Since Christian's don't believe that all of scriptures fell from the sky completed, nor were they written by a one person in a given period of time, some entity must be given authority to determine what is included and excluded. Some entities that I have honestly seen put forth include (in no particular order):
- The early church (Catholic) - The authority given to Peter from Christ passed down through the rightful successors gave the respective councils authority to determine scripture.
- The early church - God chose to give a respective council one time authority to determine scripture. However, decisions before/after by the same people/group do not have the same authority
- The individual believer (via the Holy Spirit) - Any Christian should be able to tell if a given work is part of the canon just as a person knows the difference between sweet and sour.
- "A fallible collection of infallible books" - We have no way of being certain that the collection is correct, just that a given book is inspired or not.
- A particular group - God gave special authority to this group to make the determination. This is really a generalization of the second early church view. Common groups given authority include the early reformer (Luther/Calvin,/etc), leadership of ones specific church or denomination, etc.
Here's a syllogism to consider when talking about an entity (or "agent") that discerned the canon:
ReplyDelete1. Certainty cannot rest on doubt. A decision cannot be more trustworthy than the deciding principle. You cannot trust the action more than the agent.
2. The Church is the agent who defined the canon.
3. You cannot have more trust in the canon than you have in the Church.
4. Protestants do not trust the Church with even moderate certainty.
5. Therefore Protestants cannot trust the canon with even moderate certainty.
This is included in my forthcoming book.
Interesting argument. Here's how I break it down.
ReplyDelete1) I agree. You cannot trust the action more than the agent.
2) The Catholics do assume that the church defined the cannon. Some protestants disagree, claiming God defines the cannon (via the Holy spirit via some actor). In those cases, they would claim they trust the actor (God) enough to trust the action (canon).
4) I agree somewhat, most protestants claim to trust the "church" as a whole or a denomination with very little when it comes doctrine. However, most implicitly put great trust in their church's interpretations of scripture. How many protestants ever look into symbolic vs sacramental baptism? Communion? etc. Most assume what they hear on Sunday morning passes basic logical reasoning and then accept it on face value.
Let's test your premise from the Gospels. It is obvious that Jesus and the NT writers understood what the OT/TNK was. To what council or entity did they refer to verify the veracity of the TNK that they used?
ReplyDelete