Sola Scriptura and the Canon of Scripture

Outline.

1. Overview.

2. The Church Existed Before the New Testament was Written.

3. The Scriptures Are For the Church Not From the Church.

4. The Church Did Not Create the Canon, She Recognized It.

5. The “Formation” of the Canon.

6. The Church Does Not Authorize the Scriptures, She Testifies To Them.

7. The Scriptures as Self-Authenticating.

8. The Old Testament Canon.

9. The Old Testament Canon and the Synod of Jamnia (Yavne).

10. The Necessity of Private Interpretation.

11. No “Infallible” Canon List Until the “Council” of Trent.

1. Overview. Return to Outline.

Martin Chemnitz:

     2 This tradition, by which the books of the Holy Scripture are given into our hands, we receive reverently; but this does not support the papalists, who are fighting for dogmas which cannot be proved by any testimony of Scripture. For by this tradition the church confesses that it is bound to that voice of doctrine which sounds forth in the Scripture, and when it passes on this tradition, it teaches that posterity also is bound to the Scripture. And in the time of the fathers those who sought the truth in the church were led to the Scriptures, as can be seen from Augustine in De catechizandis rudibus.

     And in Contra epistolam Manichaei, ch. 5, Augustine tells how he had been led to the faith of the Catholic church. For he says that he had heeded the Catholics who praised the Gospel and said: “Believe the Gospel.” And there he introduces the common saying: “Indeed, I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic church did not move me.” By the witness of the church, therefore, he was moved to read the Gospel and to believe that the divinely revealed doctrine is contained in it. But does he, after he has come to faith in the Gospel, promise that he would believe the church more than the Gospel if the church should decree or teach something which is either against the Gospel or which cannot be proved by any testimony of Scripture? This certainly he does not say. Rather, elsewhere he pronounces the anathema on those who preach anything outside of the things which we have received in the Scriptures of the Law and of the Gospel. And in that same place he says that because he believes the Gospel, he cannot believe Manichaeus, because he does not read anything there about the apostleship of Manichaeus. Therefore this second kind of traditions leads us to the Scripture and binds us to the voice of doctrine that sounds forth in it, to the point that the axiom of the papalists “that many dogmas must be received which cannot be proved by any testimony of Scripture” is not proved by it.

(Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent: Part I, trans. Fred Kramer, [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971], 2.2.2, pp. 227-228.)

Martin Chemnitz:

     3 But the papalists object: “If you accept this tradition of the church, which bears witness concerning the books of the Holy Scripture which have been accepted, by what right will you reject the other traditions concerning which the papal church bears witness that they were delivered without writing by the apostles? For the testimony of the church, as Andrada says, must certainly be either everywhere rejected or everywhere accepted. I reply: “There is a very great difference between the primitive church, which was at the time of the apostles and of apostolic men testifying with regard to the books of Holy Scripture, and the papal church, which is foisting its fictions as apostolic traditions on us without proof.

     Where the fathers describe this tradition concerning the books of the Scripture, they prove it from the testimonies of the primitive church. If they had done the same thing with an equal degree of certainty also with regard to other traditions of which they make mention somewhere, then it would indeed be true that they should be received with the same right. But they affirm that the things which were handed down by the apostles were all in harmony with the Holy Scriptures, as we have already shown from Irenaeus and shall soon demonstrate more fully. Therefore we have it from the tradition of the fathers itself how one must judge what are true apostolic traditions, as Jerome says commenting on the first chapter of Haggai: “The sword of God, which is the living Word of God, strikes through the things which men of their own accord, without the authority and testimonies of Scripture, invent and think up, pretending that it is apostolic tradition.” Therefore the tradition of the church commends the books of Holy Scripture to us in such a way that it reminds us that all other things must be examined according to it . . . and that the things which are in agreement with it must be accepted but what does not agree, even if it is put forth as apostolic tradition, must be struck down by the sword of the Word of God. This is the simple and true solution of the above objection, and the papalists cannot reject it, otherwise they themselves will be forced by the same right to accept also the traditions of the Pharisees and the entire Cabala of the Talmudists. For Augustine aptly calls the Jews our copyists and keepers of the books, because they were the custodians of the books of the Old Testament and continued this custody even in the exile.

(Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent: Part I, trans. Fred Kramer, [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971], 2.2.3, pp. 228-229.)

Martin Chemnitz:

     4 The papalists think they have a place of refuge in that they maintain that the church received the books of the Old Testament from the tradition not of the Pharisees but of the prophets, of Christ, and of the apostles. But since, according to Augustine, an unbroken period of time is required for this thing, the Pharisees cannot be excluded from the witness concerning the books of the Old Testament. Why, then, did not Christ and the apostles, who accepted the tradition concerning the books of the Old Testament, also by the same right accept the other traditions of the elders, since they indeed bear this title: “It was said to the men of old”? By what right do the papalists repudiate the Talmudic traditions although they accept the tradition of the Jews concerning the books of the Old Testament? If they say that the Jews invented the Talmudic Cabala, these will stoutly deny it, for they name as its first authors the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets. Why, then, do you papalists not believe this their witness, especially since we do not repudiate their witness concerning the books of the Old Testament? We reply simply: “Because we learn from the prophetical books, concerning which the Jews bear witness, that as much of the doctrine of the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets as is sufficient and necessary was committed to writing. For this reason we examine all the other traditions according to what has been written, and the tradition of the Jews which is contrary to this witness, transmitting as it does much that is outside, beyond, and contrary to the Scripture, we do not accept but repudiate with the best right, for this we learn from the very books which the Jews commend to us with their witness. If the papalists have any other answer, let them bring it forward, and we shall be able to hold it up against their own objection, why, although we accept the traditions of the church concerning the canonical books, we do not similarly also accept all other things which are foisted on us under the name of traditions by the papal church.

(Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent: Part I, trans. Fred Kramer, [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971], 2.2.4, pp. 229-230.)

2. The Church Existed Before the New Testament was Written. Return to Outline.

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     This question of the relation of Holy Scripture to the Church and of the Church to Scripture is of supreme importance. We fully believe that it is impossible to ignore Christian history and to start our consideration of doctrine de novo. But we also believe in the essential identity between the product of to-day and the germ of the first days, our criterion of this being the litera scripta of the New Testament. We believe that Holy Scripture, as therein found, constitutes the title-deeds of the Church, the law of the Church’s life, the test of its purity, the source of its strength, and the spring of its progress.

     But it may be said, How can this be when the Church existed many years before a line of the New Testament was written? This is historically true. But if we are intended to learn from it the supremacy of the Church, the conclusion does not necessarily follow. At any rate we must examine the position somewhat carefully. It is assumed that the Church had no Bible in the Apostolic Age, and that the Bible came historically after the Church, authorised by the Church. But the Church had a Bible from the outset, the Old Testament Scriptures, and such was their power that St. Paul could say that with the single but significant addition of ‘faith in Christ Jesus’ these Old Testament Scriptures were ‘able to make wise unto salvation’ (2 Tim. iii. 15).

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God: Second Impression, [Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n, 1913], p. 214.)

C. H. Turner:

It is sometimes said, and an important truth lies concealed under the phrase, that the Church existed before the Bible. But a Christian of the earliest days, if you had used such words to him, would have stared at you in undisguised amazement. He would have explained to you that in the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms the Christian possessed all the Scriptures he could want, for they all spoke of Christ.

(C. H. Turner, “Historical Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, I;” In: The Journal of Theological Studies: Volume X, [Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1909], p. 14.)

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     But leaving this aside, the argument that because the Church was before Scripture, therefore it is above Scripture, is really fallacious. It is perfectly true that the Church existed before the written Word of the New Testament, but we must remember that first of all there was the spoken Word of God through Christ and His inspired Apostles. On the Day of Pentecost the Word of God was spoken, the revelation of God in Christ was proclaimed, and on the acceptance of that Word the Church came into existence. The Word was proclaimed, the Word was accepted, and so the Church was formed on the Word of God. As long as the Apostles were at hand the spoken Word sufficed, but as time went on and the Apostles travelled and afterwards died, there sprang up the need of a permanent embodiment of the Divine Revelation, and this was given in the written Word. From that time forward, in all ages, the written Word has been the equivalent of the original spoken Word. The Church was created by the Word of God received through faith. The Word created the Church, not the Church the Word.

     We see the very same process in the mission field. There was a Church in most places through the spoken Word long before the written Word could be given, but now the written Word is at once the foundation and guarantee of the Church’s existence and progress.

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God: Second Impression, [Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n, 1913], p. 215.)

Edward Meyrick Goulburn:

But in the history of the world, the unwritten word of God must of course be before the Church. For what is a Church (in the wider sense of the word) but a group of believers in God’s Word? And before the Word is spoken, how can there be believers in it? “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Therefore the Word of God must be before faith. It is only of the Bible, or written volume of God’s oracles, assuredly not of God’s spoken Word, that we assert it to have been brought into existence later than the Church.

(Edward Meyrick Goulburn, The Holy Catholic Church: Its Divine Ideal, Ministry, and Institutions: Second Edition, [London: Rivingtons, 1874], Chapter VIII, p. 244 fn. 1.)

