In her book,
Misguided by Mormonism, Protestant
Christina Darlington shoots herself in the foot with the following comment:
Most of the New Testament books were accepted
by 100 A.D. with the exception of six debateable books that were officially
recognized into the Christian canon at the Third Council of Carthage in 397 A.D.
(these books are Hebrews, 2 Peter, James, 2 John, 3 John, and Revelation). (Christina
R. Darlington, Misguided by Mormonism But
Redeemed by God’s Grace: Leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints for Biblical Christianity [2d ed.; 2019], 199)
Why is this
so? Consider the following:
Firstly, consider what she previously said about the illumination of the individual believer:
In John 14:26: Jesus promised, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”(Ibid., 110, emphasis in original)
If
her previous comments about John 14:26 and the personal inspiration of the individual believer is true (for a fuller discussion, see Refuting Christina Darlington on Sola Scriptura, John 14:26, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, and the Priesthood), there would never have been such debates
about something as important and central as the “tota” of scripture (for Sola Scriptura to be operative, according
to Protestant apologists and theologians, one must first have the “totality”
[the tota] of scriptura). For a fuller discussion of this, and how this alone
proves Sola Scriptura is an exegetical impossibility, see:
Secondly,
the fact that, for Darlington, a local council “officially” settled any
doctrinal issue, let alone the central issue of the New Testament canon, is problematic
for her Protestant ecclesiology.
Thirdly,
imputing to Carthage the privileged position she has given it results in her
being, well, very Catholic in her understanding of the entire biblical canon.
How so? If she will accept Carthage’s declaration about the 27-book New
Testament as being “official,” one must ask: on what consistent basis will she accept the New Testament canon list of
Carthage as being “official” while simultaneously rejecting its Old Testament
canon? The canon of the Old Testament of Carthage, while differing a bit with
that of the dogmatic decree of Trent (session 4; April 1546 [see 1
Esdras and the Canon of the Council of Trent; cf. Gary
Michuta on Trent and the Book of Esdras) included the
Apocryphal/Deutero-canonical books that Darlington rejects. Here is the listing
of the canon lists as provided by Denzinger:
The Canon of the Sacred Scripture
92 [DS 186] Can. 36 (or otherwise
47). [It has been decided] that nothing except the Canonical Scriptures should
be read in the church under the name of the Divine Scriptures. But the
Canonical Scriptures are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, Paralipomenon two books, Job, the
Psalter of David, five books of Solomon, twelve books of the Prophets, Isaias,
Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two
books of the Machabees. Moreover, of the New Testament: Four books of the
Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles one book, thirteen epistles of Paul the
Apostle, one of the same to the Hebrews, two of Peter, three of John, one of
James, one of Jude, the Apocalypse of John. Thus [it has been decided] that the
Church beyond the sea may be consulted regarding the confirmation of that
canon; also that it be permitted to read the sufferings of the martyrs, when
their anniversary days are celebrated. (The Sources of Catholic Dogma, eds.
Henry Denzinger and Karl Rahner [trans. Roy J. Deferrari; St. Louis, Miss.: B.
Herder Book Company, 1954], 39-40)
Darlington
seems to impute inspiration of some sorts (to Carthage, protection from error
and the ability to proclaim the New Testament canon "officially" [in
other words, with some type of authority]). Darlington's comments, already
problematic in light of her Protestant epistemology, reminded me of something
Reformed Protestant Eric Svendsen wrote:
We can accept the general reliability of
those who collected the Canon--and thank them for their contribution,
acknowledging that the Holy Spirit gave infallible guidance to them! (This is
far different from ascribing infallibility to the ecclesial body itself!
(Svendsen, Protestant Answers [1995],
59).
Catholic
apologist Robert Sungenis responded thusly:
Here
is another case of “wanting your cake and eat it too.” This apologist wants
infallibility for what is dear to him (the canon of Scripture) but he reserves
himself the right to deny it for anything else that “those who collected the
Canon” deemed infallible truth. First, we must ask who he thinks “those who
collected the Canon” were if he does not believe they were the very “ecclesial
body” which he questions. The Fathers of the Church did not consider themselves
outside the “ecclesial body,” nor did the Councils that collected and the
defined canon. The apologist is simply reading back into early Church history
his own Protestant mindset – a mindset that believes there can be a legitimate
separation between the Church at large and individual Christians. None of the
Fathers ever entertained such a notion. Second, we can surmise that he does not
want to say that the “ecclesial body” (i.e., the Church) has infallibility,
probably because he does not want to accept many of the doctrines taught by the
Catholic Church. If they were infallible, but he denied them, he would be signing
his own death warrant. But how can he claim that “those who collected the
Canon” had “infallible guidance” in only one area of the faith but not
in other areas? Where does Scripture, the Church, Tradition, or any other
source, ever even hint of such a single deposit of infallibility? It is only
the musing of one who knows he cannot dogmatically claim that Scripture is
Scripture without infallibility, yet one who does not want to accept the
logical conclusion that if “those who collected the Canon” were granted
infallibility in one important area they would also be granted infallibility in
other important areas. Third, the apologist has not explained how such an
extraordinary event as the intrusion of the Holy Spirit to provide
infallibility took place, and what vehicle He used to accomplish this. Did the
Holy Spirit implant this infallible certitude directly into the minds of
“those” men? Unless he defines the nature of this divine intrusion he simply
has no precedent or right to define its limitations and its recipients. It is
similar to the undefined and ambiguous claim presented by the previous
apologist that we can know the canon because “the sheep hear the voice of the
shepherd.” Fourth, many of “those who collected the Canon” in the first four
centuries of the Church included the Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament,
and it was some of these very fathers who were presiding at the early Councils
who decided that these books were indeed canonical. What the apologist having
to say is that of “those who collected the Canon” the Holy Spirit infallibly
guided only the ones who agreed with the Protestant version of the canon. One
can readily see that this kind of “cut and paste” recounting of ecclesiastical
history is a total distortion of truth, not to mention being illogical. (Robert
A. Sungenis, "Protestant Objections and Catholic Answers" in
Sungenis, ed. Not By Scripture Alone: A
Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura [2d ed.;
Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2013], 193-294, here, pp.
257-58)
Darlington’s
comments, apart from showing how she is inconsistent with Protestant
epistemology and ecclesiology, shows the utter failure and inconsistency
Protestant apologists engage in as a result of holding to, among other things,
the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
For a
listing of previous responses to Darlington’s book, see: