No need to apologize. I completely understand and respect that you have a different view on this topic. My last comment was directed more to the fact that in my (very helpful) exchange with Otets G. (my good friend), I feel that I’ve adequately explained my position and do not see any reason to elaborate it again. I am quite happy to interact with differing views, as I find this a great way to learn. Please do continue to post and interact on this blog–I simply don’t have anything to add to this thread.

Blessings,
Cynthia

I think I should apologize for my previous comments. I think one of my difficulties lies with how I have been trained to think. My area of study is neither philosophy nor theology, but natural science. I am a biochemist, an enzymologist, a molecular biologist…

I think of experiments, I set them up with the proper controls, and then obtain data. This data is then used to generate a theory. The theory rests upon the data, that is, if you obtain data from another experiment that in any way contradicts or doesn’t sit well with the initial theory, then the theory must be changed or modified to fit all the data. Or, you may obtain data that agrees with your theory, or supports it; in this case you don’t have to change or modify the theory.

I said all this for one simple reason… I see all of church history as the data, be it Catholic, Protestant, heretic, etc. However, there isn’t only data, there are also theories that are intimately connected with the data, and these theories are also given to me. On top of this, all the theories depend on each other, so if one fails then many others fail too, and so on and so forth.

With this said, I don’t see the theory of “self-attesting” as fitting with the data, furthermore this theory conflicts with other theories that are essential Christian precepts.

So with this said, again, my apologies for my comments!

Raphael
Mt 4:4

See my comments above to Otets G. There is no need for me to repeat the same thing over again. I understand your position, but I’m not sure that you understand mine.

Cynthia

My point is simple, if you argue that the Biblical texts, and especially the New Testament books, are self-attesting, and for this reason the Council was able to pick them out from all the other texts, then why did the early Church at that point in time even need the declaration of the Council? Is it not true that many churches were using some texts that were finally not included in what we today recognize as the New Testament? But why should this happen if the texts are intrinsically self-attesting? Why did so many churches not perceive the self-attesting nature of the “correct” texts?

The argument of scripture being self-attesting only works if you have a set body of work to begin with. This was not the case before the Council.

A simple experiment would be to mix the “self-attesting” books with books we “know” today as not being “self-attesting” and see if a pool of “devout” Christians can pick out the correct books because of their self-attesting nature. But of course, how can we do this experiment today since any devout Christian already knows the Bible! Do this experiment 1650 years ago and I’m sure you would end up with different Bibles.

I have the Clendenin article as a word document so, I will email it to you.

“J. Pieper that once wrote (jokingly) that Luther wanted to burn the Summa Theologica, but couldn’t find anyone who would part with his copy.” I wouldn’t burn my copy either :)

Despite our differences, I am so glad that we can correspond about these things and at the end of the day, see each other as brother and sister in Christ.

Blessings,
Cynthia

P.S. I think it was J. Pieper that once wrote (jokingly) that Luther wanted to burn the Summa Theologica, but couldn’t find anyone who would part with his copy.

Protestants, however, are not the only ones who reject this stone, viz., if by “very Rock of Peter” you imply papal authority. The Greek/Eastern Church does as well, focusing on a pneumatic/internal authority (Holy Spirit) rather than an external authority (pope). An excellent article on this topic is by Daniel Clendenin, “Orthodoxy on Scripture and Tradition: A Comparison With Reformed and Catholic Perspectives
Westminster Theological Journal. 1998.” As Clendenin points out, “A number of factors have contributed to the historical estrangement between Orthodoxy and Catholicism: liturgical differences, debate over the filioque clause, the Photian Schism of the ninth century, the mutual anathematizations in 1054, and the pillage of Constantinople in 1204 by Catholic Crusaders, not to mention a host of sociocultural issues. Important as all of these were (and are), they pale in comparison with the more fundamental issue of ecclesiastical authority, which issue emerges as the central question that still divides the two bodies of Christians. Its own pneumatic understanding of authority, in contrast to an external authority, has made Orthodoxy stubbornly resist the papacy as the criterion of truth. Succinctly put, the root of the divisions was and is the question: “What comes first, the institution guaranteeing the Truth, or Truth itself?” Furthermore, whatever similarities there are between Catholics and Orthodox regarding Scripture and tradition, such as granting equal respect to both sources as divine revelation, or the central role of the church over Scripture as its necessary interpreter, Orthodoxy considers the issue of the papacy so important that it sees its relationship with Rome as a discontinuous rather than continuous one.”

