity being three persons, we don’t believe that God is a person like you or me, that it’s an analogical term that best describes these relations that exist within the Godhead.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah, I’m just making the-
Trent Horn:
They’re not persons like us.
Jay Dyer:
I didn’t say that they were, I’m just making the point that the development of the notion of person in the definitions of the Trinity in terms of who God is. I mean the creed says, I believe in one God, the father. So it actually identifies the unity, the oneness of God with the hypostasis of the father and by extension the nature that he communicates to the son and to the spirit [inaudible 01:06:08] [crosstalk 01:06:08].
Trent Horn:
The we’d also say the son and the Holy Spirit are equally divine though.
Suan Sonna:
I’m going to have to step in right here because the time is up, but I’ll let Trent Horn do the eight minutes of cross examination now. And for those of you who are watching online, this would be the time to start sending in your questions that you’d want to ask either Jay or Trent. And so please include who you’re addressing your question to, whether it’s Trent, Jay, or both of them. And so once again, during this eight minute session, this is the time to start sending in your questions in the chat.
Suan Sonna:
With that I’ll step out, and Trent, as soon as you start talking I’ll start my time.
Jay Dyer:
I have one question before you start to…
Suan Sonna:
Yeah, sure.
Jay Dyer:
Is the Q and A then closing statements, or what’s the order?
Suan Sonna:
Yeah, sure. So we’re going to do 30 minute Q and A with the audience, and so I’ll be fielding the questions. And then after that will close with five minute closing statements.
Jay Dyer:
Okay.
Suan Sonna:
All right, Trent, whenever you start talking, I’ll start my timer.
Trent Horn:
All righty. I just have a few questions for you, Jay.
Trent Horn:
Has any ecumenical council ever condemned natural theology?
Jay Dyer:
If by natural theology what you mean in the scheme? Yes, if you-
Trent Horn:
I’m just talking about the proposition of man by human reason can come to know God exists.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah, but again, I didn’t agree that there was a generic notion of those things or that there’s an obvious, clear example of what natural theology is. In fact, my whole point was to debate the nuances of it and point out that I affirm natural revelation. I mean different things by the terms.
Trent Horn:
Sure, then whatever the term means, even if it’s a different meaning of the term, is there an ecumenical council that’s condemned natural theology?
Jay Dyer:
I would say that if you get to the seventh ecumenical council, the implications of their iconographic teaching of reality, which basically identifies the notion of the low in terms of the world being a book or an icon of Christ, I would say it’s implied there. But it’s not explicitly going to say in an way that we condemn the Thomistic doctrine theology.
Trent Horn:
- Does the Bible ever condemn using reason to know God exists?
Jay Dyer:
No. And in fact, I don’t believe that there’s any dearth of evidence. I think the reason itself can be used as a transcendental argument to prove God.
Trent Horn:
Okay, I want to talk about the presuppositions a bit because because I think that you and I both agree it’s important to demonstrate to people that God exists.
Trent Horn:
Because there are people… Do you believe there are people who don’t believe in… Obviously who don’t believe in Christianity?
Jay Dyer:
Oh yeah. Sure.
Trent Horn:
Okay, and it’s important for us to present evidences to them to demonstrate to them the truth of Christianity.
Jay Dyer:
Absolutely.
Trent Horn:
Okay, then I’m really, really super curious how you would do that. That if you can’t start with self-evident truths and reason up from the created order to the creator, tease out attributes from arguments, but you have to use a big circular argument. Why presuppose the God of Orthodox Christian faith instead of any of the other numerous examples I gave in my opening statement?
Jay Dyer:
Well, because I think that ultimately philosophy shows us that what’s at work here in the dispute between an atheist or a Christian or unbeliever is paradigms and not pieces of evidence, because evidences are interpreted according to, in my view, worldviews and paradigms. And this comes to the fore in modern debates following.
Jay Dyer:
So we wouldn’t see this in the ancient writers per se, because it’s not a question that’s raised in the ancient writers. There’s many examples of things that I could say weren’t raised in the first to sixth centuries that are raised in the seventh to ninth centuries. We wouldn’t conclude that because they weren’t raised they were false. Or they weren’t the case so they weren’t true at that time. They just weren’t raised as questions.
Jay Dyer:
But there are indicators of presuppositional types of argument, including St. John Damascus, Fountain of Knowledge book one where he uses a transcendental type of argument to refute which he gets from Aristotle.
Trent Horn:
Well, Jay I’m actually not necessarily opposed to using logic, knowledge, or morality to show God exists, or even a kind of transcendental argument. My concern is the specificity of the presupposition, because your case seemed to be very negative to natural theology, its inability to prove a rigid designator, the triune God of Christianity.
Jay Dyer:
No, I do… All right. I agree. I agree with that.
Trent Horn:
So my question for you is why couldn’t I take your exact same presuppositionalism, swap out the God of Orthodox Christian faith, put in the Catholic divine simplicity, God. Or [Cornelius Vandhill taking 01:10:46] his Protestant view of God using the same argument. What breaks the symmetry to pick your presupposition over the others?
Jay Dyer:
Because in this case, the way I would make the argument is that the Trinity is actually the ground, not just of epistemology or logic or things like that, but actually the entire paradigm.
Jay Dyer:
In other words, it’s an argument for the entirety of the Christian paradigm, not merely an argument for this or that piece of it. So the Trinity comes in terms of Orthodox theology, as I understand it, St. Maximus’s grand metaphysic, it actually comes with a wholistic epistemology and metaphysic that is the grounding of the natural world itself.
Jay Dyer:
So it’s not just an argument for an abstract concept or some logical thing, it’s the entire Christian paradigm and the metaphysics of the Trinitarian theology that we have as Orthodox, which is unique to us. And this is why one last point, this is why in, for example, questions and doubts, St. Maximus goes to great links to show that there are natural proofs for the Trinity. He actually thinks the existence of the world, the modal existence of the world itself, is triadic and is a proof, not an [inaudible 01:11:54] or a trace, but an actual proof of the Trinity.
