Protestantism and Divine Inspiration

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SextusEmpiricus

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Regarding the canon, how do Protestants determine whether a book is divinely inspired? For Catholics, the question seems to be answered rather easily (i.e., the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, infallible Councils, etc.). But I understand that Protestants do not hold to such ideas. Given the principle of causality, if the Protestant canon is infallible, then are Protestants also infallible such that they can determine what is divinely inspired and what is not?

Thank you for your response.
 
SextusEmpiricus said:
Regarding the canon, how do Protestants determine whether a book is divinely inspired? For Catholics, the question seems to be answered rather easily (i.e., the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, infallible Councils, etc.). But I understand that Protestants do not hold to such ideas. Given the principle of causality, if the Protestant canon is infallible, then are Protestants also infallible such that they can determine what is divinely inspired and what is not?

Thank you for your response.
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The canon isn’t defined by the Church, but rather discovered by it. The primary characteristics (as we see the RCC use), are found in 2 Peter 1:16-21.
 
Muze said:
The canon isn’t defined by the Church, but rather discovered by it. The primary characteristics (as we see the RCC use), are found in 2 Peter 1:16-21.
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Thank you for your response. But I’m not sure what this means: “The canon isn’t defined by the Church, but rather discovered by it.”

Thank you for clarifying.
 
Muze said:
The canon isn’t defined by the Church, but rather discovered by it. The primary characteristics (as we see the RCC use), are found in 2 Peter 1:16-21.
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Can you comment further then on how Protestants discover the Canon?
 
SextusEmpiricus said:
Thank you for your response. But I’m not sure what this means: “The canon isn’t defined by the Church, but rather discovered by it.”

Thank you for clarifying.
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The canon of God’s word is defined by God. The Church’s role isn’t to determine for God what is contained in His word, but rather to discover the writings that are part of it based upon what He tells us.
 
Muze said:
The canon of God’s word is defined by God. The Church’s role isn’t to determine for God what is contained in His word, but rather to discover the writings that are part of it based upon what He tells us.
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Did the pre-Reformation Church misunderstand God when He spoke to Her about the canon?

Thank you for the discussion.
 
SextusEmpiricus said:
Did the pre-Reformation Church misunderstand God when He spoke to Her about the canon?

Thank you for the discussion.
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Depends on which standard you accept. Athanasius’ Easter Letter specifies the Protestant canon, as does the council of Laodicea. The additional books were added later.

So, the early church seems to have been more in line with the Protestants, with the current RCC canon only being official after 393.

Also, the Eastern and Oriental traditions don’t line up either with the RCC or protestants.
 
Muze said:
Depends on which standard you accept. Athanasius’ Easter Letter specifies the Protestant canon, as does the council of Laodicea. The additional books were added later.

So, the early church seems to have been more in line with the Protestants, with the current RCC canon only being official after 393.

Also, the Eastern and Oriental traditions don’t line up either with the RCC or protestants.
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Interesting. I thought the early Christians looked to many different books and letters as divinely inspired (e.g., Letters from Clement, etc.). So it seems that if one were to be consistent with early Christianity then those books/letters would be taken into account - certainly the deuterocanonical books, anyway.

But getting back to my question - did Reformation leaders infallibly determine the canon?
 
SextusEmpiricus said:
Interesting. I thought the early Christians looked to many different books and letters as divinely inspired (e.g., Letters from Clement, etc.). So it seems that if one were to be consistent with early Christianity then those books/letters would be taken into account - certainly the deuterocanonical books, anyway.

But getting back to my question - did Reformation leaders infallibly determine the canon?
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I would say that they returned to the early church’s definition of the canon with Anthanasius and Laodicea. I guess it’s up to the RCC to determine whether they were in error before 393 or after.
 
Muze said:
I would say that they returned to the early church’s definition of the canon with Anthanasius and Laodicea. I guess it’s up to the RCC to determine whether they were in error before 393 or after.
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Sure - we’ll let the Catholics figure that out. But what about Protestants? What was the Protestant council that determined the canon, and was it infallible?
 
SextusEmpiricus said:
did Reformation leaders infallibly determine the canon? …] What was the Protestant council that determined the canon, and was it infallible?
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You can’t say “Catholics” and then “Protestants” as if those terms could refer to the same basic thing.

“Catholics” refers to a very well-defined structure persistent through twenty centuries.

