# Canon: Fallible Collection of Infallible Books



## Justified (Apr 13, 2016)

Would it be correct to state the canon as a fallible collection of infallible books? If not, how should we think of the canon in this regard?


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## Peairtach (Apr 13, 2016)

An infallible collection of infallible books. These are the 66 books the Lord inspired and wanted in His Book.

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk


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## Justified (Apr 13, 2016)

What is the mechanism for the church recognizing the true canon? My sheep hear my voice? Why have some modern theologians used the former expression "fallible collection of infallible books?" Is this a more modern innovation?


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## rickclayfan (Apr 13, 2016)

"A fallible collection of infallible books" implies that the Bible we typically read today (66 books) is incomplete and that infallible writings can be found elsewhere. This is contrary to historic Reformed belief.


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## Andres (Apr 13, 2016)

rickclayfan said:


> "A fallible collection of infallible books" implies that the Bible we typically read today (66 books) is incomplete and that infallible writings can be found elsewhere. This is contrary to historic Reformed belief.



Correct. This would open up to many issues if one asserts that traditional 66 book canon is somehow incomplete. Apocryphal works could be added, which include heresies, but it would also give Charismatic/Pentecostals support for their erroneous belief that God is still giving "fresh" revelation today.


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## Justified (Apr 13, 2016)

Thanks. I was simply stating what I've been told RC Sproul has said on the matter. It struck me as suspicious.


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## Wayne (Apr 13, 2016)

Doesn't sound like something he would say. Always require a citation that you can then look up yourself to confirm. 

The Church did not_ decide_ which books were to be in the canon; the Church simply _recognized_ those books which are infallible.


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## Justified (Apr 13, 2016)

Wayne said:


> Doesn't sound like something he would say. Always require a citation that you can then look up yourself to confirm.
> 
> The Church did not_ decide_ which books were to be in the canon; the Church simply _recognized_ those books which are infallible.


"The historic Protestant position shared by Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and so on, has been that the canon of Scripture is a fallible collection of infallible books."

See rest here: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/qas/we-talk-bible-being-inspired-word-god-would-men-wh/


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## timfost (Apr 13, 2016)

> All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness... (2 Timothy 3:16)



Paul _not having the autographa_ sheds a lot of light on the issue.

Concerning the canon, Christ referred to the scriptures, which could have only been a reference to the 39 books considered by the Jews to be inspired.

This could only possibly leave some of the NT in question, though I'm certainly not questioning it. Peter regarded Paul's writings as scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16) and Paul regarded Luke's writings as the same (1 Timothy 5:18 and Luke 10:7). 

Someone may be able to state a case for Jude and James better than I'm able to at this time.

Hope this helps...


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## rickclayfan (Apr 13, 2016)

Looking at the site, I see they are trying to approach the matter from a different perspective. They are trying to subvert the doctrine of the Church as held by Rome. However, they dangerously asserted that a fallible canon entails as a result. I believe they have misconceived the issue. The Bible does not depend on the Church; instead, the Church depends on the Bible. As was mentioned above: "The Church did not _decide _which books were to be in the canon; the Church simply _recognized _those books which are infallible."


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## Andres (Apr 13, 2016)

Justified said:


> Wayne said:
> 
> 
> > Doesn't sound like something he would say. Always require a citation that you can then look up yourself to confirm.
> ...



Thank you for the link, Evan. It is now Dr Sproul who seems to be in need of a reference to back his rather broad claim. I dont think you can get much more "historic Protestant position" than the Westminster Confession of Faith and WCF 1.2 plainly asserts the Holy Scripture, or the Word of God are contained in the 66 book traditional canon.


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## Whitefield (Apr 13, 2016)

Belgic Confession (1561) Article 5.


> We receive all these books, and these only, as holy and canonical, for the regulation, foundation, and conformation of our faith; believing without any doubt, all things contained in them, not so much because the Church receives and approves them as such, but more especially because the Holy Ghost witnesses in our hearts, that they are from God, whereof they carry the evidence in themselves. For the very blind are able to perceive that the things foretold in them are fulfilling.


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## Christusregnat (Apr 14, 2016)

If I am not mistaken, I believe that the Westminster Confession of Faith has the divine preservation of the text of Scripture in mind in chapter 1, paragraph 8. If so, then providence and its singular care could not be termed "fallible."


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## MW (Apr 14, 2016)

A fallible infallible -- I will put that in my collection of square circles.


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## Justified (Apr 14, 2016)

MW said:


> A fallible infallible -- I will put that in my collection of square circles.