Trent Horn:
Okay, but why, I didn’t hear a reason, why is our presupposition going to be a Trinity versus a unity, a Unitarian God?
Jay Dyer:
Oh, I see.
Trent Horn:
Why, that’s point one.
Trent Horn:
And point two, why your concept of the Trinity as opposed to a Catholic or Protestant concept? Why?
Jay Dyer:
Well, because first of all, the triune God is not just possetted, I’m actually saying that God in the Christian world, in a Christian Orthodox paradigm, gives an account for the metaphysical problems for the one and the many, for the universals, for the logical categories, the Aristotelian categories that Maximus basically squishes into natural contemplation.
Jay Dyer:
I’m saying that the structure of the world, as well as ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, all of that is justified given an account for and grounded in a specific triune God and the specific revelation of what he says about how the world’s constructed. So it’s a revelatory theism and a justification via revelation, as opposed to autonomous, the unaided reasoning approach that you’re defending.
Trent Horn:
So you’re saying that we should presuppose the God of Eastern Orthodox Christian theism.
Jay Dyer:
Correct.
Trent Horn:
Because the God of Eastern Orthodox Christian theism has revealed we ought to presuppose him.
Jay Dyer:
No, I’m saying that we should presuppose him precisely because the self-revelatory declaration gives an account for the problems of ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology that I keep raising.
Trent Horn:
Why is it-
Jay Dyer:
The Christian worldview solves those problems.
Trent Horn:
Why does only Orthodox Christ… So I guess what I’m trying to figure out is-
Jay Dyer:
Because of the unique revelatory character of the Trinity in Orthodox Christianity [inaudible 01:13:47] [crosstalk 01:13:47].
Trent Horn:
Right, but Protestants and Catholics also believe in the Trinity.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah, but you don’t have it because you have heterodox versions of it. I’m not personally attacking you, but I’m saying-
Trent Horn:
That’s fine, but so… Okay, so we would say your conception of theism is the only one that explains reality, because we would deploy arguments of reason to show that the competitors are false or don’t succeed.
Jay Dyer:
Correct, but that’s a category error. Just because I’m using arguments from reason doesn’t mean that they have logical or ontological priority, that’s a category the [inaudible 01:14:19] constantly make, that because I’m using an argument, that it therefore has a epistemic or ontological priority. Or that I use it first in a chain.
Trent Horn:
Okay [crosstalk 01:14:30]. Would this also include… We’ve only got a few seconds here. My question earlier, did Abraham believe God… Do you think Abraham had an explicit knowledge of the Trinity?
Jay Dyer:
Yes, and St. Maximus says he did.
Trent Horn:
Okay, so he knew the father, son and Holy Spirit. All right. Last one here. Do you think it’s helpful to offer evidence for specific historical doctrines, like the resurrection?
Jay Dyer:
Absolutely, there is definitely a place for evidences and yes, that’s part of the task of apologetics. In fact, I believe there’s nothing but evidence for Christianity.
Trent Horn:
Okay, and then it can be helpful to offer maybe an argument so we could show God exists maybe from a miracle that’s occurred?
Jay Dyer:
Well, I would say-
Trent Horn:
Like maybe the miracle of fire for Eastern Orthodoxy?
Jay Dyer:
So I believe that miracles can attest to the position, I don’t think that they quote prove it. And I would say as proof of that, when Jesus is responding to the guy in [Tormans 01:15:32], he says, “Let me come back and warn my brother.” Jesus says, “Even though one from the dead, they will not believe.” Because they have Moses and the prophets. So yeah, I utilize messianic prophecies all the time as part of the apologetic, sure.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Thank you, gentlemen. I’m going to get started now with the 30 minutes of just audience Q and A. And so let me get my timer ready.
Suan Sonna:
So let’s begin with Luke Meister. He says to Trent, how can you say Abraham didn’t believe the Trinity. We assume he doesn’t have articulation… Of the articulation of it that we do now, but he experienced / believes same Trinity we do now.
Jay Dyer:
Amen.
Trent Horn:
Well, what I would say is where does the Bible record Abraham having an interaction with and knowing the father, son and Holy Spirit?
Trent Horn:
I know there’s a typology of the three visitors that visit Abraham, is a typological reference to the Trinity, but that’s far different from the knowledge of the Trinity you and I have of understanding father, son, Holy Spirit, eternal generation, eternal spiration, or of course the different Catholic Orthodox views on that.
Trent Horn:
I think I would say just it’s very clear, was the knowledge of the Trinity among people who believed in God equal before and after the time of Christ? If you say that it was equal, I would say that historically and theologically, that makes no sense at all until the doctrine of the Trinity was revealed through the incarnation.
Suan Sonna:
All right, Jay, would you like to respond?
Jay Dyer:
Absolutely. Yeah, this is a great example of how there’s a fundamental difference between us because Trent’s presuppositions are that there was not knowledge of the Trinity in an implicit form in these cases.
Jay Dyer:
Of course, fundamental Orthodox theology is that the theophanies are the person of Christ, they’re the second person of logos. This is unanimously the teaching of the early church fathers until Augustine begins to question on the Trinity, I think book three. And the fact that it’s the logos, and that is so stressed in Orthodox theology, and iconography shows that we’ve maintained this very point, which is crucial. Which is that there is no generic God, even in the old Testament, there’s no unit… Bare Unitarianism.
Jay Dyer:
It was always the father, the son, and the spirit, which is consistently revealed all throughout the old Testament, have multiple talks going through the theophanies in the Trinity in the old Testament.