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

But it is sometimes said that as the Church existed many years before the New Testament was written the Church must necessarily be supreme. This conclusion, however, does not necessarily follow. To be anterior does not of necessity mean to be superior. To be before does not always mean to be above. Besides, it is not quite correct to say that the Apostolic Church had no Bible, because the Old Testament was constantly used and appealed to in Jewish and Gentile Churches, and St. Paul could say, with the simple addition of faith in Christ Jesus, these Old Testament Scriptures were “able to make wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. iii. 15), and we can see the position of the Old Testament from our Lord’s appeal to it, and the use made of it in the Apostolic Church (cf. Acts xvii. 11). But quite apart from this the argument that because the Church was before Scripture therefore it is above Scripture calls for further attention. It is quite true that the Church existed before the written word of the New Testament, but first of all there was the spoken word through Christ and His Apostles. On the Day of Pentecost the Word of God was proclaimed, and on the acceptance of that Word the Church came into existence, being formed by the Word of God. Every similar proclamation of the Gospel led to the same results, and communities of Christians came into existence based on the acceptance by faith of a Divine revelation. As long as the Apostles’ teaching was available nothing more was required, but as time went on it was necessary to embody the Apostolic message in a permanent form. Thenceforward to all ages the written Word became equivalent to the spoken Word as the seat of authority. The fact is the same throughout; the form alone was changed. Thus, the Apostles were the seat of authority at the first, and they have continued so to this day, the only difference being between their spoken and written word. The Word created the Church, not the Church the Word. The same thing is seen to-day in the Mission Field, where a Church exists in most places through the Word spoken long before the written Word can be given. The Rule of Faith is the conveyance of a Divine Authority to man, and the Bible as a Rule of Faith must have existed in the minds of Christ and His Apostles long before it was or could be committed to writing, As such, it preceded and conditioned the origin and life of the Church. The relation of the Church to the Word is, in the words of Article XX, “a witness and a keeper”; a witness to what Scripture is, and a keeper of that Scripture for the people of God. But this is very different from being the maker of Scripture, for the Church, as such, is not the author of Holy Writ. Thus, the Word first spoken and then written is at once the foundation and guarantee of the Church. The witness of the primitive Christian community is valuable, because of its nearness to Apostolic times, but if it should be said that we are therefore bound to receive what the Church says, we reply that on the one hand we do not receive Scripture on account of the Roman Catholic Church, and on the other that the Church in the present consideration is universal, and its work is only ministerial, not supremely and finally authoritative. But this is simply the position and work of a witness to an already existing revelation. The function of the Church is exactly parallel to that of the Jewish Church in relation to the Old Testament. The Prophets were the messengers and mouthpieces of Divine revelation and delivered their writings to the Jews, who there-upon preserved them, and thenceforward bore their testimony to the authority of the Divine revelation embodied therein. In the same way the Christian Church received the New Testament writings from the Lord Jesus Christ through His Apostles and Prophets, and now the function of the Church is to witness to this fact and to keep these writings for use by Christian people.

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles, [London: Church Book Room Press Ltd., 1963], on Art. VI, pp. 125-126.)

Michael Horton:

     Rollock responded to the argument that it was tradition that preserved the covenant under the patriarchs by pointing out that “the substance of the Scripture was in those very traditions whereby the church was edified and kept” (emphasis added). Of course, the church came before the Scriptures as a completed canon, but a canon “was not then necessary, for that then the lively voice of God itself was heard.” But now it is necessary.

     William Perkins wrote, “We hold that the very word of God hath been delivered by tradition.” In fact, Perkins adds, “This is true not only of the Old Testament, but of the New Testament as well, as some twenty to eighty years passed before the traditions were committed to writing. . . . And many things we hold for truth not written in the word, if they be not against the word.” William Ames makes the same point: In substance, the Word preceded and in fact created the church, although this oral tradition was later committed to textual form.

     Protestants had no trouble agreeing that there was a time when written Scripture and oral tradition were two media of a unified revelation, but they denied that this situation applies in the postapostolic era. The critical question for us is whether the noninspired traditions of ordinary ministers of the church can be equated with the revelation given through the extraordinary ministry of prophets and apostles.

(Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011], pp. 190-191.)

Herman Bavinck:

     Thus, although against Rome the Reformation found its strength in Scripture and maintained its necessity, yet it did not thereby deny that before Moses the church had long existed without Scripture. It is also true that the church of the NT was founded by the preaching of the apostles and existed for a long time without a NT canon. Furthermore, the church today is still always fed and planted in the non-Christian world by the proclamation of the gospel. The books of the Old and New Testament, further, only originated gradually; before the invention of the art of printing, they were distributed in small numbers. Many believers in earlier and later years died without ever having read and examined Scripture, and even now the religious life seeks to satisfy its needs not just in Scripture but at least as much in a wide assortment of devotional literature. All this can be frankly acknowledged without thereby in any way detracting from the necessity of Scripture. And if it had so pleased God, he could most certainly have kept the church in the truth in some way other than the written word. The necessity of Scripture is not absolute but “based on the premise of the good pleasure of God.”

     Thus understood, this necessity is beyond all doubt. The word of God has been the seed of the church from the beginning. Certainly before Moses the church existed without Scripture. Yet there was an unwritten (ἀγραφον) word before it was recorded (ἐγγραφον). The church never lived from itself or rested upon itself but always lived by and in the word of God. (Rome, to be sure, does not teach that it lived from itself, but assumes a tradition that infallibly preserves the word of God.) Yet this needs to be asserted over against those who reduce revelation to “life,” the infusion of divine powers, the arousal of religious emotions. The church, therefore, may be older than the written word, but it is definitely younger than the spoken word. The common assertion that for a long time the NT church existed without Scripture must be carefully understood as well. It is true that the canon of NT books was not generally recognized until the second half of the second century. But from the beginning the Christian churches had the Old Testament. They were founded by the spoken word of the apostles. At a very early stage many churches came into possession of apostolic writings, which were also shared with other churches, were read publicly in the churches, and were widely distributed. Naturally, as long as the apostles were alive and visited the churches, no distinction was made between their spoken and their written word. Tradition and Scripture were still united. But when the first period was past and the time-distance from the apostles grew greater, their writings became more important, and the necessity of these writings gradually intensified. The necessity of Holy Scripture, in fact, is not a stable but an ever-increasing attribute. Scripture in its totality was not always necessary for the whole church. Scripture came into being and was completed step-by-step. To the extent that revelation progressed, Scripture increased in scope. Whatever part of Scripture existed in a given period was sufficient for that period. Similarly, the revelation that had occurred up until a given time was sufficient for that time. Scripture, like revelation, is an organic whole that has gradually come into being; the mature plant was already enclosed in the seed, the fruit was present in the germ. Revelation and Scripture both kept pace with the state of the church, and vice versa. For that reason one can never draw conclusions for the present based on conditions prevailing in the church in the past. Granted, the church before Moses was without Scripture, and before the completion of revelation the church was never in possession of the whole Bible. But this does not prove anything for the dispensation of the church in which we now live, one in which revelation has ceased and Scripture is complete. For this dispensation Scripture is not only useful and good but also decidedly necessary for the being (esse) of the church.

(Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 1: Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], §. 123, pp. 469-471.)

3. The Scriptures Are For the Church Not From the Church. Return to Outline.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

Let us treat scripture like scripture, like God speaking; don’t let’s look there for man going wrong. It is not for nothing, you see, that the canon has been established for the Church. This is the function of the Holy Spirit. So if anybody reads my book, let him pass judgment on me. If I have said something reasonable, let him follow, not me, but reason itself; if I’ve proved it by the clearest divine testimony, let him follow, not me, but the divine scripture. 

(Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 162C.15; trans. WSA, III/11:176.)

John Calvin:

     But a most pernicious error widely prevails that Scripture has only so much weight as is conceded to it by the consent of the church. As if the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision of men! For they mock the Holy Spirit when they ask: Who can convince us that these writings came from God? Who can assure us that Scripture has come down whole and intact even to our very day? Who can persuade us to receive one book in reverence but to exclude another, unless the church prescribe a sure rule for all these matters? What reverence is due Scripture and what books ought to be reckoned within its canon depend, they say, upon the determination of the church. Thus these sacrilegious men, wishing to impose an unbridled tyranny under the cover of the church, do not care with what absurdities they ensnare themselves and others, provided they can force this one idea upon the simple-minded: that the church has authority in all things. Yet, if this is so, what will happen to miserable consciences seeking firm assurance of eternal life if all promises of it consist in and depend solely upon the judgment of men? Will they cease to vacillate and tremble when they receive such an answer? Again, to what mockeries of the impious is our faith subjected, into what suspicion has it fallen among all men, if we believe that it has a precarious authority dependent solely upon the good pleasure of men!

