Competition
Another thought sparked by the Waltke lecture: historical criticism seeks to establish a new authoratitive canon defining *what really happened* in competition with the Bible books. And the new canon is of course *at least* as open to deconstruction as the old. Question is, how do we (or an outsider) decide between them? Where do we Christians get the authority to say the old canon is true?
tough question. one of the big ones.
How about this:
The Spirit guides the Church. You have to have faith that the synods which settled the canon made good decisions, or at least decisions which ensured that every necessary bit is contained in what we have. Otherwise, God in his providence would have ensured that the decisions made were struck down or amended or something, so that Christ’s body would have God’s Word in tact.
That wee word ‘true’ is doing an awful lot of work, depending on what is assumed by it.
Seems to me that the place of the bible is in its use by the Spirit to anchor/guide/inspire the people that He shapes into a God-like body. That’s inseperable from the way that God’s appointed spokesmen (the apostles) gave original witness/breath to Christ and the appropriate response to Him. Which of course, forms much of our New Testament.
So. Either the bible is written by those spokesmen, or not. If it is, then it is authoratative for its purpose – to shape that people of the Spirit.
Revisions are not by the spokesmen; hence, they have no authority.
i’m not really sure i understand.
perhaps the ‘truth’ of the nt is kind of taken as a given, presuppositionally like.
perhaps (as some people say) (i really can’t say speak intelligently on this thesis) the nt canon just presented itself / was obvious. although that idea seems to clash with matt’s historical critics.
yeah I reckon that ‘obvious’ idea’s pretty much rubbish. There have been arguments over what was in & out forever. ‘Obvious’ in in the eye of the beholder.
My point about ‘truth’ is that authority inheres in persons (the apostles), not in the way that a letter matches some idea of ours about what constitutes ‘truth’.
Truth and authority aren’t opposed, of course, but it’s much easier to see the authority of an appointment to be an apostle, and far harder to get our ideas of what constitutes ‘truth’ correct.
So, I’m simply making the point that the criterion for biblical authority should be in the persons, not in the philosophy. That’s where we get the answer to Matt’s question.
Let me put it another way. I don’t want to oppose either truth and authority, or truth and persons. I happen to think that truth is both personal (that is, exists in and comes from persons (God/Jesus being the prime example)) and authoritative.
The church, for instance, is said to be the pillar and ground of the truth. That is, we the church are the personal witness to and embodiment of God’s faithfulness: we manifest the reliability of His speaking/word/covenant promises. Or at least, we should.
What I am saying truth is *not* is some kind of abstract philosophy that can exist apart from persons. God does not match up to truth, he is truth. He is utterly dependable, completely trustworthy. And we, as his images, bear authority and truth insofar as we are like Him.
So, my answer to Matt’s question is “don’t be misled by that word ‘truth’. Instead, remember that the canon has authority because it was written by the Spirit-filled spokesmen God appointed, and for that reason is both true and authoritative. Now, having got that right, match your ideas of ‘truth’ to it (rather than the other way around)”.
I agree (now that I understand) with 6…I think.
i was under the [perhaps mistaken] impression that the posited alternative canon mentioned by matt includes stuff that is supposed to be written by apostles. eg: the gospels of thomas and peter. so issues of apostolic authority aren’t really at stake. what is at stake is the veracity of the accounts/epistles/sources in question.
if i am wrong and matt isn’t actually talking about these kinds of sources, then sorry. but incidentally, regardless of what was intended by matt, his post highlights the issues associated with those sources.
hmmm – richief I suggest that ‘supposed to be’ is the whole debate. The reason that Thomas, at least, is not canonical is that it’s not actually by Thomas. So issues of apostolic authority are at stake.
I don’t know about Peter.
It would be interesting to find a work known to be by an apostle but denied canonical status. I suggest such a thing doesn’t exist.
well if the issue boils down to the authenticity of the sources then fine. and i agree that many of the documents seem dubious.
a lot of what we do have in the nt is not written by apostles, however (eg: jude, luke, mark, [and maybe james?]). and also there is the nt apocrypha which are a bunch of writings which seem to be sort of ok and were accepted by the early church. not sure about the authors but i think some might be purported to be written by apostles. and i think one is by barnabas.
My axiom is: Internal witness of the Holy Spirit.
Most of the histories and criticism I have read asserts that the Apocryphal books were rejected by the early church as having dubious origin, uncertain authorship and the fact that most were written a great deal later than the books in the NT.
Doug Wilson is very good on the canon and Sola Scriptura. In a book about hyperpreterism he makes some excellent points. First, that the church has authority, delegated by God. Second, that this authority is not predicated on infallibility. Third, that knowing that the church is fallible does not mean that she is always wrong. He notes that an admittedly fallible church has produced an infallible creed, the table of contents in the front of the Bible. This is a process that has been guided by the Holy Spirit down the ages. He makes the observation that we have a unity with the ancient jews and our protestant forbears in rejecting, for example, Bel and the Dragon. The Bible is not the “Book that fell from the sky” but God’s infallible word preserved by His Church, “the pillar and ground of the truth”
All your comments are interesting, cheers, but the point I was intending to make in my post was bit different than that addressed in your replies. I mean that historical/textual critics write their own books explaining ‘how it really was’, filtering out what they can’t accept from the original canon, trying to ‘get behind’/demythologise the scriptural stories to the shadowy events that lie behind them. The new canon I mentioned is the collection of the critics’ works. And I’m saying their works are even more open to deconstruction than the original books. Does that make sense?
Brian Walsh’s article Regimes of Truth and the Rhetoric of Deceit: Colossians 2 in Postmodern Context is worthwhile reading in this context, an in my view answers my question.
Yes, are totally open to deconstruction in fact. “Scholarship is now so good that we can speak better New Testament Greek than the authors of the Bible could write and we know more about ANE culture than the people who lived then” Tui ad.
Sorry Matthew, I agree, I just thought that was sorta obvious. Whoops!
Hans, you used Sola Scriptura. Prepare for Aaron’s wrath!
pfff