Jay Dyer:
Orthodox iconography in regard to the rubla of icon, for example, is there precisely to stress this point. And ironically, Trent’s own theologians in regard to… I would say if he were to go argue with a Muslim, this would be where you need it to go. Because St. Justin Martyr makes these arguments against [inaudible 01:18:14] Jew to say, it’s the Trinity in the old Testament. And it’s not a matter of whether the word Trinity is used, because the new Testament doesn’t use the word Trinity but we all know the Trinity is revealed.
Jay Dyer:
This is why St. Maximus says the old Testament patriarchs all had a direct [inaudible 01:18:29] perception of the Trinity. And this is why Jesus says, “Abraham believed and rejoiced to see me.”
Suan Sonna:
All right. The next question I have here is from [Drow Meme-Replize 01:18:39], and he says to Jay, how do you justify one presuppose system over another?
Jay Dyer:
By comparison of the systems in terms of the internal critique to see which systems can give an account for the basic presuppositions of knowledge of epistemology, ethics and metaphysics.
Jay Dyer:
And so if the various systems are unable to account for those basic presuppositions in terms of the categories, for example, then those systems make knowledge impossible. And so thus Christianity emerges as the only system or paradigm that gives an account for and makes knowledge possible. And I didn’t get a chance to respond to Trent’s other point I’m not going to do it right now, but the unitarian deity and [the dyad deity 01:19:23] have such internal presuppositional problems that they make knowledge impossible.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah, Trent, do you have a response?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I would just say that what Jay is doing is just natural theology in reverse. So he’s starting with the conclusion of the Triune God of Eastern orthodoxy, identifying these elements of the world that need to be explained, and then showing why alternatives, whether it’s atheistic, polytheistic, non-Christian, or non-Orthodox, don’t get the job done.
Trent Horn:
And that’s what I do, I just do it in a forward direction. I start with what we observe, show that nothing can explain this except for the religion that I’m a part of. So I don’t disagree with what he’s doing, I just really believe it’s just natural theology in a reverse direction. Because he’s using arguments to select between presuppositions. If he doesn’t do that, then it becomes circular reasoning.
Suan Sonna:
All right, the next question I have here is from my name is Jeff. This is for Trent. So does your natural theology presuppose [foreign language 01:20:22], that [foreign language 01:20:24] Supreme being in the chain of being? How does this accord with the father’s teaching that God is hyper [foreign language 01:20:30]?
Trent Horn:
And by the way, I didn’t mean to laugh at the person’s question. I’m hoping that’s a reference to 22 Jump Street, which is a movie, because I watch it on planes all the time when I travel.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I think I would need to hear more about what the person means by the Eastern view of hyper [foreign language 01:20:50]. I would say [foreign language 01:20:53] or chain of being, I would say that God is… I would affirm the essence existence distinction and the analogy of being, that when we describe God and talk about God, we speak not in a univocal way, but not in an equivocal way. We always have to use analogous ways of talking about God.
Trent Horn:
While creatures participate in being, only God himself just is being. I know Catholics and Orthodox differ on some of the finer points of understanding the inner life of God. But I think we both agree on the core concept that God and the world are radically different. God is creator, we are creature, infinite gap between the two. Though we can see from the finite world there is this infinite creator.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. And Jay, if you want to say anything, just feel free to chime in.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah, I think that’s a great question from Jeff. And I would just respond by saying that unless I misheard, it sounded like Trent said that he affirms the essence existence distinction, but that’s exactly what [foreign language 01:21:56] is intended to deny. There is no distinction in God between essence and existence. He is pure act.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I agree with that. I must have misspoke. I agree with the distinction but not in God, but in other things.
Suan Sonna:
All right. So this next question’s from a Putus Spencer. This is for Jay. He says, how do you know your deity is not actively deceiving you? Second Thessalonians 2:11. In your systems claim revelation for morally sufficient reasons.
Jay Dyer:
So these kinds of logic puzzles or traps that we might see in a philosophy 101 class or a Descartes Evil Demon example is precisely… One way that I could go about refuting that is pointing out that it would make knowledge impossible.
Jay Dyer:
In other words, I wouldn’t have a way to delineate between the true and the false if all reality was essentially fundamentally deceptive in nature. So if there’s no place for me to have a reference to objective truth, then there wouldn’t be a way for me to delineate between anything true or false. And so now all knowledge, all predication, all delineation would actually be impossible. So I would say by the impossibility of the contrary, that would be an impossible worldview to accept or to hold.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. Trent, do you have any thoughts on that?
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I think what I would say is that line of argument of arguing that it’s impossible based on God having a certain kind of standard, I think that it’s valid, that once again, it shares a lot of arguments with natural theology.
Trent Horn:
On my own premise, I would say that if we see God, the moral argument shows God is a standard of goodness. The argument promotion shows that God is [foreign language 01:23:35] or he is infinite being itself without any potentiality. As such, you would not have any deficiencies or absences, evil is a privation. So if God has no privation then he couldn’t possibly be evil. And as a result, he would just be goodness itself and so he could never act contrary to goodness.
Trent Horn:
And lying is contrary to the truth. And we can discuss the question of the morality of lying, but I would say that God being goodness itself would not actively engage in the sin of lying for greater utilitarian purposes from man’s perspective.
Suan Sonna:
Okay. So I saw a question further back in the chat, but this is from… I can’t pull up the question on this screen but on another one. This is from [Iush Manucha 01:24:22]. And he says for Trent, if we start our theology by reasoning from sense data of the natural world, shouldn’t all the death we see around us cause us to conclude death is natural?
Trent Horn:
I’ve heard this argument before, and just because we start with our sense data it doesn’t follow that we should end there. If we just look at the world around us, we couldn’t determine if the creator was good or evil, all of the arguments for natural theology have to be put together.
Trent Horn:
From them we see that God is perfect goodness itself. And because of that, we can know God must have a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil. I will say though that death, whether it’s natural or not, the Bible’s very clear that God gave Adam and Eve green plants in the garden to eat. So there was death prior to the fall when man invented the salad.