     But such wranglers are neatly refuted by just one word of the apostle. He testifies that the church is “built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles” [Eph. 2:20]. If the teaching of the prophets and apostles is the foundation, this must have had authority before the church began to exist. Groundless, too, is their subtle objection that, although the church took its beginning here, the writings to be attributed to the prophets and apostles nevertheless remain in doubt until decided by the church. For if the Christian church was from the beginning founded upon the writings of the prophets and the preaching of the apostles, wherever this doctrine is found, the acceptance of it—without which the church itself would never have existed—must certainly have preceded the church. It is utterly vain, then, to pretend that the power of judging Scripture so lies with the church that its certainty depends upon churchly assent. Thus, while the church receives and gives its seal of approval to the Scriptures, it does not thereby render authentic what is otherwise doubtful or controversial. But because the church recognizes Scripture to be the truth of its own God, as a pious duty it unhesitatingly venerates Scripture. As to their question—How can we be assured that this has sprung from God unless we have recourse to the decree of the church?—it is as if someone asked: Whence will we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Indeed, Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color, or sweet and bitter things do of their taste.

(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.7.1-2; trans. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion: In Two Volumes (Vol. XX: Books I.i to III.xix), The Library of Christian Classics: Volume XX, ed. John T. McNeil, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960], 1.7.1-2, pp. 75-76.)

John Calvin:

That it is the proper office of the Church to distinguish genuine from spurious Scripture, I deny not, and for this reason, that the Church obediently embraces whatever is of God. The sheep hear the voice of the shepherd, and will not listen to the voice of strangers. But to submit the sound oracles of God to the Church, that they may obtain a kind of precarious authority among men, is blasphemous impiety. The Church is, as Paul declares, founded on the doctrine of Apostles and Prophets; but these men speak as if they imagined that the mother owed her birth to the daughter.

(John Calvin, “The True Method of Giving Peace to Christendom and Reforming the Church;” In: John Calvin, Tracts: Volume Third, trans. Henry Beveridge, [Edinburg: Printed for the Calvin Translation Society, 1851], p. 267.)

Francis Turretin:

     Although the church is more ancient than the Scriptures formally considered (and as to the mode of writing), yet it cannot be called such with respect to the Scriptures materially considered (and as to the substance of doctrine) because the word of God is more ancient than the church itself, being its foundation and seed.

(Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume One, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., [Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992], 2.6.16, p. 91.)

Micheal J. Kruger:

The problem, then, is not that the church plays a role in identifying canonical books (Protestants would agree with this), but the Catholic insistence that it plays the only and definitive role.

     In regard to the more stringent Catholic approach to the church-canon relationship, the idea that the canon is “derivative” from the church or “caused” by the church also raises a number of concerns: (1) Although the New Testament was not completed all at once, the apostolic teaching was the substance of what would later become the New Testament. And it was this apostolic teaching, along with the prophets, that formed the foundation for the church, rather than the other way around. As Ephesians 2:20 affirms, the church was “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” The church is always the creatura verbi (“creation of the Word”). Chapman sums it up: “The biblical canon is not a creation of the church, the church is instead a creation of the biblical canon.” (2) The earliest Christians did have a canon, namely, the Old Testament itself (Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:6; 2 Tim. 3:15–16), which seems to have existed just fine prior to the founding of the church. There are no reasons to think that the Israel of Jesus’s day had any infallible revelation from God that helped it choose the books of the Old Testament canon. (3) From the very earliest days, believers received Paul’s letters as Scripture (1 Thess. 2:13), Paul clearly intended them to be received as Scripture (Gal. 1:1–24), and even other writers thought they were Scripture (2 Pet. 3:16). Thus, the Scriptures themselves never give the impression that their authority was “derivative” from the church, or from some future ecclesiastical decision. (4) It was not until the Council of Trent in 1546 that the Roman Catholic Church ever made a formal and official declaration on the canon of the Bible, particularly the Apocrypha. In light of this scenario, what can we make of the Roman Catholic claim that “without the Church there would be no New Testament”? Are we to believe that the church had no canon for over fifteen hundred years, until the Council of Trent? The history of the church makes it clear that the church did, in fact, have a functioning canon long before the Council of Trent (or even the fourth-century councils). J. I. Packer sums it up well: “The Church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity . . . Newton did not create gravity but recognized it.”

(Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books, [Wheaton: Crossway, 2012], pp. 44-45.)

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     The Apostles may be regarded as representatives of Christ or as members of the Church. It was in the former, not the latter aspect that they conveyed first the spoken Word, and then the written Word of God which has ever been the source of all Christian life.

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God: Second Impression, [Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n, 1913], p. 216.)

P. T. Forsyth:

Our authority is not the Church of the first century, but the Apostles who were its authority. The Church does not rest on its inchoate stages (which would poise it on its apex) but on its eternal foundation—a Christ Who, in His apostolic Self-revelation, is the same deep Redeemer always.

(P. T. Forsyth, The Principle of Authority: In Relation to Certainty, Sanctity and Society: An Essay in the Philosophy of Experimental Religion, [London: Independent Press, 1952; previously published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1913], p. 87.)

P. T. Forsyth:

We have a variety of opinions and sections in the first Church, but I am speaking of the representative Apostles, and of the New Testament as their register and index. The Church of the ages was not founded by the Church of the first century, but by the apostles as the organs of Christ. We ate in the apostolic succession rather than in the ecclesiastic. It is not the first Church that is canonical for us Protestants, but the apostolic New Testament.

(P. T. Forsyth, The Principle of Authority: In Relation to Certainty, Sanctity and Society: An Essay in the Philosophy of Experimental Religion, [London: Independent Press, 1952; previously published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1913], p. 127.)

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

     The function of a Rule of Faith is the conveyance of the Divine authority to men, and this Rule of Faith existed in the mind of Christ and His Apostles long before it existed as a written work. Accordingly it precedes and conditions the existence of the Church. The Church is to the Word a witness and a keeper. The Church bears testimony to what Scripture is, and at the same time preserves Scripture among Christian people from age to age.

     But though the Church is a ‘witness and keeper,’ it is not the author or maker of Scripture, and the reasoning employed in support of the latter contention is fallacious. It seems to be as follows:

‘The Apostles were the authors of Holy Scripture.’

‘But all Apostles are members of the Church of Christ.’

‘Therefore, the Church of Christ is the author of Scripture.’

     This has been well compared to the following:

‘Mr. Balfour wrote a book on The Foundations of Belief.’

‘Mr. Balfour is a member of the Privy Council.’

‘Therefore, the Privy Council is the author of the book called The Foundations of Belief.’

     The mistake of course lies in attributing to a body in its collective capacity certain acts of individual members of the body. The Church is not, and never was, the author of Scripture. The Scriptures are the law of God for the Church, delivered to her by the Apostles and Prophets. We must ever distinguish between the record of God’s revelation in the Bible and the witness to that revelation as seen in the fact and history of the Church of Christ. The function of the Christian Church as the ‘witness and keeper of Holy Writ’ is exactly parallel to that of the Jewish Church in relation to the Old Testament. The Prophets who were raised up from time to time as the messengers and mouthpieces of Divine Revelation delivered their writings of the Old Testament to the Jews, who thereupon preserved them, and thenceforward bore their constant testimony to the reality and authority of the Divine Revelation embodied in the books.

     And so the Church of Christ, whether regarded in her corporate capacity or in connection with individual members, is not the author of Holy Scripture. The Church received the Scriptures from the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit through His Apostles and Prophets, and now the function of the Church is to witness to the fact that these are the Scriptures of the Apostles and Prophets which she has received and of which she is also the keeper and their preserver through the ages for use by the people of God. We could not wish for anything clearer than the statement of the Anglican Article XX. as to the relation of the Bible and the Church.

     It will help our thought if we ever keep in view that strictly speaking it is the Lord Jesus Christ Who is our Authority, and that we accept the Bible because it enshrines the purest, clearest form of our Lord’s Divine Revelation. What we mean is that the Church is not our highest authority because it is not our highest authority for the revelation of Christ. And we say the Bible is our supreme authority, because it is our highest authority for the historic revelation of Christ. If Christ is the Source of our religious knowledge, then the condition of our knowing Him centuries after His historical appearance is that we must know of Him, and for this perpetuation and transmission we must have an objective body of historical testimony. The superiority of the Bible is due to the fact that it gives this fixed, objective, final revelation of Christ. This is the sum and substance of the Gospel, the Person of Christ. The great outstanding objective fact of history is the supernatural, superhuman, unique, Divine Figure of Christ, and this Figure is enshrined for us in the written word. We cling to Scripture ultimately on this ground alone. Take away Christ from the Bible and it ceases to be an unique Book and our authority in religion. In view of the history of the Church, it is impossible to maintain that the authority of the Church can ever be identified with Christ’s. We can identify Christ’s authority with God’s, but not the Church’s with Christ’s, and it is nothing less than a Divine authority that we need for life.

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God: Second Impression, [Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n, 1913], pp. 216-218.)

P. T. Forsyth:

For the books of the Bible were given to the Church, more than by it, and they descended on it rather than rose from it. The canon of the Bible rose from the Church, but not its contents. Bible and Church were collateral products of the Gospel.

(P. T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ: The Congregational Union Lecture for 1909: Third Edition, [London: Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1910], Lecture V, pp. 140-141.)

P. T. Forsyth:

The New Testament is not the first stage of the evolution but the last phase of the revelationary fact and deed. The revelation had to be interpreted for all time in order to act on time—just as, on a lower plane, the Church of the early centuries is put into the Athanasian Creed for all time, and the Reformation into the Augsburg Confession. But the plane is much lower. For into these documents it was the Church that put itself, whereas into the New Testament it was Christ that put him. self, in a way parallel to his self-projection in the Church. The creeds are not parallel to the Church, but the Bible is. They are products of the Church. The Bible is not. It is a parallel product of the Spirit who produced the Church. The Church was made by faith, the Bible by inspiration. They are two products of one Spirit; the one is not a product of the other. The Bible was not produced by the Church; and yet the Church was there before the Bible. Both were there collaterally from the Spirit.