It doesn’t seem to me that accepting self-attestation of Scripture the way it is taught by WCF and Calvin in any way necessarily means that one rejects or eschews tradition. Perhaps one could say its more an issue of seeing “Tradition” with a big “T” vs. “tradition” with a little “t.” Clendenin gives in my opinion both a charitable and more accurate account the Reformers view of tradition, “the difference between the Reformers and Orthodoxy is not one of ‘Scripture or tradition’ but rather one of two different conceptions of tradition, the difference residing in two related aspects of the sola scriptura principle.
First, the principle of sola scriptura differentiates between the normative value of Scripture and tradition, and places the former squarely above and over the latter. It denies that Scripture and tradition are coequal norms for theology. For the Reformers the Bible was the divine, primary, absolute norm of God’s revelation, whereas tradition, valuable as it might be, was human, secondary, and relative. From their perspective this truth had been lost, so much so that the gospel had been obscured. [...] Given their own historical context, it is easy to understand their insistent distinction between Scripture and tradition. Luther would write, “What else do I contend for but to bring everyone to an understanding of the difference between the divine Scripture and human teaching or custom, so that a Christian may not take the one for the other and exchange gold for straw, silver for stubble, wood for precious stones?” As an ‘eloquent symbol and seal’ of the Reformers’ refusal to subordinate Scripture to tradition, Oberman recalls Luther’s burning of the books of canon law at the Elster Gate at Wittenberg on December 10, 1520.
This does not mean that the Reformers categorically rejected tradition, or even disparaged it outright, as is sometimes suggested. It is clear that they even saw themselves as restoring the church to fidelity to the patristic consensus. A reading of Calvin’s Institutes, for example, shows his indebtedness to the church fathers. Neither were they unaware of the dangers of individualistic and private interpretation of Scripture, and of the importance of the church context for the life of faith. What they objected to was the church’s elevation of tradition to the status of Scripture, and its arrogation to place itself above the Scriptures as its mediator.”

“Of the dogmas and messages preserved in the Church, some we possess from written teaching and others we receive from the tradition of the apostles, handed on to us in mystery. In respect to piety, both are of the same force. No one will contradict any of these, no one, at any rate, who is even moderately versed in matters ecclesiastical. Indeed, were we to try to reject unwritten customs as having no great authority, we would unwittingly injure the gospel in its vitals; or rather, we would reduce [Christian] message to a mere term” (St. Basil the Great, “The Holy Spirit” 27:66 [A.D. 375]).

I am familiar with the doctrine of apostolicity as the test for canonicity. Again, according to what I’ve been explaining as the self-attesting nature of Scripture, making apostolicity the test for the canon would be to put something “above” the canon to judge the canon. So in essence what I’m saying is that I reject your premises.

Consequently, your either/or (”Now a Protestant apologist will either have to agree that the men at the Council of Rome included all of the right books and only the right books in the canon or he has to disagree. If he disagrees, then he is going to have to disagree with the New Testament canon in the very Bible he uses, because it was the Council of Rome that established that canon.
But if he agrees that the Council of Rome included all the right books and only the right books in the New Testament canon then he is going to have to say that the early Church made an infallible decision (infallible because they included all the right and only the right books, thus making an inerrant decision under God’s providential guidance—which is infallible guidance). They made this infallible decision three hundred years after the death of the last apostle. But if Church councils are capable of arriving at infallible decisions three hundred years after the death of the last apostle, the Protestant apologist has no reason to claim they are incapable of this later on in Church history”)” doesn’t apply.

I’m beginning to wonder if we haven’t reached somewhat of a “dead-end” on this post?