Your point exposes your misunderstanding of the methodology of the magisterium.
The bible was not formally canonized for over 300 years after Christ.
Does this in any way make the canon less true?
There was debate, discussion, study, and prayer regarding the canon.
We believe that the Church was ultimately led by the Holy Spirit into truth with regard to the selection of the Canon.
Why wouldn’t this be the case for many other issues of faith and morals?
This was an interesting post, thanks for giving me a reply I had to ponder a bit.
Instinctively I knew there was a difference between the situations, but it took me a bit to clarify the difference in my head. It’s going to take a bit of typing on my part to explain it so please bear with me.
When discussing the Canon and the books it contains we are talking about something concrete and material as opposed to a belief or practice. There is substantial evidence of how various local churches used the books and which were and weren’t accepted in a region prior to the council where the Canon was recognized. (for an easy to read collection and survey of this evidence, I’d recommend
The Canon by F.F. Bruce-a great read by an Anglican scholar, whose facts aren’t open to dispute regardless of whether one agrees with his conclusions or not).
Thus in discussing the Canon and early churches we find statements like “Some of the churches in Asia Minor accepted some of the books in the current canon” or “ECF
x rejected book
y as inspired” or “The Canon adopted by local Council
x contained most of the books in the current Canon but also accepted the spurious books
y and
z”. This information is derived from epistles, theological treatises, council decisions and lectionaries-there’s a relative wealth of information on the topic compared to other beliefs simply because of the concrete nature of Scriptural texts-either churches had them and read them or they didn’t.
Given the clearly documented diversity of practice in the early church one doesn’t find many apologists trying to prove the “rightness” of the Canon by appealing to this documentary evidence. The popularity/acceptance of individual books can be demonstrated, but since the Canon
per se didn’t exist, it can’t be “proved” in that sense.
OTOH, when someone provides an ECF quote on a belief or practice (which are a good deal scarcer than references to Scripture and the use of it in the church), this is frequently deemed to prove “The Early Church believed this”. What it actually proves is that the writer in question believed it.
It also demonstrates that one or more individuals found it useful to keep a copy of that text for future reference. It comes as little surprise that more texts were preserved over the years that agreed with what the later church was teaching. One is less likely to keep texts that one disagrees with or considers “wrong”.
This brings us back to my assertion, that using the ECF’s to demonstrate the historicity of a currently held belief and then use the list of currently held beliefs to validate writings from the ECF period begs the question. If one tries to prove both, one proves neither.
Either one can prove:
a) a belief currently held as correct today is similar to a belief that one or more individuals in the Early Church held; or
b) a particular statement/writing/declaration by a particular ECF would/would not be considered orthodox by today’s standards.
You can prove one or the other, but not both at the same time.
Thoughts?