(P. T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ: The Congregational Union Lecture for 1909: Third Edition, [London: Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1910], Lecture V, p. 152.)

P. T. Forsyth:

If he died to make a Church that Church should continue to be made by some permanent thing from himself, either by a continuous Apostolate supernaturally secured in the charisma veritatis, as Rome claims, or by a book which should be the real successor of the Apostles, with a real authority on the vital matters of truth and faith. But, we discard the supernatural pope for the supernatural book.

(P. T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ: The Congregational Union Lecture for 1909: Third Edition, [London: Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1910], Lecture VI, p. 171.)

Herman Bavinck:

On the other hand, between Rome and the Reformation there arose a serious difference about the ground on which this authority is based. The church fathers and the scholastics still frequently taught the self-attested trustworthiness (αὐτοπιστια) of Scripture, but the dynamic drive of the Roman Catholic principle increasingly gave precedence to the church over Scripture. The church, according to what is today the universally accepted Catholic doctrine, is temporally and logically prior to Scripture. It existed prior to Scripture and does not owe its origin, existence, and authority to Scripture but exists in and of itself, i.e., in virtue of Christ or the Holy Spirit who dwells within it. Scripture, on the other hand, proceeded from the church and is now recognized, confirmed, preserved, explained, defended, and so forth by the church. Scripture, accordingly, needs the church, but the reverse is not true. Without the church there is no Scripture, but without Scripture the church still exists. The church joined to an infallible tradition is the original and sufficient means of preserving and communicating revelation. Holy Scripture was added later, is insufficient of itself, but is useful and good as support and confirmation of the tradition. In fact, in the thinking of Rome, Scripture is totally dependent on the church. The authenticity, integrity, inspiration, canonicity, and authority of Scripture are all established as certain by the church.

     In this connection, however, Rome does make the distinction that Scripture is totally dependent on the church, not with reference to itself, but with reference to us. The church, by its recognition, does not make Scripture inspired, canonical, authentic, and so forth; yet it is the only agency that can infallibly know these attributes of Scripture.

(Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 1: Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], §. 119, pp. 455-456.)

Herman Bavinck:

     On the other hand, the assertion of mediating theology (Vermittelungstheologie) that Scripture proceeded from the church and that the church is therefore the actual author of Scripture is completely untenable. One can make this assertion only if one denies the true office of prophets and apostles, equates inspiration with regeneration, and completely divorces Scripture from revelation. According to the teaching of Scripture, however, inspiration is a unique activity of the Holy Spirit, a special gift to prophets and apostles, enabling them to transmit the word of God in pure and unalloyed form to the church of all ages. Scripture, therefore, did not proceed from the church but was given to the church by a special operation of the Holy Spirit in the prophets and apostles. Scripture is part of the revelation that God has given to his people. On this point Rome and the Reformation are agreed. But, against Rome, the Reformation maintains that this special activity of the Holy Spirit has now stopped; in other words, that the apostolate no longer exists and is not continued in the person of the pope. The apostles completely and accurately recorded their witness concerning Christ in the Holy Scriptures. By these Scriptures they have made the revelation of God the possession of humankind.

(Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 1: Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], §. 123, pp. 471-472.)

John Webster:

…the authority of the canon is the authority of the church’s Lord and his gospel, and so cannot be made an immanent feature of ecclesial existence. Scripture’s authority within the church is a function of Scripture’s authority over the church. The church’s acknowledgement of the canon’s authority is not an act of self-government, but an exposure to judgment, to a source not simply of authorisation but also and supremely of interrogation.

(John Webster, “‘A Great and Meritorious Act of the Church’? The Dogmatic Location of the Canon;” In: Die Einheit der Schrift und die Vielfalt des Kanons: The Unity of Scripture and the Diversity of the Canon, eds. John Barton, Michael Wolter, [Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003], p. 116.)

4. The Church Did Not Create the Canon, She Recognized It. Return to Outline.

Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. (Roman Catholic Theologian and Historian):

No Catholic would want to say that the authority of the Bible derives simply from the decree of a council. Trent recognized the Bible; it did not create it. The Bible is in the Church, but not from the Church, and the Church is subject to God’s Word. St. Augustine’s statement, “I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me to this,” is often misused. 

(Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., The Bible, The Church, and Authority: The Canon of the Christian Bible in History and Theology, [Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1995], pp. 71-72.)

Tony Lane:

     It has been said that the one page of the Bible that is not inspired is the Contents page! How do we know which books should be included in the Bible? (CCC 120-27) The canon of the New Testament (i.e. the list of books) emerged gradually over many centuries. By the end of the second century there was agreement about the four Gospels. Acts and the letters of Paul. Concerning the remaining nine books (Hebrews to Revelation) there was controversy for some time, with different lists being put forward, though most of these lists were very close to ours. By the fourth century there was widespread agreement except over Hebrews (which was questioned in the Latin western half of the Roman Empire) and Revelation (which was questioned in the Greek eastern half of the Roman Empire). This difference was resolved with both books being accepted.

     So we receive our New Testament canon from tradition. Does this mean that the Church is the higher authority because it made these books scriptural? No. The Church confesses that Christ is God but it is not therefore the Church that makes him God. The fact that the Church confesses the deity of Christ does not make her a higher authority than Christ. Likewise the Church acknowledges that Galatians, say, is the word of God; she does not thereby make Galatians God’s word.

(Tony Lane, Exploring Christian Doctrine: A Guide to What Christians Believe, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014], p. 16.)

Archibald Alexander Hodge:

     Their objection is, that as we receive the scriptures as the word of God only on the authoritative testimony of the church, our faith in the Scriptures is only another form of our faith in the church, and the authority of the church, being the foundation of that of Scripture, must of course be held paramount.

     This is absurd, for two reasons—

     1st. The assumed fact is false. The evidence upon which we receive Scripture as the word of God is not the authority of the church, but— (1.) God did speak by the apostles and prophets, as is evident (a) from the nature of their doctrine, (b) from their miracles, (c) their prophecies, (d) our personal experience and observation of the power of the truth. (2.) These very writings which we possess were written by the apostles, etc., as is evident, (a) from internal evidence, (b) from historical testimony rendered by all competent cotemporaneous witnesses in the church or out of it.

     2d. Even if the fact assumed was true, viz., that we know the Scriptures to be from God, on the authority of the church’s testimony alone, the conclusion they seek to deduce from it would be absurd. The witness who proves the identity or primogenitor of a prince does not thereby acquire a right to govern the kingdom, or even to interpret the will of the prince.

(Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology: New Edition: Rewritten and Enlarged, [London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1879], p. 90.) 

Edward Harold Browne:

     The Roman Church holds, that we receive the Scriptures, both of the Old and the New Testament, simply on the authority of the Church. It is said, that the Canon was not fixed till the end of the fourth century; and it is inferred that the Church then, by its plenary authority, determined which books were Scripture and which were not. Thus virtually the Church has been made to hold a position superior to the Scriptures, as not only a ‘witness and keeper,’ but also a judge ‘of Holy Writ.’ And though in the first instance such authority is conceded to the Church of the fourth century; yet, by implication and consequence, the same authority is claimed for the Church of this day; that is, not for the Church Universal, but for that portion of it which has claimed, as its exclusive title, the name of Catholic—i.e., the Church of Rome.

     On the other hand, some Protestants have been satisfied to rest the authority of the books of the New Testament on internal evidence, especially on the witness which the Spirit bears with our own spirits that they are the Word of God. The framers of the Belgic Confession, for instance, distinctly assert that they receive the Scriptures, ‘not so much because the Church receives and sanctions them as Canonical, as because the Spirit witnesses with our consciences that they proceeded from God; and especially because they, of themselves, attest their own authority and sanctity.’

     Now the Church of England rejects altogether neither the authority of the Church, nor the internal testimony of the Scriptures. Yet she is not satisfied to rest her faith solely on the authoritative decree of any Council in the fourth or fifth, still less in any later century: neither can she consent to forego all external testimony, and trust to an internal witness alone; knowing that, as Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, so it is possible that what seems the guidance of God’s Spirit may, if not proved to be such, be really the suggestion of evil spirits. Hence, we think that there is need of the external word, and of the Church, to teach, lest what seems light within be but darkness counterfeiting light; and we know that the fertile source of almost every fanatical error, recorded in history, has been a reliance on inward illumination, to the neglect of outward testimony.

     The principle then, which we assert, is this: that Christ gave authority to His Apostles to teach and to write, that He promised them infallible guidance, and that therefore all Apostolical writings are divinely inspired. We have only to inquire what writings were Apostolical; and for this purpose we have recourse to testimony, or, if the word be preferred, to tradition. The testimony or tradition of the primitive Church is the ground on which the fathers themselves received the books of the New Testament as Apostolical: and, on the same ground, we receive them. We gladly add to this every weight, which can be derived from internal evidence, or from the authority of early councils; for we know that no argument should be neglected, which may fairly confirm our faith. But the first ground on which we receive the New Testament is, that it can be proved to have come from the pen or the dictation of the Apostles of Christ, and that to those Apostles Christ promised infallibility in matters of faith.