“Protestant” refers to a conglomerate of autonomous, independent communities born after the XVI Century, which follow doctrines that radically differ on essential points although they agree on basic points (which the Church condemns as erroneous) such as the principles of sola fide (ex. fiduciary faith, imputed righteousness), sola scriptura, and that the Catholic Church is not right. The primary or originary groups could be perhaps the Lutheran and the Calvinist. It is the people from whom the group takes the name that determined those things (for instance, removal of books from the Bible, etc.) There can be no such thing as a council within protestantism, first because the very concept of authority and hierarchy is absent (or very vaguely present), second because it would be literally not possible to establish how many non-Catholic Christian denominations are in existence, contact their leaders, and gather for the purpose of making a decision they would all agree with (assuming they’d even accept the idea in first place). The closest thing to this is the World Council of Churches including 349 ecclesial communities which claim to collectively represent some 590 million people - and that is 349 out of at least 41000 denominations.

The most one can do is accept out of whatever reason the Luther Canon or the Geneva Bible canon, ignoring the process that led through the centuries to the acceptance of the Canon of Sacred Scripture as the Catholic Church keeps it - see here for an overview.
 
Muze said:
I would say that they returned to the early church’s definition of the canon with Anthanasius and Laodicea.
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I’m surprised you think Laodicea supports the Protestant canon, since it leaves off Revelation.

And then there’s the much larger question, for a different thread perhaps: does Protestantism also accept all other Church teaching up to the point of that council (~360 AD)?
 
snarflemike said:
I’m surprised you think Laodicea supports the Protestant canon, since it leaves off Revelation.

And then there’s the much larger question, for a different thread perhaps: does Protestantism also accept all other Church teaching up to the point of that council (~360 AD)?
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I suppose that depends on which Protestant tradition you’re referring to. I’m not a Calvinist, so I find a lot in common with the pre-Augustine church fathers. Certainly protestants generally embrace Nicea.
 
Muze said:
So, the early church seems to have been more in line with the Protestants, with the current RCC canon only being official after 393.
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Erroneous. While the canon may not have been officially defined until a later time, the Church has always used the full canon of scripture. Jesus, the Apostles and the early Church Fathers all quoted extensively from the Septuagint, which includes the deuterocanonical books. See HERE for more.

Also, as someone else already pointed out, it is surprising that you would look to the Council of Laodicea as authority. First because it is doubtful that the 60th canon, which lists the books of the Bible, is authentic. See HERE and HERE. Second, even if the listing of Scripture is authentic, it leaves off Revelation (which all Christians accept as divinely inspired) and includes Baruch (which protestants reject). So if it leaves out a book that all Christians today accept, its reliability regarding the remaining canon is brought into question.

Finally, if you accept the Council of Laodicea’s list of scriptural canon as authoritative, then you would also have to accept the other canons adopted by the council as well, which include support for the Catholic concepts of the sacrament of reconciliation (Canon 2), anointing with holy oils (Canon 7), implied acceptance of baptism as necessary for salvation (Canons 8 & 48), Recognition of Church hierarchy comprised of metropolitans (archbishops), bishops, and priests and organized into dioceses (Canons 12-14), daily praying of the Liturgy of the Hours (Canon 18), and the observance of Lent (Canon 45). I fail to see how these other topics addressed by the council (or more correctly the synod) are more in line with Protestantism than with Catholicism.
 
Muze said:
Laodicea with Athanasius Easter letter.
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The above is an evasive answer. Neither were Protestant and neither infallible. Athanasius’ letter simply was the first list of NT books to include all the current NT books and only the current NT books.

Protestants do not have an infallible canon.

And I find it odd that while many Protestants have called the RCC a pagan religion, and the pope the whore of Babylon, they nevertheless take the holy book of this false religion and from it try to construct a true religion! Doesn’t make sense to me.
 
Muze said:
The canon of God’s word is defined by God. The Church’s role isn’t to determine for God what is contained in His word, but rather to discover the writings that are part of it based upon what He tells us.
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Right, the canon of God’s word is defined by God. And the Church does not do it “for” God, but God does it for us through and by means of the Church. That is, God guided the Church to decide which of the early writings composed by her members were inspired, and to be used in the liturgical readings, and which were not. The writings were not ‘discovered’; they were already known.

Yes, God tells us, not individually which seems to be the implication of the above reply, but through the Church.
 
mackbrislawn said:
The above is an evasive answer. Neither were Protestant and neither infallible. Athanasius’ letter simply was the first list of NT books to include all the current NT books and only the current NT books.

Protestants do not have an infallible canon.
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Neither do Catholics, so I guess we’re even.
And I find it odd that while many Protestants have called the RCC a pagan religion, and the pope the whore of Babylon, they nevertheless take the holy book of this false religion and from it try to construct a true religion! Doesn’t make sense to me.
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You’re right, that doesn’t makes sense. I do consider the RCC to be Christian and an important part of Church history.
 
Muze said:
Neither do Catholics, so I guess we’re even.

You’re right, that doesn’t makes sense. I do consider the RCC to be Christian and an important part of Church history.
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Trent was the infallible council for Catholics; the earlier councils were local but had been generally accepted anyway.
 
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