Trent Horn:
And Aquinas affirmed even that the animals would’ve still had their predatory ways. The Bible seems to make it very clear when you look at Romans, and what it’s talking about is that death and human death entered at the fall, not death in general. Otherwise you couldn’t have had entropy, you couldn’t the plants in the garden to eat. Human death entered at the fall, but we do believe in things like Roman’s eight that God will ultimately bring us out from this world itself to something even greater to redeem creation.
Trent Horn:
So in one sense, death, non-human death is a part of the finite world, but God will redeem it and make it even better in the new earth and the new heavens.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah, I would fundamentally totally disagree with that assessment. In fact, in first Corinthians 15:26, Paul says death is the enemy. So for the Orthodox church, it is fundamental, especially if you read deification of man by [Paneotas Nelus 01:26:02], who is a famous critic and rejector of natural theology by the way, that death will be destroyed. And so if death is natural in any sense, it doesn’t really make sense to say that death could be destroyed. In fact, animal death I don’t believe existed before the fall, precisely because if you look at Romans eight, the cosmic scope of the redemption that Christ brings in terms of what’s fundamental to orthodoxy and the what’s called the recapitulation doctrine, which is basically missing in Roman Catholic theology. Maximus in the council’s recapitulation doctrine is a fundamental acceptance that all death, whether physical or spiritual, is a result of Adam’s fall.
Jay Dyer:
And I would direct those that are interested, and this is the Father [inaudible 01:26:44] great classic, big fat book, demonstrates this in about a thousand pages that this is the unanimous position of the church fathers, as well as by the way, especially for those that are interested in the six ecumenical council, Saint [Safronias’s 01:26:57] confession, which is accepted as a dogmatic statement of the sixth council, agrees with us. It affirms six day creation, and [inaudible 01:27:05] 109 which is accepted at the seventh ecumenical council condemns those that believe that death existed before the fall.
Suan Sonna:
All right. The next question I have here is from a PJQ23, he says, Trent, do you grant a distinction between vicious and virtuous circularity underlying any system of knowledge?
Trent Horn:
No, I believe that’s an ad hoc demonstration that has been created. In fact, the vicious virtuous circularity comes from modern presuppositionalists like Cornelius Vandhill, John Frame. I don’t believe that there are any other logical fallacies where you have a virtuous version of it or a vicious version of the fallacy.
Trent Horn:
The reasoning is either sound or it’s not sound. And what I think I made very clear in discussing with Jay is that he agrees you can’t justify the existence of anything, not even transcendentals like the laws of logic, through circular reasoning. He would reject the view logic planes itself, but he’s trying to apply this only to God. And that leads us to the problem then of which presupposition do you choose, which not?
Trent Horn:
And either you use arguments to pick one presupposition over the other, which is natural theology, or you just pick the one that happens to be your religion and it’s special pleading and it’s circular reasoning as a result.
Trent Horn:
So, no, I don’t believe that. If you need to reason in a circle, P Q R T P, you don’t need to use that reasoning. You can just start with P, P therefore P, circular reasoning is unnecessary. You can just say the thing is true because the thing is true. And then that actually gets you to a kind of foundationalism that Jay was against tonight.
Jay Dyer:
Well, again, Trent’s not understanding what presuppositionalists and [inaudible 01:28:51] argumentation is actually attempting to do. He’s merely restating his position. And in fact, the whole point, as I said earlier, was that it’s a metalogical question, which Trent just seems to reply as if you solve a metalogical question with logic. It’s a metalogical question meaning it’s prior to the doing of logic.
Jay Dyer:
That’s why it’s a more foundational paradigm level question. And until Trent sees that, I don’t think he’s going to understand the argument that’s being made. And my whole point in drilling down into his strong foundationalism that he affirmed earlier was to show that his own position was precisely circular.
Suan Sonna:
Okay, and the next question is from Joshua Opal, and he asked to Jay, what are these evidences you refer to for Christianity?
Jay Dyer:
Well, there’s a lot of different types of evidences that I could give, but Christianity, in terms of apologetics to the unbeliever is a, I believe, an argument of comparing paradigms.
Jay Dyer:
And the reason I think this is not because I intend to dispense with arguments in the church fathers. For example, there was a recent book published by Dr. Bradshaw where there’s a dialogue back and forth between Swinburn, Bradshaw, and multiple other Orthodox theologian.
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:30:04]
Jay Dyer:
Bradshaw and multiple other Orthodox theologians about this question of natural law and natural theology. And one of the things that Bradshaw noticed noted in his Palamas chapter for example, was that it’s fine to talk about Telos and Causation in the ancient medieval world. But when we get to modern philosophy, what happened is that there’s kind of a flipping of the question to where modern epistemologist after human con are really asking in pointing out that you’re not really justified in making the move to do all the metaphysics and do all the metaphysical baggage and claims that you’re doing until you answer the prior epistemic questions. I’m not saying that skepticism is true because of that, I’m saying that their right to critique the illicit move of doing metaphysics, right, without giving an account of the epistemic criteria first. And so that’s what we’re actually trying to do here is to critique the world views in the systems.
Jay Dyer:
And so it’s not a battled evidences because evidences are I think theory laden. Everything is theory Laden, and anybody that thinks that it’s not, which is really what transposition is resting on, is that there’s some self-evident non theory laden truth. There’s a huge burden of proof upon that position to try to demonstrate that’s the case to make natural theology work. In other words, I’m just asking questions pre prior to the doing a of metaphysics and Trent just wants to do the metaphysics without doing the big questions that I’m asking.
Suan Sonna:
Trent, do you have a response?
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I do. Jay, do you have the Brad the Bradshaw Swinburne book that you could hold up? Do You have it nearby?
Jay Dyer:
Yes.
