Fair enough. You are certainly entitled to your opinions.

Peace.

To clarify — what I meant was that the notion of a canon — a received body of authoritative texts is present prior to both the New Testament and the Church. The church may have coined the term (I’m not sure) but the practice was part and parcel of Judaism and was thus adopted by the church. That’s what I was getting at…

Though I disagree with him on many factors (Calvinism and theonomy, specifically), I’m a big fan of Bahnsen, particularly his apologetic. I’m aware of his credibility, but I’m still inclined to disagree with his interpretation. Though I can see how one could read Christ’s chronological span as indicative of how the canon ought to be structured, I think it’s wrong to read the issue of canonicity as we know it today and as it was known in the ecumenical councils as on Christ’s mind. The notion of “The Bible” during the time of Christ and the apostles makes no sense, as the entire book (Old and New Testaments) hadn’t been formulated yet.

I’m not certain of my beliefs on the Apocrypha, but I’m not willing to dismiss it based on what strike me as not quite clear readings of Scripture. I’m not of the opinion, of course, that the New Testament has anything wrong with it, but I am wary on the issue of the Old Testament.

But remember that you asserted: “2) the canon of the New Testament was transmitted infallibly by God through the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church.”

I think it’s important to note that the infallibility came from the Holy Spirit, not directly from the church. In other words, the Church was used as a vessel for the Holy Spirit’s truth. So the church by itself holds no infallibility, the truthfulness of the church is determined by the holy spirit.

Does this mean that the church is infallible in every action and decision that it makes? I think we can look to see other similar cases of infallibility to answer that question. We believe that Paul and the authors of the New Testament were additionally writing with divine inspiration. Does this mean that those who wrote the Bible were without sin and without error for the remainders of their lives?

Essentially, when you object with “You mean the Bible that the Church infallibly put together?” it’s similar to saying “those that have ever operated as a vessel for the Holy Spirit and wrote the Bible cannot be held as sinful against the very truth that they wrote down.”

Obviously no one here would assert that Paul was without sin. Yet, we also believe that the letters that he wrote were divinely inspired.

So yes, the average protestant will say that the church was divinely guided in the case of the canon, but that the Catholic Church also operated grossly outside of the Spirit (such as indulgences and simony), and that the church can be fallible concerning other things, much like a prophet can infallibly be a vessel for the spirit but in other instances.

You wrote, “It seems to me that the canon of the Bible is laid out for us through the authority of the Church–that authority which “Bible Christians” then reject!”

I suppose we get into definitional problems here. Again, this is the argument typically offered by Roman Catholics so when they say “church” they mean the Roman Catholic church. But that clearly can’t be the case for several reasons. First, the de fide pronouncement of Trent on the canon contain gross theological and historical errors. If we believe that the Holy Spirit keeps His church from error, then we cannot conclude that Rome has the authority that is sometimes claimed for it.

Secondly, “Bible Christians” (so far as they are thinking and believing Christians) certainly do affirm the authority of the “church” in many matters, including the establishment of the canon. To my knowledge, no Protestant denomination has taken exception to the canon that is put forth in the Westminster Confessions, the Baptist Confession of 1689, etc. So Protestants do accept the authority of the church to recognize the canon.

The key difference is that Protestants acknowledge the possibly fallible nature of their decision while Rome has codified its errors and bound all their members to believe under pain of excommunication.

I hope I have understood your question more ably.

Peace.

While you may be correct in your interpretation as a whole, you’ve missed the tree in the forest, I’m afraid.

Let me just quote from a biblical scholar:

“The traditional Jewish canon was divided into three sections (Law, Prophets, Writings), and an unusual feature of the last section was the listing of Chronicles out of historical order, placing it after Ezra-Nehemiah and making it the last book of the canon. In light of this, the words of Jesus in Luke 11:50-51 reflect the settled character of the Jewish canon (with its peculiar order) already in his day. Christ uses the expression “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah,” which appears troublesome since Zechariah was not chronologically the last martyr mentioned in the Bible (cf. Jer. 26:20-23). However, Zechariah is the last martyr we read of in the Old Testament according to Jewish canonical order (cf. II Chron. 24:20-22), which was apparently recognized by Jesus and his hearers.”
(The Concept and Importance of Canonicity by Greg Bahnsen)

So Jesus was expressing the canon that He affirmed. (Matt. 5:17-21) That was the Hebrew canon. The point is that the Bible does tell us the canon, as this conclusively shows.

The New Testament, as I mentioned earlier, is not a matter of dispute.

I hope this helps.

Peace.

Is that something we can agree on?”

I hate to be divisive, but no. I mean, historically, how could the canon of the New Testament be a “received body of texts that are understood as authoritative” before the Church? By whom would the texts be received as authoritative, if not for the Church?

