The Canon: Root of the issue (Part II)

Last post, I laid out five common (or uncommon) views on who determines canon of scripture. I also hinted that I currently don't fall into one of these (or any really) right now. Walking through each argument and showing the faults I find in each should shed some light in the "abyss" I find myself.

1) The early church (Catholic)
    The cop out answer for why I find fault with this view can seen in the fact that I'm neither Catholic or Orthdox of some flavor. One holding this view almost directly leads to converting to one of these branches of the Church. The only way somebody could hold this view and not convert would involve the claim that that authority was lost at some point. I find this unlikely; if God invested a group of leaders such authority as is claimed, the removal of such authority would likely involve some sort of cataclysmic event in church history. Since I see no such evidence for such an event, and I must conclude the early church did not have such authority.
    Laying out the full reasons I am not Catholic is a post (or set of posts) in itself; considering the theological state I find myself in, it would also be unwise and/or premature.

2) The early church
   This view holds that God gave special authority to a specific group for this one time decision. Beyond a generic dislike that comes from being a programs related to special cases, I find this view lacking. In almost all of recorded history found in scriptures, special favor for momentous events involves the supernatural. The presence of God involved things like the Sun standing still, people rising from the dead (or dying suddenly), fire from heaven, etc. In history, I find no such occurrences. Much of the record seems to involves various groups coming up with various proposals and hammering out details over time. For God to give this group special authority, and then act in a way singularly different than most miracles of recorded church history is a strong claim; for me to find assurance in such a claim I need more evidence to wrap my brain (and heart) around.

3) The individual believer
    The most obvious fault with this theory is the billion[1] Catholics and 300 million[2] Eastern Orthodox Christians in the world today (ignoring the masses found throughout history). Even a very conservative 1% estimate of that amount being ones who are "saved" gives 13 million souls who disagree with the protestant canon. If it was obvious, a non-trivial number of them should have objected at some point.
    Ignoring that for a moment, the next fault is the fact that the church operated in some form for 1600 years roughly before the reformation and the removal of the old testament books in question. Even if only 1% of the Christians over those years were really "saved", and 1% of their complaints were written down and preserved, I should be able to point to somebody who found some books "obviously" uninspired.
    Beyond both of these thought experiments, one can look to the reformers themselves. It is a well recorded fact that Luther wanted to remove some books of the new testament for some parts of his life. Some Lutheran churches still order these books late in their canons. However, Calvin for example found no such flaw in these books. If the canon itself is as obvious as this view suggests, shouldn't these two patriarchs of the reformation agree?

4) "A fallible collection of infallible books"
    This view throws in the towel in any claim of authority in determining canon. In addition to being intellectually unsatisfying, there is a serious if not fatal flaw in reasoning about theology that springs from this view.
    Assume some doctrine that can be found in scripture but is not completely spelled out. I like communion, so I'll go with that. Communion has many things stated about it in scripture, but for example it never states how often one should partake. What if there was a second letter to the Romans sitting in some library somewhere, that states that a church must take communion every week? Our canon is a fallible collection of books, so it is possible that inspired letter is not in our canon. This means one holding to this view can not be 100% certain of any doctrine, as there could be a missing book that describes it further. The possibility of a book in canon that is not inspired should evoke enough fear of heresy that I shouldn't have to spell out that other possibility directly.

5) A particular group
    The view begs to have the blank filled in, which group do you believe God invested authority into determining canon? A generic case of "The early church", many of the same criticisms apply. The group given such authority would either:
 a) Still have that authority, and make the claims that the Catholic/Orthodox churches do
 b) Have had but lost that authority, I can't believe loosing that authority wouldn't come without a recognizable mark on history
 c) Had that authority for a short (set) period of time. All other short term investing of God's authority/power/Spirit come with some sort of visible signs, by why not this one?

And thus by excluding the vast majority of standard theories related to the canon and the authority to determine its bounds, I find myself in the abyss somewhat. I currently work under the assumption of the 66 protestant canon, but do not have a principled reason for this assumption. Thus, this blog and this (rather long) entry.