While I am sympathetic to your sentiment (in fact agree), my guess is his thinking is that while the scriptures are themselves infallible, we _could_ be wrong about what constitutes the scriptures.

My guess is this theological backpedaling is the result of the enlightenment.


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## MW (Apr 14, 2016)

Justified said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> > A fallible infallible -- I will put that in my collection of square circles.
> ...



At the point he says the Scriptures are themselves infallible he is claiming to know an infallible truth. Why does he stand on an infallible truth at that point but not at a later point? Why does fallibility affect his judgment later but not earlier?


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## Contra_Mundum (Apr 14, 2016)

I detect some subtle equivocation in the meanings of fallible/infallible; and it does pertain to the counter-RC bent of the phrasing.

The word _infallible_ seems to be used respecting the *contents* of the Bible, this book and that book. Each one is "without error," and in consequence Scripture as a whole, single book (library) should be reckoned entirely without error.

Equivocation comes, then, in the use of _fallible_. The use in this case seems to be predicated of the *people* answering the question, "Which book (or library) is without error?" Some men of the church (early or late) have either included or excluded books which are not the universally admitted (there I've made an equivocation on the term _universally,_ because it is not a term properly used in any relative sense).

The equivocation is detectable in this: the case of the whole, single infallible library is undermined. An "incomplete" library is an error (of one kind); the inclusion of a book with error in the library is an error (of another kind); and there can be combination of both tendencies.

The original phrasing of fallible/infallible may be neat, but the result confusing. It seems to say the _collection_ is of indeterminate quality.


As to the Reformation. To oppose Rome's claims of papal and institutional authority and the putative authority of apocryphal books, churches of the Reformation _*listened*_ once again for the voice of God, "the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture," WCF 1:10. This they maintained was detectable in the 66 books of the Bible, all of them, and them alone--which conviction is also the witness of the historic church. WCF ch.1 witnesses to the fullness and the limit of the canon.

Rome deviates from that historic conviction by imbuing apocryphal books with authority, the same that it claims to have done with the 66 admitted books. They assert the _infallibility_ of the Bible is derived from HER OWN infallibility.

Luther (it is sometimes claimed) doubted that the voice of the Holy Spirit was detectable in the book of James. Whatever his intermediate opinion was, in the end he questioned his own "hearing" rather than the "ears" of the vast majority of the church. Luther never expunged James from the German Bible he was greatly responsible for producing.

Even to identify James as an "epistle of straw," and to doubt at some point it had real gospel-savor, proves the _fallibility_ of Luther. If there had been a German NT without the book of James, that would have been an incomplete--and for that reason deficient--Bible. If there were other Reformers who doubted this or that NT book as it was once again listened to for authenticity, or thought of approving some OT apocryphal book or spurious epistle, the error belonged to them.


But there is an important lesson here, I think, for us in our time and Christians in all times. "We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture," WCF 1:5, start. This is how most of us believe the Bible in our hands; it is the historic Bible, the church's Bible. No one should discount this weighty testimony; and everyone should know how Rome has corrupted that witness, and on what pretend authority she did so.

But, "our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts," WCF 1:5, end. We should be listening, using our error-prone ears, to the transmission of divine truth to our hearts, using the reliable channel of the Holy Scripture. You may be susceptible to error, but God has made you a sufficiently reliable receiver of his Word so that you may trust him and the Word that comes to you from him.

"My sheep hear my voice," "and they will listen to my voice," "I know my sheep, and they know me," Jn.10:27, 16, 14. If you are Christ's lamb, you will hear your good Shepherd in the Book he has supplied you, for which you may thank him for preserving it and making it so plentiful.


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## Jake (Apr 14, 2016)

Contra_Mundum said:


> As to the Reformation. To oppose Rome's claims of papal and institutional authority and the putative authority of apocryphal books, churches of the Reformation _*listened*_ once again for the voice of God, "the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture," WCF 1:10. This they maintained was detectable in the 66 books of the Bible, all of them, and them alone--which conviction is also the witness of the historic church. WCF ch.1 witnesses to the fullness and the limit of the canon.



I'm not sure it can be said exactly to be that the 66 books of the Protestant Canon were the witness of the historic church. I've looked at as many different lists of canon as I can find, and there seem to be few times where we can undoubtedly say that the 66 books (as we number them, taking into account different combinations and such of books in the Old Testament) exactly matched with the earlier church. It seemed there was a time of trying to ascertain the New Testament for a few centuries, and you find some rather late lists where books like Revelation, Jude, II John, and III John didn't make it in. And with the OT, it seems that there was still disputes about a couple of books like Esther and Song of Solomon, which also didn't appear in other cannon lists of the church as consistently. By the time the New Testament was agreed upon, it started to be more common to see lists and references as Scripture to books from the intertestamental period (i.e., apocryphal or deuterocanonical books). It seemed like it wasn't until the Calvinist branch of the Reformation (since Luther made challenges as did the Anabaptists) that the precise 66 books we have today was more agreed upon in the church, starting with the Belgic confession. 