Trent Horn:
Feel free to hold that up because I would say that’s actually a really good book. I read it as well, Natural Theology in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. So I thought it made a very positive case for traditional natural theology. So I would encourage anyone to read it and I think it’ll come away with the same positive affirmation that I did. So Jay’s read it. I can see, I would recommend checking that out with evidences. I think that’s interesting that Jay says. I think it’s great to offer evidences, but like, okay. But if our paradigm was enough, why do we need the evidences? That seems to implicitly acknowledge many unbelievers won’t accept just a paradigm pre-suppositionalist argument. They’re going to need more evidences to move them. So I might offer to those watching who are pre-suppositionalists, perhaps you should consider just adding to your law to pre-suppositionalism. Also, other ancillary arguments, like Old Testament prophecy, historical witness of the resurrection, maybe planting his evolutionary argument against naturalism, arguments from reason consciousness. I believe the natural theology can be a wide diverse field and still be true in good. What we’re defending tonight.
Jay Dyer:
Can I say something or not?
Suan Sonna:
Yeah, of course.
Jay Dyer:
The chapter, obviously that I would find most convincing is the one about the Greek theologians in the last 50-60 years that either severely critique or reject natural theology. So if people are interested and they read that book, that’s the chapter that I would agree with.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Next question is from Ryan Pope. So he asked the question, “What is the precise difference?” I think this is to Jay, “Between a logical question and a metalogical question?”
Jay Dyer:
Right? So logic is typically dealing with the assumption that logic works and that it functions in the way that or is resilitients go and how they proceed to the conclusion. And metalogical questions are asking about the status of logic itself, much like math theory is asking questions about the status of mathematical entities themselves. And so that’s why I’m arguing and I think it’s pretty obvious that those are prior questions to the doing of logic.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I would agree with essentially that definition metalogic, or we have philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of philosophy. We’re asking for ultimate foundational questions like with logic. What kind of logic? How do we demonstrate the law of non-contradiction? Is the law of excluded middle? Always the case, could that be modified? But I would say that in Jay’s presentation, he hasn’t shown in order once again that he says, “Well, we need to have a foundation for things like the laws of logic.” I gave different pre-suppositions that could explain that Platonism, other views, other Christian views, non-Christian views.
Jay Dyer:
Right.
Trent Horn:
And so you would have to figure out what is the true one, either through argument, which is natural theology or through a kind of circular reasoning or assertion.
Jay Dyer:
Again, I would just say that’s a category error that using the logic in the argumentation does not necessitate or prove that it has epistemic or ontological priority.
Suan Sonna:
This is a question from Serif MS. He asked to Trent. “If man’s intellect is darkened through the fall, how can man use natural reasoning alone to come to knowledge of God, especially with created grace that cuts off God from man?”
Trent Horn:
Right. This is called the noetic objection to man’s knowledge or God. You see it sometimes among certain Calvinist authors, but even the first Calvinist thinkers like Calvin himself, for example, wouldn’t embrace that. I agree sin has a noetic effect or sin makes you stupid, makes you do dumb things, but man can still come to understand God like people who say that peak atheist believe in God, but suppress the knowledge of God. You can’t suppress knowledge of something, unless your intellect grasps it, evaluates it and decides it wants to reject it. So even though, and I don’t believe in total depravity, even though the image of God and man is defaced not erased. We can still, through reason come to know there is a God, but that predisposes us to the gift of faith. The Senate of North, Calvinist in it actually said there is to be sure a certain light of nature remaining in man after the fall, by virtue of which he retains some notions about God. So even the early Calvinist did not believe man was so to depraved. He couldn’t use reason to know there. There was a God.
Suan Sonna:
All right, next question.
Jay Dyer:
I’m sorry. Well, my comment on that would be that there’s a great chapter precisely on the very question that Serif’s asking again from St. Justin Popović for the Orthodox in the book, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ. Where he does an analysis of the epistemology of St. Isaac, the Syrian. And he shows that the epistemology, which is again centered around the doctrine of the logie requires the cleansing of the news. I didn’t get to go deep into the doctrine and the news, which is again, something that separates Orthodox anthropology from Roman Catholic anthropology. And for us man’s noetic faculty is precisely the organ that he has to know God directly, whether from reading scripture or whether from interpreting the natural world. And I think St. Joseph probably makes him really convincing sound arguments that in order, even to interpret the natural world, we’ve got to have a cleansing of the noose and the noetic faculty.
Suan Sonna:
All right. And this question’s for you, Jay. Dr. Klein asked, “Would you agree that the justification for the Orthodox Christian God, as the only basis as opposed to the Protestant or Catholic God is because it has been revealed?”
Jay Dyer:
So what if there’s a… If you read the essay that I’ll send to sue on after this called the Contingency of Knowledge by Dr. Russell Manion. He makes a great point about the comparison of systems and what exactly revelatory theism is. He not a Calvinist by the way. By the way, now the theologians that I’ve referenced tonight, a have anything to do with Vantil or Monson. I mean, Vantil and Monson, I think have good points and good arguments here and there. But most of what I’ve talked about, I don’t think is at all directly referencing them the justification for the Christian God in terms of how we know God is only based on revelation. And my view is that it excludes Protestantism and Catholicism, even though they have specific attributes in common, just like when I mentioned the theistic fallacies paper, it really doesn’t matter because if you look at a logical conjunct and if we were to put all the beliefs that for example, Orthodox Christianity has in the logical conjunct in the parenthesis, if I took of those out it’s not this set, right.