(Edward Harold Browne, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles: Historical and Doctrinal: The Fourteenth Edition, [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894], on Art. VI, pp. 159-160.)

Robert Letham:

     Nor is canonicity based on the decision of the church, as Rome maintains. The church recognized the canon; it did not confer it. Long before official lists were compiled or conciliar decisions were made, the existence of a New Testament canon was recognized. The four Gospels and the writings of Paul were acknowledged early, while other books like Hebrews and Revelation took longer to receive universal acceptance. Paul probably refers to the Gospel of Luke as Scripture (1 Tim. 5:18), as does Peter to the writings of Paul (2 Pet. 3:16). Underlying these assessments was the commission Jesus gave to the apostles, conferring his own authority on them in their teaching (John 16:12–15).

     In turn, apostolicity does not of itself guarantee canonicity either, nor does its absence preclude it. I have mentioned Paul’s lost letter; it would be surprising if there were not others from his hand. These are not in the canon, nor are apostolic oral communications to their churches. Some New Testament books were not written by apostles; if apostolic authorship were required, it would rule out Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, James, and Jude.

     Nor does doctrinal content constitute canonicity, although, like inspiration, it is a necessary element. We must assume apostolic writings outside the canon were in conformity doctrinally with the rest of Scripture, as I hope my writings are; but this does not make them canonical.

     Some of these putative criteria—inspiration and doctrinal conformity—are necessary components of what makes the canonical books canonical. Nonetheless, by themselves they are insufficient. None of these categories provides a watertight explanation. Indeed, if there was a criterion to determine canonicity, that criterion would take precedence over the canonical books and be a tool in the hands of the church to stamp its own authority over the Bible. It would function as a gauge against which to measure the qualifications of a document. Effectively, it would place power in the hands of the church over the Word of God.

     Ultimately, the canon imposed itself on the church. The church recognized it, although it took longer for some books to receive acceptance than others. Behind this is the principle that only God can adequately attest the works of God, and so the canon, notwithstanding the many external evidences in support, is self-attesting.

(Robert Letham, Systematic Theology, [Wheaton: Crossway, 2019], 6.2, pp. 188-189.)

James M. Boice:

The church did not create the canon which, if it had, would place itself over Scripture. Rather the church submitted to Scripture as a higher authority.

(James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology: Revised In One Volume, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1986], pp. 45-46.)

5. The “Formation” of the Canon. Return to Outline.

Michael F. Bird:

     But how did the church decide which books to include in the canon and which books to exclude? Bishops and elders did not roam the land with an “inspiration-o-meter” searching for books that garnered a high reading. The canonization of the Old and New Testament was a process that took several centuries. While I think that the basic building blocks of the canon were in place by the mid to late second century, it took time for the biblical canon to be formally identified and promulgated.

     The church received the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible as its own account of the Jewish Scriptures, and it would later be identified as the “Old Testament.” A Jewish canon consisting of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings seems to have been accepted by a large number of Jews before the time of Jesus, and such a collection was inherited by the church. In regards to the admission of Christian books into a collection of authoritative books, the criteria for inclusion of a book in the New Testament canon were:

1. apostolicity—was it written by an apostle or an associate of an apostle?

2. orthodoxy—did it conform to the pattern of Christian teaching?

3. antiquity—was it dated to the apostolic era?

4. usage—was it accepted and used in the churches in liturgy and preaching?

     As such, the Christian Bible was breathed out by the Holy Spirit through the Israelite people and the Christian church.

    An urgent qualification is needed here. The Word of God created the church; the church did not create the Word. Nonetheless, the church did create the biblical canon in the sense of being charged with the task of putting the inscripturated Word of God into its canonical form. The canonical process was itself a long and complex affair affected by matters internal and external to the life of the church. Yet the Christian Scriptures exist only because Christians first wrote it, preserved it, transmitted it, preached from it, argued about it, and interpreted it within the context of their own faith communities. Furthermore, the Apostles’ Creed precedes the existence of a biblical canon. The word canon actually means “rule.” The selection of books into the biblical canon was itself driven by its conformity to the “rule of faith.” Thus, in historical sequence, the “canon of Scripture” is a written expression of the church’s “canon of faith.”

(Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013], 1.6.2.2, pp. 65-66.)

R. C. Sproul:

Others take exception to the authority of the canon because it was not established until the fourth century, long after the life and death of Christ. Establishing the canon was a process that took place over a period of time; however, that does not mean the church was without a New Testament until the end of the fourth century. From the very beginning of the church, the basic books of the New Testament, those that we read and observe today, were in use, and they functioned as a canon because of their Apostolic authority.

(R. C. Sproul, Everyone’s A Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology, [Sanford: Ligonier Ministries, 2014], pp. 36-37.)

R. C. Sproul:

…by what authority do we determine what is canonical?

According to the Protestants, each book found in the Bible is an infallible book, but the process undertaken by the church as to which books to include was not infallible. We believe that the church was providentially guided by the mercy of God in the process of determining the canon and thereby made the right decisions, so that every book that should be in the Bible is in the Bible. However, we do not believe that the church was inherently infallible, then or now. By contrast, the Roman Catholic formula says that we have the correct books because the church is infallible and anything the church decides is an infallible decision. In the Roman Catholic understanding, the formation of the canon rests on the authority of the church, whereas in the Protestant understanding, it rests upon the providence of God.

(R. C. Sproul, Everyone’s A Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology, [Sanford: Ligonier Ministries, 2014], p. 39.)

Herman Bavinck:

     Scripture itself clearly teaches, accordingly, that not the church but the word of God, written or unwritten, is trustworthy in and of itself (αὐτοπιστος). The church has at all times been bound to the word of God insofar as it existed and in the form in which it existed. Israel received the law on Mount Horeb; Jesus and the apostles submitted to OT Scripture. From the very beginning the Christian church was bound to the spoken and written word of the apostles. The word of God is the foundation of the church (Deut. 4:1; Isa. 8:20; Ezek. 20:19; Luke 16:29; John 5:39; Eph. 2:20; 2 Tim. 3:14; 2 Pet. 1:19; etc.). The church can indeed witness to the word, but the word is above the church. It cannot confer on anyone a heart-based belief in the word of God. That is something only the word of God can do by itself and the power of the Holy Spirit (Jer. 23:29; Mark 4:28; Luke 8:11; Rom. 1:16; Heb. 4:12; 1 Pet. 1:23). And for that reason alone the church appears to stand on a level below Scripture. Consequently, the church and believers in general can learn to know the inspiration, authority, and canonicity of Scripture from Scripture itself, but they can never announce and determine these attributes on their own authority. The Reformation preferred a measure of uncertainty to a certainty that can be obtained only by an arbitrary decision of the church. For, in fact, Scripture never offers a list of the books it contains. In the most ancient Christian church, and later as well, there was disagreement about some books. Nor does the text of Scripture have the integrity that also Lutheran and Reformed theologians yearned for. The Reformation, nevertheless, maintained the self-attested trustworthiness (αὐτοπιστια) of Scripture over against the claims of Rome, declared the church to be subordinate to the word of God, and so rescued the freedom of Christians.

(Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 1: Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], §. 119, pp. 458-458.)

6. The Church Does Not Authorize the Scriptures, She Testifies To Them. Return to Outline.

N. T. Wright:

People sometimes suggest, indeed, that the process of canonization is the sign that the church itself was the final authority. This proposal is sometimes made by Catholic traditionalists asserting the supremacy of the church over the Bible, and sometimes by postmodern skeptics asserting that the canon itself, and hence the books included in it, were all part of a power-play for control within the church and social respectability in the world. This makes a rather obvious logical mistake analogous to that of a soldier who, receiving orders through the mail, concludes that the letter carrier is his commanding officer. Those who transmit, collect and distribute the message are not in the same league as those who write it in the first place.

(N. T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, [New York: HarperOne, 2011], pp. 62-63.)

William Whitaker:

It does not therefore follow that because the church knows very well the voice of Christ, the authority of the church is greater than that of Christ. But as to his pretence that because the church delivers the rule of faith, it must therefore be the correctest judge of that rule; we must observe that the terms deliver and judge are ambiguous. The church does indeed deliver that rule, not as its author, but as a witness, and an admonisher, and a minister: it judges also when instructed by the Holy Spirit. But may I therefore conclude, that I cannot be certain of this rule, but barely by the testimony of the church? It is a mere fallacy of the accident. There is no consequence in this reasoning: I can be led by the church’s voice to the rule of faith; therefore I can have no more certain judgment than that of the church.

(William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture: Against the Papists, Especially Bellarmine and Stapleton, trans. & ed. William Fitzgerald, [Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, 1849],p. 288.)