I found a few rather close lists in the first 5 centuries, like Athanasius, but he still regarded Esther as non-canonical.

I'd love to find more clarity here, just been trying to look at what source documents I can find, being admittedly ignorant.


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## Contra_Mundum (Apr 14, 2016)

I didn't claim that the church's witness was uniform from day one. I even disclaimed an unaccommodated definition of "universally." Canon formation and acceptation was, at some level, a process. It took time for authoritatively accepted writings to migrate across the Roman world, into which Christianity was birthed.

But nearly all the books the church has accepted as inspired and authoritative have been accepted for by far the greater portion of time since the Apostles' days. The consensus of the mind of the church congealed on the 27 books we are familiar with within the patristic era, and has remained unchanged.

It's quibbling at the edges of much greater consistency, and that at the very outset of the NT age, to say that the historic witness of the church is doubtful. The Reformers could appeal to the church's historic attitude precisely because there was a history to look at.

As for the OT, doubts of the consistency of pre-NT Judaism toward its own religiously authoritative literature are of late manufacture. Liberals like to tout Jamina (some late rabbinic conclave of post-A.D.70 time) as evidence that the Jewish Bible was still in a fluid state of canon as late as the NT age. This, in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary.

As to how particular church fathers or others regarded the OT source, there may be several reasons for discrepancies; including that the Gk translation of the OT (LXX) had additional writings appended and inserted, and which elements were and weren't of truly prophetic origin was not always understood. What did Jesus and the Apostles consider the authoritative OT? That much seems fairly clear from the NT writings, and is supported by the limits of the Hebrew/Aramaic text.

Canon is an interesting historical investigation. But confining the church's "historic" position to only the final quarter of the NT age (since 1500s) is unduly concessive to the skeptical/critical crew.


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## Semper Fidelis (Apr 14, 2016)

I've heard R.C. use this language a number of times. I don't think I would put it this way but try to keep in mind what he is actually trying to express.

Inerrant and infallible are actually two different things. Inerrant expresses that something is without error. I have gotten 100% on many math tests. My test answers were inerrant.

Related, but distinct, is infallible which means that there is no capacity for error. While I have been inerrant in certain tests, I can assure you that I am fallible.

When you ask the Roman Catholic Church _why_ the selected books are in the Canon is is because the Church is infallible and, by its nature, is incapable of erring in the selection of books for inclusion in the Canon.

The confidence that the Canon is the Canon is because one has confidence in the Church's inability to err.

That is what R.C. means when he states that the RCC believes they have an infallible collection of infallible books.

The books are not only incapable of error but the Church who declared that a book was canonical was also incapable of error.

We might be better off saying as Protestants that the Church was inerrant in her collection of infallible books.

Why?

Not because the Church is incapable of error but that God, by His special care and providence, kept the Church from error. We don't believe that the Church has some inherent capacity to be infallible or that the Lord has promised that the Church would never err.

If we understand that what R.C. means by "infallible collection" is that he is trying to say "the Church that collected the books was capable of error" then that is what he's driving at. He's not saying that the Church actually made an error.

In fact, the Roman Catholic Church has an errant collection of works she has declared Canonical. Some books are infallible but others are not. Her ecclesiastical arrogance is a symptom of her inability to hear the voice of the Shepherd because she prefers her own.


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## MW (Apr 14, 2016)

In the very nature of the thing you could not possess an infallible book from the past without an infallible process which ensures the preservation of that book into the present. Inerrancy as a fact is limited to the human level; but any claim to infallibility is necessarily claiming a divine work. To say you have an infallible book in your hands which was written in the past is to say that God has infallibly preserved it to the present.


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## Semper Fidelis (Apr 14, 2016)

MW said:


> In the very nature of the thing you could not possess an infallible book from the past without an infallible process which ensures the preservation of that book into the present. Inerrancy as a fact is limited to the human level; but any claim to infallibility is necessarily claiming a divine work. To say you have an infallible book in your hands which was written in the past is to say that God has infallibly preserved it to the present.