Jay Dyer:
Because what defines this set in every member of the set is the relationship of the set as a whole and each to another. So for example, Greg Boyd’s open theism, right? When Greg Boyd takes out one of the attributes of God’s omnissions, or he redefines it to be whatever he wants it to be. It’s not this set anymore, even if it’s got everything except right. Just one of the attributes. So, which is interesting. Cause you know, Trent kind of conceded a little bit about that when it came to the set of necessary attributes in regard to natural theology. But if you look at the Garby paper, which yeah, I think he is an atheist. I’m not agreeing with his position, his atheism doesn’t really even do with his argumentation per se, because I think the arguments are solid. Garby’s point there is that if you take the set, excuse me, any member out of the set or try to impose it on another set, it doesn’t really work because it only has the meaning that it has within that set system.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. And I would say, as I said in the debate, I don’t believe that designator schema and the set works both Aristotle and I believed water existed, but I have a lot more propositions about water, it’s acidity, it’s triple point, its molecular composition. So I have many more truths in my set about water than Aristotle does. So my concept is more complete, thus more true, but we’re both expressing belief in the same wet substance. So I just reject that. I’ll also add that this discussion also, and I don’t want to beat a dead horse cause I am going to get the same reply over and over again about whether it’s circular or he’s doing natural theology in reverse. I would say natural theology is helpful here as a symmetry breaker because you can use religious experience, you get the same religious for a objective evidence.
Trent Horn:
You could look at two people, they have the same religious experiences, different religions. Can’t tell which one is true or false. Two people offered identical pre-suppositional arguments with different pre-suppositions. You don’t have a way to break to pick which one or the other. But I think natural theology is the way you can tell which conception of God, which system is more true and which is less true. And Jay admits, he does that by saying that eastern orthodoxy better explains God and the arguments surrounding it than in any competitor. So, I don’t agree with, but he does.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah. Trent is confusing in my view, the difference between using logic and argumentation and natural theology. So if from my paradigm or my system, if I’m using logic and argumentation, that doesn’t equate to natural theology. In my view, everything that exists is common ground. There’s not these arbitrary sort of lists about attributes or commonly general ideas, the way Faser speaks of justifying the self-evident principles. I don’t think there are those things. And so I’m actually making an argument that challenges that preposition and that assumption. And I’m not just making the argument challenging. I’m actually trying to show and demonstrate that in the case, for example, of your list of attributes regarding water. The difference here is that the traits of water are different than a belief system. So it’s a false analogy. And this actually comes up in the Garby paper and he refutes the very example that Trent gave because belief systems are different than physical objects.
Jay Dyer:
And the way that we know the properties or validate through empirical sense data, what a physical object has or doesn’t have is different than the way that belief systems as a whole determine the members of the set. This is why in the Garby paper, he lists the nice and creed as the set of beliefs, as an example of what a Christian theism is. I mean the council is saying, this is what Christian theism is. So if that’s the case, then there’s not a generic theism by which we have a self-evident theory, neutral access to personhood or to omnisssions or any of the other attributes that we might list.
Trent Horn:
Swan. I lost track. Was it Jay? Then I, then Jay gave an extra reply.
Suan Sonna:
Well, like, I’m just kind of letting you guys hash it out.
Trent Horn:
Okay. Then I would like one little extra reply. Then we’ll move on to the next question.
Suan Sonna:
Sure. And then we’ll move on.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. You could take out water as an example. You could use belief systems like modern platonists and ancient platonists both believed in the existence of the same numbers, but modern platonists have more truths about those numbers with the advent of Cantorian Set Theory, things like that. But we’d say they’re still talking about the same thing, even though one has a more developed knowledge, you could change the example and the points still remains.
Suan Sonna:
Okay. So Trendy Webone, he asked the question, given Jay’s arguments about revelation, “How does he address those who have no access to the church and divine revelation?”
Jay Dyer:
Right. So, when Trent was reading the section where Paul speaking to the Athenian philosophers. I think he misread the text because Paul says that, “The unknown God is the one I proclaim to you.” So I think that we have to affirm that there’s a sense in which the pagan knows and doesn’t know God at the same time. And if you look at apathetic theology via Negathiva, we kind of say this already, right? We all kind of say that, if we say that God’s essence, for example, is unknowable in the Orthodox tradition. We’re saying something in a sense that’s cataphatic. While at the same time, we’re saying something, that’s a apathetic, so we’re not defining it. And we’re saying something about it, namely, that it’s unknowable. So this is a feature of apathetic theology. And, my reading of act 17 in concert with Romans one is precisely that Paul is not granting them, that they have direct access to God via the creatures, per se.
Jay Dyer:
I think Romans one is primarily talking about the innate sense of God and actually many early church fathers believe that as well. Some of the texts that come up in the Bradshaw book that I think Trent was referencing earlier on in the debate are actually talking about the innate sense was given, the innate sense of God, which I think is the moral law. And, but there’s this curious quote where, or Paul says to the pagans, the word is near you, even in your heart. The word is not a generic concept.
Jay Dyer:
The logos in John one is not a generic concept, Christ lighted, every man that comes into the world. So I would literally say there’s a sense in which yes they do. And do not know the Trinity. And that’s precisely because according to Romans one, Paul’s not arguing of about the conclusions of philosophers there in Romans one in terms of syllogisms and God, at the end of syllogism. In Romans one, Paul is talking about the heart of man. Again, the news doctrine of orthodoxy is what we understand Romans want to be talking about that the heart of man knows in its inner sense that it has sinned against the one true God, even though at the same time, he doesn’t know the one true God.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. Trent, do you have a response?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I would say that, as I said in the debate, people have a relationship with God. One, because God sustains everything that exists. They have relation with God, even if they don’t know it, the other ways they can come to know God would be through revelation. And I think I made that clear in my statements when I cited Romans one and in other videos, and Jay would agree with me, Romans one, Paul is drawing a lot from the book of wisdom. And in wisdom 13, seems very clear that the author is saying that you can perceive that God exists through the things that he has made. And the error of the pagans he says is they stopped at the midpoint and thought that the things they perceived, they didn’t go all the way to the thing that made those things. But as rack 17.