William G. T. Shedd:

     The canonicity of a New Testament book is not settled by the authority of the primitive church, but by its testimony. This mistake is frequently made. Coleridge (Table Talk for 31 March 1832) says that “we receive the books ascribed to John and Paul as their books on the judgment of men for whom no miraculous discernment is pretended. Shall we give less credence to John and Paul themselves?” The modern church does not receive John’s Gospel and Paul’s epistles as canonical on the “judgment” or decision of the primitive church respecting their contents, but on their testimony respecting their authorship. Testimony respecting canonicity is like testimony respecting miracles. The modern church does not rest its belief in the miracles of our Lord on the authority of the first Christians, but on their witness and attestation. The authority of the first Christians is no higher than that of any other Christians, but their testimony is.

(William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology: Volume I: Second Edition, [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1889], pp. 142-143.)

Richard Hooker:

And by experience we all know, that the first outward motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the authority of God’s Church.

(Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 3.8.14; In: The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker: With an Account of His Life and Death: Seventh Edition: Vol. I, ed. John Keble, rev. by R. W. Church & F. Paget, [Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1888], p. 376.) See also: ofthelaws.com.

Richard Hooker:

     Indeed, what is more, to question the force and strength of human testimony would shake the very fortress of God’s truth. Though Scripture is the ground of whatever we believe concerning salvation in Christ, nevertheless human authority is the very key which opens the door into the knowledge of Scripture. The Scripture cannot teach us the things of God, unless we can trust men who teach us what the words of Scripture signify. Somehow, therefore, human authority may compel assent despite hutan weakness.

(Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 2.7.3; In: The Library of Early English Protestantism: The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity: In Modern English: Volume 1: Preface–Book IV, eds. Bradford Littlejohn, et al., [Lincoln: The Davenant Institute, 2019], pp. 139-140.)

Original. Richard Hooker:

     Yea, that which is more, utterly to infringe the force and strength of man’s testimony were to shake the very fortress of God’s truth. For whatsoever we believe concerning salvation by Christ, although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief; yet the authority of man is, if we mark it, the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture. The Scripture could not teach us the things that are of God, unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signify those things. Some way therefore, notwithstanding man’s infirmity, yet his authority may enforce assent.

(Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 2.7.3; In: The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker: With an Account of His Life and Death: Seventh Edition: Vol. I, ed. John Keble, rev. by R. W. Church & F. Paget, [Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1888], p. 321.) See also: ofthelaws.com.

James Bowling Mozley:

     So again Augustine says (Contra Ep. Manichæi, c. 5)—“Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicæ ecclesiæ commoveret auctoritas,”—which some might interpret to mean that he accepted the Gospel upon the testimony of the Church solely, and did not require the proof of miracles. But Thorndike in commenting on this passage distinguishes between two functions and capacities of the Church, one false, the other true; one, according to which the Church was an infallible asserter, and her assertion enough; the other, according to which the Church was a body of men witnessing to the transmission of certain doctrines and scriptures, upon certain evidence; witnessing, i.e. to the evidence of those credenda, as well as to the credenda themselves—such evidence being principally miracles. This is Thorndike’s fundamental distinction in treating of the authority of the Church and the inspiration of Scripture—his answer to the dilemma, to which the Roman divines profess to reduce us upon the latter question, urging that we receive the inspiration of Scripture upon the authority of the Church; and that therefore we stand committed to the principle of the authority of the Church in the fact of our belief in the Bible. We do, is Thorndike’s reply, but not to the authority of the Church as an infallible asserter, but as a body witnessing to the transmission of certain evidence for the inspiration of Scripture, contained in Apostolic history,—viz. the assertion of their own inspiration by the Apostles, attested by miracles. He explains then Augustine’s statement in accordance with this discriminating view. “The question is whether the authority of the Church as a corporation would have moved St. Augustine to believe the Gospel because they held it to be true; or the credit of the Church as of so many men of common sense attesting the truth of those reasons which the Gospel tenders, why we ought to believe.” (Principles of Christian Truth, bk. i. ch. iii.)

(J. B. Mozley, Eight Lectures on Miracles: Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year M.DCCC.LXV: New Edition, [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1895], Lecture I, Note 3, pp. 211-212.)

Cf. Herbert Thorndike:

     And now it will be easy to answer the words of St. Augustine contra Epistolam Fundamenti cap. v., which always have a place in this dispute, though I can as yet admit St. Augustine no otherwise than as a particular Christian, and his saying as a presumption that he hath said no more than any Christian would have said in the common cause of all Christians against the Manichees. Ego Evangelio non crederem, saith he, nisi me Ecclesiæ Catholicæ commoveret auctoritas. “I would not believe,” or “have believed, the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church moved me.” For some men have employed a great deal of learning to shew that commoveret stands for commovisset, as in many other places both of St. Augustine and of other African writers. And without doubt they have shewed it past contradiction, and I would make no doubt to shew the like in St. Hierome, Sidonius, and other writers of the decaying ages of the Latin tongue, as well as in the African writers, if it were any thing to the purpose. For is not the question, manifestly, what it is that obligeth that man to believe who as yet believeth not? Is it not the same reason that obliges him to become, and to be, a Christian? Therefore whether commoveret or commovisset, all is one: the question is, whether the authority of the Church as a corporation, that is, of those persons who are able to oblige the Church, would have moved St. Augustine to believe the Gospel, because they held it to be true; or the credit of the Church as of so many men of common sense, attesting the truth of those reasons which the Gospel tenders, why we ought to believe.

(Herbert Thorndike, Of the Principles of Christian Truth, 1.3.28; In: The Theological Works of Herbert Thorndike, Sometime Prebendary of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster: Vol. II, [Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1845], p. 52.)

Christopher Wordsworth:

The Church presents us with a Volume, called the HOLY BIBLE, containing writings which she affirms to be inspired by God. But, observe, she does not require us to receive them on her sole authority. The Church of England does not found the claims of the English Bible on the sanction of the existing English Church. No: she appeals to the testimony of the Church Universal, in and from the time of Christ and His Apostles to this hour. “In the name of the HOLY SCRIPTURES,” she says, in her sixth Article, “we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.” Thus the Church of England takes us as it were by the hand, and leads us upward by an ascending scale of past generations, and places us on the elevated platform of primitive Christianity; she lands us, as it were, on a mountain of transfiguration, in the company of Moses, and Elias, and the Apostles, and of CHRIST HIMSELF. …Hence the assertion of St. Augustine, on which Romanist Divines lay so much stress, as if it confirmed their theory, is seen to be perfectly reasonable; “Ego vero Evangelio non crederem nisi me Ecclesisæ commoveret auctoritas.” Contrà Epist. Fundam. c. 5. The Church may well be said commovere; but it is the Word alone which non commovet sed stabilit, solidat, immobilem reddit.

(Christopher Wordsworth, On the Inspiration of the Holy Scripture: Or, On the Canon of the Old and New Testament, and on the Apocrypha: Twelve Lectures, Delivered Before the University of Cambridge: From the Last London Edition, [Philadelphia: Herman Hooker, 1854], Lecture I, pp. 23-24, 24 fn. *.)

Humphrey Lynde:

     I proceed from the infallibility of the Church to the authority of it, wherein you shall likewise observe the Romanists do insist especially upon that known confession of St. Augustine: “I should not have believed the Gospel, except the authority of the Church had moved me thereunto.” But I pray, what do these words concern the Roman Church? why should they be applied rather to the Roman than his own Church in Africa, or our Church in England? (for he speaks not of the Roman Church or any particular Church, but of the Church indefinitely). Moreover, their own Canus professetht that St. Augustine had to do with a Manichee, who would have a certain Gospel of his own admitted without further dispute: in this case (saith he) St. Augustine puts the question, “What if you find one which doth not believe the Gospel? what motive would you use to such a one to bring him to your belief? I for my part (saith he) should not have been brought to embrace the Gospel if the Church’s authority had not swayed with me.” And from hence also Bishop Canus draws this sound conclusion: “The faith of the Gospel is not founded upon the authority of the Church.” This exposition of the Romanist is agreeable to our belief: for we profess that the first outward motive to bring men to the knowledge of the Scriptures is the authority of God’s Church. “If I believe the Gospel (saith Hooker) yet is reason of singular good use, for that it confirmeth me in this my belief the more: if I do believe as yet, nevertheless to bring me to the number of believers, except reason did somewhat help, and were an instrument which God doth use to such purposes, what should it boot to dispute with infidels and godless persons for their conversion and persuasion in that point.”

     He, therefore, that shall conclude from St. Augustine’s doctrine (which he professed in the name of an heretic), let him receive his answer from the same Father, when he makes his confession as a true Catholic: “By the mouth of God, which is the truth, I know the Church of God which is partaker of the truth.”[Ex veritatis ore agnosco Ecclesiam participem veritatis. Aug. in Psal. 57. [p. 545. tom. 4. Paris. 1681.]] But as it happeneth sometimes that he who hath fallen into the hands of an unskilful physician is loath afterwards to commit himself even to a good one, “So was it in the state of my soul (saith St. Augustine), which could not be healed by believing, and for fear of believing false things, it refused to be cured by true ones.”[Aug. lib. 6. Confess. c. 4. [p. 122. tom. 1, ut supra.]] And in the chapter following, whilst he was yet a Manichee, he makes this humble confession: “Thou, Lord, didst persuade me thus, I say not that they were blameable who believed thy books, which thou hast grounded by such authority throughout almost all the nations of the earth, but that they indeed were blameable who believed them not; and that no ear was to be given to any, if peradventure they should say to me, How dost thou know that these books were imparted to mankind by the Spirit of that one God, who is true in himself, and most true when he speaketh to us; for that is the very thing itself which is especially to be believed.”[Aug. lib. 6. Confess. 1. 6. c. 5. [tom. 1. col. 122, 123. ed. Ben.]] Thus St. Augustine the Catholic interprets Augustine the heretic. After his conversion to the truth the blessed Spirit did persuade him that there was no ear to be given to those men which made such doubts and questions (as are daily made in the Church of Rome), viz. “How do you know the Scriptures to be the Word of God?” but as the Samaritans believed that Christ was the promised Saviour upon the report of a woman, yet afterwards when they heard him themselves, they professed they believed him for his own sake, and not for the woman’s report: so likewise this holy Father first conferred with flesh and blood, as the most known and familiar means to introduce a saving knowledge; but after he had received the Spirit and Word of truth, he, like the Samaritans, believed the Gospel, not for the Church’s sake but for Christ’s own authority and his Gospel’s sake.

