The Canon Question, Tom Brown Part One

An interesting and very LONG article by Tom Brown. I like Tom, and my interactions with him have been intense- he is a very smart, well written and well read man. I think his article suffers from more than a few flaws though.

First, sola Scriptura properly understood, and condensed into one sentence- the Scriptures alone are sufficient to function as the regula fide, that is, the infallible rule of faith for the church. Notice how this concept refers to rules of faith- it doesn't say all knowledge is in Scripture, and that reasoning and factors outside of Scripture can't be used to bolster confidence in them. This will come up many times. This is not about sola Scriptura, it is about the canon of Scripture, but SS needs to be brought up here, because it brought up in the article being reviewed.

Secondly, he misrepresents Calvin's full treatment of the subject of Scripture in the Institutes by referring to Chapter 7 only, when it was treated in Chaps 6, 7, and 8. Were he to have used the full council of the Insititutes, he would have realized that Calvin held the plural view that he recognized in his article elsewhere. For instance, from book one, Chapter 8 of the Institutes, we see him give credit to Gods providence through the Church, who protected and preserved it.

Third, the attempt to pull the legs out from the very ability of the Protestant canon to exist by virtue of the fact that for man to select a canon is to put man over the canon. This also destroys the notion for anyone to select a canon, the Romans and Orthodox as well. Why for instance do they get a free pass- well, God guided the choosing of the canon. For us Protestants it would seem then, that it is merely an act of men, God could not have guided this decision in the least. That does not fit the Christian view of reality at all. Most importantly for Protestants, perhaps we would claim that the 'refining' of the canon into its 66 books is a work of God, not man- so the objection centered in man is irrelevant. You won't see many God fearing Protestants claiming they can just rip books out of Scripture at will.


A quick definition at the top- Canon means 'measure', or 'rule' and is a reference to the collection of the books of the Bible. The Protestant canon is 66 books, the Roman Catholic is 73. The difference is in the Old Testament. Basically the question on the table is "Justify your truncated Old Testament canon, by what authority do you decide this?" We were not the first of course. the modern Jewish canon is the Protestant OT canon.

Further things to ponder before we dig into the article itself-

Note how Athanasius, writing LONG before an infallible canon was selected by Rome (Not until Trent actually), handled the issue of canonical and non canonical books- and which books he names!

Some additional points that Turretinfan brings forward on the issue of 'canon' truths to know and consider-

Jesus was able to tell the Jews to "Search the Scriptures" without the Jews needing an infallible canon to know what were the Scriptures. Paul was able to talk to Timothy about the Scriptures in the same way, and the whole visible church managed to get by without an infallible canon of Scripture at least until Trent.


If you have "the Bible" you can deduce the canon. This seems simple, but the Scriptures we have are not Scriptures that WE decided are Scriptures. We come to Christ as believers and begin to gladly read the Scriptures that we are given. God secures this for His people, we have to trust His guidance.

Having Scripture is the antecedent for having Sola Scriptura. First we are given the Scriptures, then we believe what they say. I realize this is boundlessly inconvenient for folks who wish to misrepresent Sola Scriptura, but it is what it is.

Further, this is not an endevour that bothers the majority of the Christian world- as Tom mentions in the article. Toms comments are in Courier type.

II

For Harris, having a variety of canon theories within the Protestant academy is tolerable, so long as they each yield the 66-book Protestant canon. But as Dr. Flesseman-van Leer has rightly observed, those who accept the traditional canon of Scripture today cannot legitimately defend it with arguments that played no part in its original formation. ⁷ Post hoc rationalization of such a critical point as the formation of the canon would be like painting a target around one’s arrow that is already embedded in the wall. If a rule which has led some to the 66-book canon proves false, or fails to be truly objective, the remedy is not to find a new rule allowing us to reach the same conclusion. Instead, to be intellectually honest, we must find the rule that is ultimately right and true, and accept where it leads us, wherever it leads us.

This statement is valid, as far as it goes. We should strive to understand what logic men used, what were their reasons behind selection of the canon. However-new light must be allowed to emerge. We have it much better than the church of the second century as far as manuscripts that we can refer to, both OT and NT. We can use computers to access libraries of information, whereas libraries and manuscripts were incomplete then! We must also be allowed to build upon the minds of the past, insight upon insight, 'standing on the shoulders of giants' as it were. Yes, we shall not claim that the ancients used techniques and arguments that they didn't, but we don't have to do what they did exactly as they did either.


A.

The Classical Reformed View:

The classical and confessional Reformed answer to the Canon Question stresses that the Holy Spirit is our immediate assurance of the canon’s truth, and also notes that the reliability of Scripture appears from within Scripture itself.

Assurance is confirmation, not selection. We will see this claim extended to allegedly be subject to not just a test of determination by experienced theologians, but by 'babies in the Spirit'. In otherwords- the above claim and all it entails is to be 'put to the test-' used by people who have just been converted- who are then told to select what is and isn't Scripture from a mixed pile of writings. Of course, this is silly, and is an example of selecting a canon, not a feeling of assurance of the canons truth from the Holy Spirit that a believer comes to feel. He also claims that it is immediate. I have never seen the claim that it is immediate discernment.

Re: Calvin-
His answer, then, is that we can be assured that Scripture is of God simply by looking at it, just as we can tell black from white simply by looking at it.

Reading Chapter 7, this is largely fair as far as I can tell. Once again, I don't see Calvin saying "this is how to select the canon of Scripture" Instead, we see him telling us that we don't need a church authority to tell us these are Scriptures, as God confirms it in the Spirit. The Scriptures also objectively and directly give themselves this authority. Continue reading my post, you will come to Bahnsen's article on Self- Attestation. His opening paragraphs exhaustively cover this self- authority.


This is essential to the Reformed system because if Scripture were subordinate to fallible human authority, its contents could be erroneous, thus rendering Scripture unreliable. And if Scripture were unreliable, it could not act as our sole infallible authority over all matters of the faith.

This is essential for all believers, I would say. We all claim that God is the author. Here is an example where he ties sola Scriptura into the discussion. Sola Scriptura could be applied to multiple canons of Scripture. If it was, you could in fact be looking at different doctrines altogether, though that depends on what the Scriptures say.

'THE TEST'
If the classical Reformed canon criterion were true and we set various candidate texts, like books or passages from the New Testament, apocryphal works, or revered writings from the early Church Fathers, in front of new Christians who have the Spirit but have never read the Bible, they would all pick out the same books or passages as canonical.

Again, the equating of attestation with selection methodology. History shows how canon issues were settled. This was a work of God- His providence. A great article on the subject, from the reformed position is here. Notice how Dr. Greg Bahnsen carefully makes vital distinctions. There is a distinction between recognizing the canon and the nature of the canon. Notice the role of the Spirit is to confirm the objective claim that the Scriptures make about themselves- to be the very word of God. Notice how the Scriptures come forth as an act of God's providence, NOT by sitting down and asking the Spirit to show us what is and isn't Scripture for the purpose of creating a canon.

On to Part II