Inferred in the above, I think Craig, is that you believe the Protestants got it wrong, and the Roman Catholic church got it right, no? That the RC’s emphasis on tradition and magisterium tip the balance in favor of their view of biblical authority not just resting in Scripture alone, but in the traditions and magisterium of the church.

But do not both still agree in the self-attesting and self-authenticating authority of Scripture?

Hmmm. I may be misreading here, but I think that one of the places we may be in disagreement is the notion that “canonicity” is a creation of the church (Or Church if you prefer). But I would have to disagree. That’s what Steve, and others, mean by “self-attesting”. That is to say that canonical authority is not granted by the church, it is inherent in what it means to be “people of the Book”. Before there is a church, in other words, there is a canon — or at least something very like it — a received body of texts that are understood as authoritative.

Is that something we can agree on?

Let’s say we agree:

1) the New Testament is the inspired Word of God.

2) the canon of the New Testament was transmitted infallibly by God through the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

Where we disagree:

3) After the canon was established, however, the Church is no longer an infallible transmitter of anything. Its teachings need not be followed. In fact (an evangelical might say), it is largely in error on many counts.

My question is simply this (not referring to the deutero’s): Why should we accept # 2 given # 3?

If we say, “Well, the Church got it right on the canon, but wrong on much else”–does that mean we ourselves are now the infallible judge of error?

“No, we only judge error based on the Bible.”

Again, I would say: You mean the Bible that the Church infallibly put together?

By the way, I would not say that the Church is authoritative because the Bible says so, so I don’t think I fall into the circular argument you describe. The Church was authoritative before there ever was a New Testament. If it weren’t for the authoritative Church, there wouldn’t be an authoritative New Testament.

Yes? No? Possibly?

In reading over the above I fear I may come off as overly critical of the Roman Catholic tradition. That is certainly not the case. Having grown up RC, having been both fed and influenced by Catholic thought — particularly as elucidated by folks like Jim Schall, RJ Neuhaus, John Paul II and many others I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Rome. Some very dear friends are in the process of “swimming the Tiber” from evangelical Protestantism right now — and for them the whole question of authority is a large part of the reason why.

So I get, I think, where you are coming from. But I am a ~Protestant~ after all and a member of the Protestant clergy to boot, so I think you can understand, perhaps, why I am not willing to accept the premise of authority resting in the church in the same way that you seem to do.

Just flying by the seat of my pants here as I only have a minute and have not given this a ton of thought….

Sorry but as a Protestant, I don’t see why I should accede to your premise that the “Church” (by which I presume you mean the RC church) is “authoritative” in this case — it is not the “one true Church” in my view and its authority and tradition is as subject to error as any other human institution. One of the basic tenets of the Reformation is “councils may err…”

From the Protestant perspective the Deuterocanonicals (which I believe is at issue here) are not Scripture and the “Church” has a divided witness as to their authority. It was not until the Council of Trent that those books were included in the canon by “the Church”…. Now I know that folks will argue on the RC/Orthodox side of things that Trent only formalized what “everyone” believed. But when ‘everyone’ excludes Church Fathers like Jerome, well lets just say I have my doubts.

As for the question of authority, I have a hard time not calling the way you have framed it as an circular argument. The Bible is authoritative because the Church says so, the Church is authoritative because the Bible says so…..

Now here is the rub: I honestly think perhaps I just might be misunderstanding this whole notion of a “self-attesting and self-authenticating” Scripture–in which case, I would like to hear correction. I guess I’m looking for a simple and relatively clear statement of why we should accept the authority of the Bible but reject the authority of the Church which compiled it. I know that is a tendentious way to put it, but that’s how I’m seeing it right now. Thoughts?

This, actually, is where my disagreement lies. The canon doesn’t appear full-blown from the forehead of Luther. It seems that commonality of authority would have to begin with the authority which delineates the scriptural canon–which is not the Scripture!

It seems to me that the canon of the Bible is laid out for us through the authority of the Church–that authority which “Bible Christians” then reject! At this point, I would refer back to my two questions in Post # 11.

Dear Constantine: Actually, what I had in mind was the New Testament, more so than the Old. Since we all accept the same canon of the New Testament, again, where does that canon come from? Is it “self-attesting and self-authenticating”? Again, I don’t even know what that means, and what I think I understand of it I seriously doubt.

To take those verses to mean that requires a hefty bit of eisegesis. In the context of that passage, Christ is persecuting the Pharisees and the lawyers of the time for misrepresenting what God was about. Christ wasn’t trying to delineate a scriptural canon. The New Testament as we know it wasn’t even prescribed by the New Testament; the New Testament as we know it wasn’t organized in the fashion we know it until the later church councils.