     The authority of the “Church is rightly compared to a key, which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture; now when a man hath entered and viewed the house, and by viewing it, likes it, and upon liking, resolves unchangeably to dwell there; he doth not set up his resolution upon the key that let him in, but upon the goodness and commodiousness which he sees in the house.” 

(Humphrey Lynde, “The By-Way (Via Devia),” 18; In: Supplement to Gibson’s Preservative Against Popery: Vol. IV: Sir Humphrey Lynde’s Via Tuta and Via Devia, [London: Published by the British Society for Promoting the Religious Principles of the Reformation, 1850], pp. 278-280.)

W. G. T. Shedd:

The individual, in the opinion of Augustine, is to respect the authority of the Church in seeking an answer to the questions: What books are canonical, and what apocryphal? and what is the doctrinal system contained in them? In answering these questions, he contended, that the Church universal had an authority higher than that of any one member; and higher, particularly, than a man like Manichaeus who claimed to be an inspired apostle. When therefore, a single individual, or a particular party like the Manichaeans, insisted that they were right in rejecting certain portions of the canon that had been, and still were, deemed canonical by the Church at large, and in deriving from the portions of it which they acknowledged to be of divine authority, a set of doctrines respecting the origin and nature of evil, such as the apostolic and catholic Church did not find in the scriptures,—when the individual, and the heretical party, in this way opposed their private judgment to the catholic judgment, Augustine denies the reasonableness of the procedure. He affirms the greater probability of the correctness of the Catholic Mind, in comparison with the Heretical or Schismatic Mind, and thereby the authority of the Church in relation to the individual, without dreaming however of affirming its absolute infallibility,—an attribute which he confines to the written revelation.

     The position which the Church sustains to the individual is indicated, remarks Augustine, in the words of the Samaritans to the Samaritan woman: “Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world” (John iv. 42). The individual first hears the concurrent testimony of the great body of believers in every age, and then verifies it for himself. He finds a general unanimity in the Church catholic respecting the canonical and apocryphal books, and also respecting their meaning and doctrinal contents. He goes to the examination with the natural expectation of finding that the general judgment is a correct one, and in so far, he comes under the influence of traditional or catholic opinions. This is the “ecclesiastical authority” which has weight with him. At the same time he exercises the right of private judgment; the right namely to examine the general judgment and to perceive its correctness with his own eyes. The Samaritans put confidence in the testimony of the woman, but at the same time they went and saw, and heard for themselves. They came into agreement with her by an active, and not by a passive method. In employing this illustration, Augustine adopts the Protestant, and opposes the Papal theory of tradition and authority. The Papist’s method of agreeing with the catholic judgment is passive. He denies that the individual may intelligently verify the position of the Church for himself, because the Church is infallible, and consequently there is no possibility of its being in error. The individual is therefore shut up to a mechanical and passive reception of the catholic decision. The Protestant, on the other hand, though affirming the high probability that the general judgment is correct, does not assert the infallible certainty that it is. It is conceivable and possible that the Church may err. Hence the duty of the individual, while cherishing an antecedent confidence in the decisions of the Church, to examine these decisions in the light of the written word, and convert this presumption into an intelligent perception, or else demonstrate their falsity beyond dispute. “Neither ought I to bring forward the authority of the Nicene Council,” says Augustine (Contra Maximianum Arianum II. xiv. 3), “nor you that of Ariminum, in order to prejudge the case. I ought not to be bound (detentum) by the authority of the latter, nor you by that of the former. Under the authority of the Scriptures,[GIESELER (History, Vol. I. § 90) remarks, that down to the council of Chalcedon, in 451, “in answering opponents men did not endeavour to prove [merely] that the council was oecumenical, but [also] that its decision was true according to scripture and tradition.”] not those received by particular sects, but those received by all in common, let the disputation be carried on, in respect to each and every particular.”[AUGUSTINE’S mind, while he was inquiring and doubting, and before he attained to Christian faith, was much influenced by the fact that the scriptures and the Christian system were the faith of the world. He argued that God would not have permitted a system of error to have obtained such universal currency, and so wide-spread influence. “Since we are too weak to find out truth by abstract reasonings, and for this very cause need the authority of Holy Writ, I began to believe that Thou wouldest never have given such excellency of authority to Scripture in all lands, hadst Thou not willed thereby to be sought and believed in. . . . . . . It is no vain and empty thing, that the excellent dignity of the authority of the Christian faith hath overspread the whole world.” Confessions, VI. v. xi. TERTULLIAN: (De praescriptionibus, c. 28, 29) employs the same reasoning. “Is it possible that so many churches, and so great ones, should have gone astray into the same erroneous belief? Never is there one result among many chances. In case the doctrinal system of the churches were error there must have been variety in its forms and statements. But where one and the same thing is found amongst many, this is not error but catholic tradition. . . . . Is it probable that a gospel of error was preached through the whole earth; that all mankind erroneously believed it; that so many thousands of thousands were baptized into error; that so many works of faith and miracles were wrought by error; and finally that so many martyrdoms in behalf of error were erroneously crowned?”]

(William G. T. Shedd, A History of Christian Doctrine: In Two Volumes: Vol. I, [New York: Charles Scribner, 1864], pp. 146-150.)

7. The Scriptures as Self-Authenticating. Return to Outline.

Francis Turretin:

     IV. To exhibit the state of the question, the question is not whether the Bible is authentic and divine, for this our opponents do not deny or at least wish to appear to believe. Rather the question is Whence is it made known to us as such, or by what argument can this inspiration be proved to us? The papists suspend this authority upon the testimony of the church and maintain that the principal motive by which we are induced to believe the authenticity (authentian) of the Scriptures is the voice of the church. But although we do not deny that the testimony of the church has its own weight (as will afterwards be seen), yet we maintain that primarily and principally the Bible is believed by us to be divine on account of itself (or the marks impressed upon it), not on account of the church.

     …VI. As a threefold cause can be granted for the manifestation of anything (an objective, efficient and instrumental or organic), so a threefold question can arise about the divinity of the Bible: the first, concerning the argument on account of which I believe; the second, concerning the principle or efficient cause from which I am led to believe; the third, concerning the means and instrument through which I believe. And to this triple question a triple reply can be given. For the Bible with its own marks is the argument on account of which I believe. The Holy Spirit is the efficient cause and principle from which I am induced to believe. But the church is the instrument and means through which I believe. Hence if the question is why, or on account of what, do I believe the Bible to be divine, I will answer that I do so on account of the Scripture itself which by its marks proves itself to be such. If it is asked whence or from what I believe, I will answer from the Holy Spirit who produces that belief in me. Finally, if I am asked by what means or instrument I believe it, I will answer through the church which God uses in delivering the Scriptures to me.

     VII. Third, the question does not concern the motive or the introductory (eisagōgikō) and ministerial (leitourgikō) means, whose assistance the Holy Spirit uses in persuading us of the authority of the Scriptures. This we readily concede to the church. Rather the question concerns the principal argument and motive by which we are brought to faith (not human, but divine) which they place in the church. We believe it is not to be found out of Scripture itself.

     …IX. The question then amounts to this—why, or on account of what, do we believe that the Bible is the word of God; or what argument does the Holy Spirit principally use to convince us of the inspiration of the Scriptures? The testimony and voice of the church, or the marks impressed upon Scripture itself? Our opponents assert the former; we the latter.

(Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume One, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., [Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992], 2.6.4, 6-7, 9, pp. 87, 87-88, 88.)

