Tuesday, March 8, 2016

The failure of Protestantism to Define the Canon Authoritatively

In a previous post (1 Cor 5:9-10 and the "missing books of the Bible" argument), I wrote the following about Protestantism's failure to give an authoritative answer on contents of the canon (intimately tied into the concept of tota scriptura, an essential building block for sola scriptura):

While acknowledging (correctly) Paul is referencing a letter no longer extant in this text, Calvin engages in special pleading by arguing that God did not allow its preservation in his sovereignty as the extant Pauline letters (and rest of the canon) would “suffice” (be formally sufficient). However, outside his ipse dixit, and fallacious reasoning, he and any other Protestant who holds to, not just sola, but tota scriptura, cannot ever be sure of this.

While it is true that just because a volume is referenced in the Bible does not mean that the biblical authors imputed to it the status of God-breathed scripture, can a Protestant claim with 100% confidence this lost epistle was not inspired by God? If they will argue that if it were, God would have preserved it, then what about the book of Deuteronomy that was lost for years until it was rediscovered in 2 Kgs 22? Furthermore, what about "missing books" which are not secular texts (e.g., annals), but said to have been written by prophets? For instance, in 2 Chron 9:29, we read:

Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, from first to last, are they not written in the history of the prophet Nathan, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of the seer Iddo concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat?

All the descriptions of these prophets and their writings reflect the language of divine inspiration, not merely historical works the biblical authors refer the reader to for further secular information, such as "prophet" (נָבִיא); "prophecy" (נְבוּאָה); "visions" (חֲזוֹת) and "seer" (חֹזֶה). Again, only by engaging in special pleading can a Protestant apologist brush off the "missing books in the Bible" argument for these and similar prophetical/apostolic writings.

I recently came across a very interesting exchange between Daniel McCllelan (“Maklelan”) and Robert M. Bowman on the issue of 2 Tim 3:16-17 and inerrancy. The Protestant failure to provide a meaningful response to the “canon question,” and instead rely on their ipse dixit was really brought out during the initial part of this exchange when McClellan responded to Bowman (Bowman’s comments will be in red; McCllelan’s in blue [emphasis added]):



RB: The doctrine of inerrancy simply affirms that whatever has the status of Scripture is inerrant. If a particular book is Scripture, then that book is inerrant. We disagree on the precise extent of the body of writings that have the status of Scripture. For example, you think the Book of Mormon is Scripture and I do not. The doctrine of inerrancy does not weigh in on this question. What it says, though, is that whatever is Scripture will be inerrant.

Maklelan: But this means that there is no inerrant way to identify scripture. More problematic is the fact that there is no way to know if 2 Tim 3:16 is true or not. You have to presuppose that 2 Timothy is scripture and then presuppose that the modern canon is accepted by scripture (and is thus inerrantly identified as scripture). Until you can find a way to show that 2 Tim 3:16 was written as scripture, and that the scriptures identify which texts are scriptures, your entire doctrine of inerrancy rests on presumption.

RB: Thus, whatever writings we do agree are to be classified as Scripture, we ought to recognize those texts as inerrant.

Maklelan: So now a consensus grants inerrant status to each text? How can we be sure this consensus is inerrant? Must we again just presuppose it to be so?

RB: This is the evangelical view; I realize of course that Mormons do not view any scripture as inerrant.



Maklelan: I contend that this view is methodologically indefensible.