Which Canon?

In the discussion between myself and Drive By, you may have noticed his question of "How do we know which books belong in the Canon since there is no passage telling us which books belong in the Canon?" (my paraphrase). His conclusion is the typical Roman Catholic conclusion. You must have Rome's infallible authority telling you, or you would never know.

The first problem is the idea of Canon in Rome's understanding. The books of the Bible only have authority because Rome says they do. Apparently no one knew what the Canon was prior to Trent.

Another problem is that the term Canon is misunderstood. The term Canon means "standard". The bible is the Standard. Sam Waldron's book, To Be Continued, has an excellent chapter dealing with Prophets and the nature of their teachings. He basically argues that whenever a True Prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord, what is said is "Canonical". It is the Standard. This would be true of Jesus' teachings as well as the Apostle's. The moment any Prophet would speak, since what he is saying is God's Word, then by definition men who hear it are bound to it. Since we are not able to hear directly from Jesus and His Apostles, the Lord has seen fit to "inscripturate" their Oral, Canonical , proclamation and teaching. Therefore, when you hear the Word of God proclaimed, you are bound by it.

To have the Standard or Canon of the Words and teachings of Christ and His Apostles appeal to another Standard for validation would be like God swearing by the Name of the Bishop of Rome in order to validate any Covenant He makes with His people. Is this what God teaches in Scripture? Is this even epistemologically possible? May an ultimate authority appeal to a higher authority?

This leads us back to the question of how do we know what is God's Word. Others have explained these issues more fully. I will simply say this. God in His Providence and purpose for His church always demonstrates and validates his own Word by his own authority. In other words, He will give ample evidence demonstrating His own authority. For example, Jesus ultimately demonstrated He is the Son of God by raising Himself from the dead. Jesus did not appeal to a higher authority outside of God to do this.

To say we need Rome's infallible ability to know what books belong in the Bible only sets the question back one step, yet it still remains. How do we know Rome is infallible? Which teaching of Rome should we believe, Partim/Partim or Material Sufficiency? Why not believe those in Utah?

Another problem that I thought of later is that if I were to accept Drive By's argument that we need an index within Scripture to know what belongs in Scripture (in order for Sola Scriptura to be true), how does that solve the dilemma? Let's say Scripture has an infallible index. How would his view now accept Sola Scriptura? Would not the problem the RC has because of his view of the canon remain? He would then argue, "You can't know that index is true until Rome validates that index within the pages of the Bible." So his question above is a simple straw-man that never truly gets to the heart of the matter.

For the Roman Catholic, this challenges his authority claim. For if you are going to accept Rome's argument and infallible authority, then you must not only accept what she has to say about the Bible, you must also accept the other De Fide Dogmas such as the Marian Dogmas (ie: the ascension of Mary), Indulgences, Purgatory and the entire Treasury of Merit system (which emphatically denies the clear Biblical teaching of the Gospel.

Many RCs today treat Rome's authority as something they may accept as they see fit. This, however, was denied by Pope John Paul. It is being denied by the current Pope. If you deny these other dogmas, then you are not consistent and are living a lie.

There are not two ultimate Standards or Canons or Authorities. Either Rome is infallible or God's Word is.