Alright, I fear I must not have communicated what I was trying to communicate. Let me restate the argument I think you made that I was replying to, to make sure I understood what you were saying; then I’ll restate how I was trying to answer that argument, I’ll hopefully be more succinct and better organized this go round, and then try to answer your last reply:—
I understood your previous argument to be: Like science, the methodology used in formulating the canon is self-apparent and does not need an outside authority to be validated.
I said that ¶① the parts of science that validate it, experiential reference, though a part of science, are independent and pre-exist science, and that I don’t see a similar aspect in the method used for canonization that would make said method its own authority (to quote Lewis: “the urge to itch when I scratch.” Science deals with that sort of thing and therefore doesn’t need to argue what never wants an argument). ¶② I also said, science can be tested by experiment but canonization cannot. (You did address this point. I’ll address your addressing.) ¶③ Treating the canonization process as some sort of computation opens the door to certain uncomfortable (not dispositive) conclusions. ¶④ I wrote a rambling paragraph that can be read as self-contradictory, but I think a more generous reading might have brought out its meaning; I will try to rework it in as clinical a way as I can to eschew poor language on my part (but it won’t be much fun reading or writing for that matter): ④⒜ Reason is always an afterthought. ④⒝ You can go back and see the reasoning behind the canon, but you cannot show the reasoning before the canon. i.e., there was a lot of reasoning and counter-reasoning, that is, there was an argument over which reasoning would prevail; many of those reasons which did not prevail were reasonable and, ④⒞ (which wasn’t explicit) had they erred, we could not know because the error would have been a reasonable error (e.g. I can see plenty of reasons why books like Revelation would be thrown out; if it wasn’t for tradition, for the Church, I’d probably not have given it the time of day). ④⒟ Had there not been some overarching authority, each church would have simply had its own NT, obviously sharing most books, but having discrepancies. ∴¶⑤ We do not get the canon from method but from the Church at points using method and reasoning (and as I said somewhere before, even if we did get the Bible through some pure act of method, I do not see why that method must be accepted). ¶⑥ We see this problem even within the metaphor of the scientific method, as it must, in the last, rely upon some governing bodies as churches rely upon the Church.
So, I took your last arguments to be: α. You can recreate the canonization process. β. I contradicted myself (I hope I addressed the apparent/semantic contradiction in my rewrite). γ. The church is not the Church.
Alright, so I think my rewriting of ¶④ hopefully gives you my answer to your point α. As far as γ goes, however, that isn’t really to the point of what we’re talking about, is it? As such, maybe I should ask a favor from you. I hope I can call you my brother in Christ; though one of us is or both are wrong, I fear you are behaving in an unchristian way. Please look over this whole thread. Who is sidetracking with points about other issues? With uncharitable asides? With provoking assertions?
I have a great love and respect for my Protestant upbringing, my family, friends, and teachers; it was, in part, taking a Text & Canon class while in Protestant seminary that led me to realize that, at the end of the day, I either had to accept that the Church was the means by which I had the NT, or say that there was no reason at all why these books were the Bible. This gets back to what I’m going to assume was one of my more infuriating points, ④⒜.
Reason can only work from something; it is never itself the ground floor. God gave us the NT. All Christians should agree. History records it being given through the means of the Church, not as the result of some overwhelming work of logic or method that anyone could do, but as the result of a community, the leadership of that community, the authority that leadership had, what we call the Church. This doesn’t even have to be the Catholic Church at this point in the debate. I happen to believe the Catholic Church has the best argument of being just that, the universal Church. However, the point that Catholics make is catholic: the means by which God gave us the Bible was not earthly reason, not methodology, but by something very much like a religious body with authority to make a ruling, a ruling that existed inside that community, a self-reflective act on what was already being done, but an act that was part corrective upon the thinking and methods of individuals. There was method, I think we both see that, but it wasn’t purely method; there had to be some overarching Logos to answer the many reasonable methods good Christians wrongly proposed. It was more an act of the Spirit of God, not the mind of man, though both worked together. It was the Head speaking and ordering the body. It had the fullness of the Trinity to it, and if you make it purely method, which I don’t think is really necessary for Protestants, I fear you are breaking up that Trinity we both adore.
I had hoped to be succinct. I failed utterly. Forgive me, and forgive me if I do not reread this horribly long post for the umpteenth time. I’m tired, sick with pneumonia, and I just want to finish the book I was reading. I fear I am a selfish man in the end. I will err. I will misspeak. I’m sure a typo has gotten past, which again is more a threat to my pride than my love for my fellow man, my fellow Christian, one with whom I hope to spend eternity with in Heaven. Please try to see my meaning and look past my faults. God love you.
