Hello everyone!
Two things I need to do. First of all, I need to say what it means when I say that something is self-authenticating, and second, I need to post some quotes from the patristic writers in support of the formal sufficiency and perspecuity of scripture.
I read the link you provided, and this is not something clear to me as a lay person. You have to go to other authorities to illustrate this which is not really self attesting to the scripture itself. As a person just picking up the Bible none of this stuff you posted is apparent to me. So I have to trust someone else to validate it as scripture to me. The Church does this logically or do I have to rely on Martin Luther circa 1500’s?
I have to trust this, or Martin Luther to determine the canon of scripture for me. This kinda runs counter to the thought that Jesus Christ founded a Church that determined the canon of scripture.
How did Martin Luther get the authority to make his own doctrine of sola scriptura? If I made a doctrine of sola new testament would you follow me?
First of all, what do I mean when I say something is self-authenticating. Let’s go back to the argument I made of infinite regression. I said that the only way to avoid the infinite regression is if you use the idea of a self-authenticating authority. Of course, that is the only way to escape the infinitely regressive arguments of scepticism. Let us start with a specific Bible verse:
**
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22
Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23
and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.**
Notice that when you do not honor God as God and replace him with things in the form of corruptible man, you are foolish in your reasoning. I want to now bring these two together, and show what I mean when I say the the Bible is self-authenticating. Notice, that when you reject that which is divine and refuse to accept what it is, you will be foolish in your reasoning. We also recognize this because when we do not have a self-authenticating authority, we are reduced to skepticism. Obviously, if someone comes along and says that we cannot know anything, then you have to ask how you know that you cannot know anything. Of course, this is because all knowledge is contained in Christ. As the scripture says:
Colossians 2:2-3 that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and *attaining *to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, *resulting *in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Obviously, then we can say that whatever is our ultimate authority, that is, speaking with the authority of Christ, will cause us to be coherent in our reasoning of history and logic. Hence, if something else is put in as the ultimate authority *, we are reduced to absurdity. You see, scylla, the reason we know that the 27 books are in the canon is because of the fact that when you reject them you have no way of consistently looking at the information you looked at. You are reduced to an absurd view of history and textual data. How could we then cogently look at any fact? Notice that if this is the case, there is no way to understand any fact. We would be reduced to complete absurdity. Hence, the canon has been established, yes, from the scriptures themselves, because you become absurd in your view of reasoning and history if you reject them. You see, it is not the evidence that has authority over the scriptures, it is the scriptures that have authority of the evidence, as those scriptures say. The evidence is true because the scriptures are true. When you remove the ultimate authority, the information becomes totally absurd and incoherent.
Now for some quotes and discussion from church history:
[continued]*
. I will have to type all of that out again:banghead:. There is no way I am going to be able to type all of that up again tonight. I will have to type it up tomorrow. That is too bad because I have alot of them.