Trent Horn:
I think it’s very clear here. I found an alter with in, with this inscription. To and unknown God, what there for you worship as unknown this, I proclaimed to you. So it seems clear to me, these people knew there was a God. They knew he was worthy of worship, but they knew nothing else about this deity. And then Paul told them about it. But notice Paul doesn’t talk about old Testament. He doesn’t mention Jesus. Instead he continues common ground with them by quoting Greek poets. And of course the Lagos was also a concept widely in hellistic culture. He’s not necessarily using the Johan nine concept.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. I feel pretty bad because there’s a lot of people who are still asking good questions, but we run out of time for this section. And so now we’re going into our five minute rebuttal section or portion and so, yeah, Jay.
Jay Dyer:
I have one point to that.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah, sure.
Jay Dyer:
Real quick. I would just take the issue with the end statement that Paul just tries to stay on common ground. I know in fact, Paul goes directly to the resurrection. He says, Greek wisdom is foolishness and he goes directly to the resurrection of Christ.
Suan Sonna:
Alright. Jay or Trent. Do you want to say anything response to that or do you think we should just go to rebuttals?
Trent Horn:
Right. Okay. I’m saying here he did preach Jesus and resurrection acts 17:18. I’m just saying in the part where he’s addressing those who worshiped specifically.
Jay Dyer:
Well, but you said he didn’t go under Christ in the Old Testament.
Trent Horn:
Right. Well, he certainly didn’t talk about the Old Testament.
Jay Dyer:
You said he didn’t go into Christ or the Old Testament.
Trent Horn:
Okay. Well then I’m sorry. I misspoke. I’m talking about the specific section where he’s talking to those who are worshiping the alter, the unknown.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah. But in that section, he does talk about Christ. He said…
Trent Horn:
Oh, no, I agree. And I agree that Paul does talk about resurrection. He uses miracles and their ability to help people see that God has revealed himself. Absolutely.
Suan Sonna:
All right. And with that, I’ll let Jay Dyer get ready to give his five minute closing statement. And so once again, Jay, like once you get down to 10 seconds, I’ll kind of expand the screen and everything, but whenever you start talking, I’ll start your five minute closing statement.
Jay Dyer:
All right. So I think that what I really wanted to get to here was the epistemic problems of an approach that Trent has to strong foundationalism, which he affirmed early on regarding the way that we go about doing natural theology. What I heard from Trent throughout the debate in many, many instances was actually equivocating and word concept fallacy, shifting between natural law, moral law, the revelation of God in nature, and his two conception of natural theology. My whole point in this debate was that those things are not equivalent, but multiple times a debate Trent seemed to switch back between these different things, which are very specific and nuance as if they’re all just talking about the same thing. Of course, my questioning here is to raise that very, I’m questioned that very assumption right there that. I don’t think those are all talking about the same thing I wanted to really stress that this approach that Trent’s doing is an empirical approach.
Jay Dyer:
I didn’t say Trent or Aquinas wasn’t empiricist. I said the approach is empirically based, and that’s not in doubt because in the very thought that, Aquinas clearly says that there’s nothing in the intellect. That’s not also in the census. He also affirms the distinction between what is better known in itself and what is better known by us. And this is really the basis of the foundationalist approach that we have here. If we’re going to take that approach, we have a series of problems that I raised, one as an example of properly basic beliefs in terms of the section, when I was questioning Trent about circularity of properly basic beliefs. This is just one problem for any empirically based epistemology and make no bones about it. Trent’s natural theology is an empirically based natural theology. So he’s going to have to demonstrate the justification for the empirical argumentation that he’s doing to say natural theology is a case.
Jay Dyer:
When I am saying that natural theology, isn’t the case because I can come to the table and critique the pre-suppositions in the exact same way that human can’t do that. You’re going to have to give an account for. And why do you have to give an account for it in that way? But because of the nature of your pre-suppositions and the foundationalism itself. Foundationalism is saying, these are self-evident. These are things that everybody agrees on, that we start with. What doesn’t matter, how many people agree with something or disagree with it, that’s appeal to the masses fallacy. And so if Trent’s going to have a foundationalist epistemology, he’s going to have to answer not just that, but the questions of what is the metaphysical content of all the words that you’re listing here, in terms of this sense data? What is the status of the external world that you’re pre-supposing in these metaphysical claims?
Jay Dyer:
What is the certitude that you have, that the sense data matches up to the objects in the external world? How do you solve seller’s problem of the myth of the given? How do you resolve the under determination of data? How do you account for the fact that the paretic axiom itself is not in sense data? How, if that’s the case, do you account for induction and deduction on an empirical basis? What are the properly basic beliefs given the fact that I don’t think the ones that you listed are actually properly basic beliefs, given the critique that I gave of day cards, Cogito, if that’s the case, and we start with induction, how do we get to the justification of universals, right, from induction? So if deduction is a problem, excuse me, if induction is a problem, deduction also goes. What is the justification for the epistemic bootstrapping project at the outset that Trent is involved in given that as I tried to show, there are no properly basic beliefs.
Jay Dyer:
And also given the fact that things like the uniformity of nature, that logic works and operates in an external world, or that the external world actually has a causal relationship, that it imprints data upon Trent’s mind, nothing in that was a affirmation or an accusation that Trent is a humean empiricist or that Aquinas is an empiricist. I never said that. So Trent was replying to a strong man. I simply said, how does Trent reply as a foundation in us to these classic problems for any foundational system? It really doesn’t matter which one we pick. One thing that I really wanted to conclude with was about the arguments of St. Maximus for the Trinity. And I’ll just run through these really quick. Maximus thinks that the modes of natural contemplation lead us to the logie, which leads us to the logos. The logos is a rigid designator, not generic reasoning or Marcus Aurelius’ logos.
Jay Dyer:
But in fact, for, as Trent said, the wisdom literature, logos of cleastatic as proverbs and John one, who is the second person of the God, it’s a rigid designator. Creation then according to St. Maximus is fundamentally Christological logical and fundamentally triadic. Ambigoun 10 shows that creation is a vial of the logos. The creative world Maximus says is a book. It’s a book that’s the same as the logos in terms of the Bible book, right? Maximus goes on of course, to say that the created order is a theophany. And my main point here is that natural theology posses the deity that does not allow the creative world to actually be a theophany. And I think that thomism demonstrates that.