I agree with that. I'm only noting that the Church, as such, is not in herself infallible. The way the RCC views itself it places confidence in the selection of Canon within her nature as being unable to err. I defend the the idea that we can be certain that God has infallibly preserved the Canon without saying the the Church herself must have the quality of being infallible.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Apr 14, 2016)

Jake said:


> I'd love to find more clarity here, just been trying to look at what source documents I can find, being admittedly ignorant.


Origen has been argued to have preceded Athanasius's list of the 27 books of the NT:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/05/twenty-seven-book-new-testament-before.html


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## MW (Apr 14, 2016)

Semper Fidelis said:


> I agree with that. I'm only noting that the Church, as such, is not in herself infallible. The way the RCC views itself it places confidence in the selection of Canon within her nature as being unable to err. I defend the the idea that we can be certain that God has infallibly preserved the Canon without saying the the Church herself must have the quality of being infallible.



That is an important error to guard against, though I don't think "inerrancy" does anything to refute the error, since RCs could claim inerrancy as equally as infallibility. The refutation of the error lies in showing that the church could not identify itself as a divinely appointed society without the infallible Scripture. The church is not over Scripture; the Scripture is over the church.


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## Jake (Apr 14, 2016)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Jake said:
> 
> 
> > I'd love to find more clarity here, just been trying to look at what source documents I can find, being admittedly ignorant.
> ...



I can take a closer look at that, but that seems tricky because he seemed broad in what he used and cited. Metzger notes that he even calls the Shepherd of Hermes divinely inspired, but I can't find the source beyond what he quoted (Canon of the New Testament, 1987 Oxford ed., p. 140). He also approving quotes of a lot of other books and seems to refer to them as or like Scripture that are now considered not part of the canon except in a few weird parts of the Orthodox church. And as he mentioned in that article, he didn't mention a couple of the smaller letters.


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## MW (Apr 14, 2016)

From Robert Haldane, as extracted by Archibald Alexander:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/alexander_a/canon.iv.xviii.ix.html



> EXTRACT FROM HALDANE’S’ EVIDENCE AND AUTHORITY OF DIVINE REVELATION.
> 
> “It has been asserted that ‘the question of the Canon is a point of erudition, not of divine revelation.’ This is to undermine both the certainty and the importance of the sacred Canon. The assertion, that the question of the Canon is not a point of revelation, is false. It is not true either of the Old Testament or of the New. The integrity of the Canon of the Old Testament is a matter of revelation, as much as anything contained in the Bible. This is attested, as has been shown, by the whole nation of the Jews, to whom it was committed; and their fidelity to the truth has been avouched by the Lord and his apostles. Is not this revelation? The integrity of the Canon of the New Testament is equally a point of revelation. As God had said to the Jews, ‘Ye are my witnesses,’ and as they ‘received the lively oracles to give unto us,’ Acts vii. 38, so the Lord Jesus said to the apostles, ‘Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.’ The first churches received the New Testament Scriptures from these witnesses of the Lord, and thus had inspired authority for those books. It was not left to erudition or reasoning to collect that they were a revelation from God. This the first Christians knew from the testimony of those who wrote them. They could not be more assured that the things taught were from God, than they were that the writings which contained them were from God. The integrity of the sacred Canon is, then, a matter of revelation, conveyed to us by testimony, like everything contained in the Scriptures.
> 
> “While it has been denied that the question of the Canon is a point of revelation, it has been asserted that it is a point of erudition. But erudition has nothing farther to do with the question, than as it may be employed in conveying to us the testimony. Erudition did not produce the revelation of the Canon. If the Canon had not been a point of revelation, erudition could never have made it so—for erudition can create nothing; it can only investigate and confirm truth, and testify to that which exists, or detect error. We receive the Canon of Scripture by revelation, in the same way that the Jews received the Law which was given from Mount Sinai. Only one generation of the Jews witnessed the giving of the Law, but to all future generations of that people it was equally a matter of revelation. The knowledge of this was conveyed to them by testimony. In the same way Christians, in their successive generations, received the Scripture as a matter of revelation. The testimony through which this is received, must, indeed, be translated from a foreign language; but so must the account brought to us of any occurrence, the most trivial, that takes place in a foreign country. If in this sense the question of the Canon be called a point of erudition, the gospel itself must be called a point of erudition; for it, too, must be translated from the original language in which it was announced, as also must everything which the Scriptures contain. When a preacher inculcates the belief of the gospel, or of a doctrine of Scripture, or obedience to any duty, would he be warranted in telling his audience that these are questions of erudition, not of divine revelation? Erudition may be allowed its full value, without suspending on it the authority of the word of God.


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