Suan Sonna:
All right, thank you, Jay. And sorry, I don’t know if you heard me chuckle in the background, but there are just some funny comments and I just want to say, it was Kyle Myers. He appreciated that this debate was fruitful. And so we’ve been getting good reception on both sides. And so, Trent, this is now your final statement. So let me know whenever you’re ready and I’ll start the timer.
Trent Horn:
Sure. Well, once again, I want to thank Swan for hosting this. I want to thank Jay for taking part. He brought a rigorous and well developed case. And so I appreciate that. Let’s do an overview of what we talked about. Remember, Jay had the burden of showing us that Christians should abandon natural theology. So the burden is on him to show why we should give up something that has been practiced uniformly across the church for 2000 years and scripture, as I showed. What arguments did he give for that? He basically just kind of gave two arguments. One was a critique of foundationalism. He gave a lot more critiques of foundationalism of the closing statement, which I see no need to reply to cause they weren’t previously brought up in the debate. But I would say that I showed, and I think it’s very common sensical that we can affirm.
Trent Horn:
There are certain self-evident truths and we can reason a up from these. They just, we interact with them and we see their truth and that it’s self evident. And I think I made a very clear infinite regress doesn’t work. And I showed all of the problems that set end up. If you try to go through a circular route as my opponent does. So I would say his idea to critique foundationalism to get rid of natural theology. It simply doesn’t work. I’ll also add there’s a wide variety of natural theology schema. I have one, Richard Swinburne has another William Lane Craig has another. The common thread that runs through them is the ability of reason to know that God exists. Now, my opponent said, well, there is no generic theism. It’s the logo. Everything is the Trinity. If you can’t show that there is no generic God, that is a person.
Trent Horn:
And I would say, if you believe that you’re going to have to believe some really strange things. Even leaving aside the Old Testament patriarchs having explicit knowledge of the Trinity. Did a Jew in exile in Babylon know that God is a Trinity with the same confidence that I do or Jay does. Under his view, it would seem like you’d have to say Yeah, if they prior to Christ that the Jews in exile in Babylon or the Jews in the time of Job knew that God existed, that they had the same knowledge of the Trinity. Not just that the patriarch interacted unknowingly with the Trinity, but the same knowledge belief in the Trinity as us, I would say in philosophical speak, that’s highly counterintuitive. But let’s talk about… But that’s what you get with this kind of circular approach. What were my arguments for retaining natural theology against the resolution we should reject it?
Trent Horn:
I said, we have freedom in Christ. So this is our default position that we should stay with. If this was such a problematic thing, if this was so problematic that Christian should avoid this type of theology. Wouldn’t we expect the Bible to condemn it? Wouldn’t we expect the church to condemn it? Bishops others in the east, in the west ecumenical councils. My opponent agreed that no ecumenical council has condemned natural theology. And in fact, I showed that the first Vatican council condemns those who say that we can’t use natural theology. [crosstalk 01:56:36] But well, okay you can talk about it later after the debate. So I think that was clear. And then I showed how it was used and you can go back and listen, maybe I could upload my opening statement and you can read through it how natural theology is used, even among the eastern fathers to guide non-believers by showing them things in the world.
Trent Horn:
That naturally point to God, this is very obvious in John Damascus’s expedition of the Orthodox faith and Gregory and his Great Catechism. I show the pre-supposition doesn’t work that my opponent is either doing natural theology backwards because he, then he sees, he starts with Orthodox Christian God. And then he sees there are these effects, but then he makes arguments showing why you can’t presuppose Atheism, Judaism, Islam, Protestantism, or Catholicism. You have to presuppose his version of God if he’s using arguments or human reason that tells us something about the attributes. The one true God has, he’s doing natural theology, but he’s just doing it in reverse. If he doesn’t do that, which kind of what he was doing a lot in trying to say, why Orthodox Christian theology, ultimately, because it is revealed, how do we know it’s revealed? Because it is well, any pre-supposition list from any persuasion than till frame Protestants, Catholic pre-suppositionalists can make the same argument.
Trent Horn:
If the argument works for all of them equally, it doesn’t work at all. So I would say that ultimately, that this is not a good system. My opponent has not shown. We should give up a mainstay of theology. Instead, we should explore it. We should make it better. We should gather insights from it. And there are forms of natural theology that are very close to the transcendental arguments. My opponent made. If you’re interested in that, check out Alvin, planting his work on warrant and function and his evolutionary argument against naturalism, very similar to what Jay brought up. What I would say is within the bounds of natural theology, but I’m grateful for everyone. And as I said earlier in the debate, I say, we should just follow what St. Peter said, always be ready to give a reason for the hope within, but do so with gentleness and with reference.
Suan Sonna:
All right, well thank you Trent. Thank you, Jay. I’ve been looking at the comments here. There’s a lot of positive comment about both sides, really. And I think Hallelujah said it best, when she said hit the thumbs up on your way out. Thanks. And please check out Jay Dyer’s channel and Trent Horn’s channel, and also Jay, I’ll make sure to upload your notes after the show and everything like that.
Jay Dyer:
But one thing I took issue with was that I did explicitly say that I think that the seventh council implicitly does condemn the natural theology that he’s advocating. So I did. That’s all I wanted to correct.
Suan Sonna:
Let me just step in really quick and just say that let’s see here. Well, so a lot of people asked if you’d be willing to do a part two with each other. And so maybe this would be a launching point or something like that. But I think we have to kind of end the discussion right here if that’s okay for the sake of time. But I mean with that, gentlemen, thank you so much. And I appreciate it, but yeah, let’s see if we can get a part two or something else going.
Jay Dyer:
Yeah, I’m open to That. Yeah. We’ll see what happens.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Jay Dyer:
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