Francis Turretin:

     X. That the authority of the Scriptures either as to itself or as to us does not depend upon the testimony of the church is proved: (1) because the church is built upon the Scripture (Eph. 2:20) and borrows all authority from it. Our opponents cannot deny this since, when we ask them about the church, they quickly fly to the Scriptures to prove it. Therefore the church cannot recommend the authority of Scripture either as to itself or as to us, unless we wish to make the cause depend upon the effect, the principle upon that which derived from it and the foundation upon the edifice. Nor ought the objection to be brought up here (that both may be true) that the church borrows its authority from the Scriptures, and the Scriptures in turn from the church (just as John bore testimony to Christ who also himself gave testimony to John). For it is one thing to give testimony to someone as a minister, as John testified concerning Christ, that through him (di’autou), not on account of him (di’auton), the Jews might believe (Jn. 1:7). It is quite a different thing to give authority to him as a lord which Christ did to John. (2) The authority of the church would be prior to that of the Scriptures and so would be the first thing to be believed (upon which our faith at first would depend and into which it would finally be resolved), which our opponents, who make the authority of the church depend upon Scripture, would not admit. (3) A manifest circle would be made since the authority of the church is proved from Scripture, and in turn the authority of the Scripture from the church. (4) Our opponents are not yet agreed as to what is meant by the church—whether the modern or the ancient, the collective or the representative, a particular or the universal; or what is the act testifying concerning the authority of Scripture (whether enacted by some judicial sentence or exercised by a continuous and successive tradition). (5) A fallible and human testimony (as that of the church) cannot form the foundation of divine faith. And if God now speaks through the church, does it therefore follow that she is infallible because there is one kind of inspiration which is special and extraordinary (such as made the apostles and prophets infallible [anamartētous], and of which Christ speaks properly when he says that the Holy Spirit would lead the apostles into all truth, Jn. 16:13*); another common and ordinary which does not make pastors inspired (theopneustous). 

But is proved by itself.

(Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume One, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., [Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992], 2.6.10, pp. 88-89.)

Francis Turretin:

     XI. That the Scripture makes itself known to us is proved: (1) by the nature of the Scripture itself. For as a law does not derive its authority from the subordinate judges who interpret it or from the heralds who promulgate it, but from its author alone—as a will obtains its weight not from the notary to whom it is entrusted, but from the purpose of the testator; as a rule has the power of ruling from its own innate perfection, not from the artificer who uses it—so the Scripture which is the law of the supreme lawgiver, the will of our heavenly Father and the inflexible (aklinēs) rule of faith, cannot have authority even as to us from the church, but only from itself. (2) By the nature of the highest genera and of first principles; for those things are known by themselves and are not susceptible (anapodeikta) of proof which cannot be demonstrated by any other, otherwise the thing would go on to infinity. Hence Basil says “it is necessary that the first principles of every science should be self-evident” (anankē hekastēs mathēseōs anexetastous einai tas archas, In Psalmum cxv homilia, PG 30.104–5). Thus Scripture, which is the first principle in the supernatural order, is known by itself and has no need of arguments derived from without to prove and make itself known to us. If God has stamped such marks upon all first principles that they can be known at once by all men, we cannot doubt that he has placed them upon this sacred first principle (in the highest degree necessary to our salvation). (3) By comparison, as objects of the sense presented to faculties well disposed are immediately distinguished and known without any other external argument, on account of a secret adaptation and propensity of the faculty to the object. Light is immediately most certainly known to us by its own brightness; food by its peculiar sweetness; an odor by its peculiar fragrance without any additional testimony. Thus the Scripture, which is set forth to us in respect to the new man and spiritual senses, now under the symbol of a clear light (Ps. 119:105), then of the most sweetest food (Ps. 19:10; Is. 55:1, 2; Heb. 5:14) and again of the sweetest smelling savor (Cant. 1:3), may easily be distinguished of itself by the senses of the new man as soon as it is presented to them and makes itself known by its own light, sweetness and fragrance (euōdia); so that there is no need to seek elsewhere for proof that this is light, food or a sweet smelling savor. (4) By the testimony of our opponents who prove the inspiration of the Scriptures by its own marks; Bellarmine says, “Nothing is better known, nothing more certain than the sacred Scriptures contained in the writings of the prophets and apostles, so that he must be in the highest degree foolish who refuses to believe in them” (VD 1.2, p. 24); see Cano, “De Locis Theologicis,” 2.8 in Opera (1605), pp. 41–53; Gregory de Valentia, Analysis fidei catholicae 1.15 (1585), pp. 51–53; (Peter) Soto, Defensio Catholicae Confessionis 47 (1557), pp. 56–58.

(Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume One, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., [Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992], 2.6.11, pp. 89-90.)

Francis Turretin:

     XII. We do not deny that the church has many functions in relation to the Scriptures. She is: (1) the keeper of the oracles of God to whom they are committed and who preserves the authentic tables of the covenant of grace with the greatest fidelity, like a notary (Rom. 3:2); (2) the guide, to point out the Scriptures and lead us to them (Is. 30:21); (3) the defender, to vindicate and defend them by separating the genuine books from the spurious, in which sense she may be called the ground (hedraiōma) of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15*); (4) the herald who sets forth and promulgates them (2 Cor. 5:19; Rom. 10:16); (5) the interpreter inquiring into the unfolding of the true sense. But all these imply a ministerial only and not a magisterial power. Through her indeed, we believe, but not on account of her; as through John the Baptist the faithful believed in Christ, not on account of him (Jn. 1:7); and through the Samaritan woman Christ was known by the Samaritans, not on account of her (Jn. 4:39).

(Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume One, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., [Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992], 2.6.12, p. 90.)

Herman Bavinck:

     The church has and continues to have a many-sided and profound pedagogical significance for all believers till the day they die. The cloud of witnesses that surrounds us can strengthen and encourage us in our struggle. But this is something very different from saying that the authority of Scripture depends on the church. Even Rome does not yet dare to say this openly. The Vatican Council (1870), after all, recognized the books of the Old and the New Testament as canonical precisely “because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and as such have been entrusted to the church.” And Roman Catholic theologians distinguish between the authority of Scripture with respect to itself (quoad se) and with respect to us (quoad nos). But this distinction cannot be applied here. For if the church is the final and most basic reason why I believe Scripture, then the church, and not Scripture, is trustworthy in and of itself (αὐτοπιστος). We have to make a choice: either Scripture contains a witness, a teaching about itself, its inspiration and authority, and in that case the church simply accepts and confirms this witness; or Scripture itself does not teach such an inspiration and authority, and in that case the church’s dogma about Scripture stands condemned for a Protestant. Roman Catholic theologians, accordingly, face a powerful contradiction. On the one hand, in the doctrine of Scripture they attempt to prove its inspiration and authority from Scripture itself. On the other, having come to the doctrine of the church, they attempt to weaken those proofs and to demonstrate that only the witness of the church offers conclusive certainty.

     But if Scripture’s authority with respect to itself depends on Scripture, then it is authoritative also for us and the final ground of our faith. The church can only recognize that which is; it cannot create something that is not. The charge that in this way one is guilty of circular reasoning and Scripture is proven by Scripture itself can be thrown back at Rome itself, for it proves the church by means of Scripture and Scripture by means of the church. If in response Rome should say that in the first case it uses Scripture not as the word of God but as a human witness, which is credible and trustworthy, the Protestant theologian can adopt this approach as well: inspiration is first derived from Scripture as reliable witness; with this witness Scripture is then proved to be God’s word. Much more important, however, is that in every scientific discipline, hence also in theology, first principles are certain of themselves. The truth of a fundamental principle (principium) cannot be proved; it can only be recognized. “A first principle is believed on its own account, not on account of something else. Fundamental principles cannot have a first principle, neither ought they to be sought.”

(Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 1: Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], §. 119, pp. 457-458.)

Charles Hodge:

     Romanists argue that Protestants concede the authority of tradition, because it is on that authority they receive the New Testament as the word of God. This is not correct. We do not believe the New Testament to be divine on the ground of the testimony of the Church. We receive the books included in the canonical Scriptures on the twofold ground of internal and external evidence. It can be historically proved that those books were written by the men whose names they bear; and it can also be proved that those men were the duly authenticated organs of the Holy Ghost. The historical evidence which determines the authorship of the New Testament is not exclusively that of the Christian fathers. The testimony of heathen writers is, in some respects, of greater weight than that of the fathers themselves. We may believe on the testimony of English history, ecclesiastical and secular, that the Thirty-Nine Articles were framed by the English Reformers, without being traditionists. In like manner we may believe that the books of the New Testament were written by the men whose names they bear without admitting tradition to be a part of the rule of faith.

     Besides, external evidence of any kind is a very subordinate part of the ground of a Protestant’s faith in the Scripture. That ground is principally the nature of the doctrines therein revealed, and the witness of the Spirit, with and by the truth, to the heart and conscience. We believe the Scriptures for much the same reason that we believe the Decalogue.

     The Church is bound to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made it free, and not to be again entangled with the yoke of bondage, — a bondage not only to human doctrines and institutions, but to soul-destroying errors and superstitions.

(Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Vol. I, [New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Co., 1877], p. 129.) See also: ccel.org.

Michael J. Kruger:

     The various canonical models will be divided into two large categories, community determined and historically determined. This chapter will cover the first of these. As a general description, community-determined approaches view the canon as something that is, in some sense, established or constituted by the people—either individually or corporately—who have received these books as Scripture. Canonicity is viewed not as something inherent to any set of books, but as “something officially or authoritatively imposed upon certain literature.” Thus, a “canon” does not exist until there is some sort of response from the community. Simply put, it is the result of actions and/or experiences of Christians. Specific examples of the community-determined model, as will be seen below, can vary quite widely. Some view the canon as somewhat of a historical accident (the historical-critical model); some view it as the result of the inspired declarations of the church (the Roman Catholic model); and others view it as an “event” that takes place when the Spirit works through these books and impacts individuals (the existential/neoorthodox model). But all share this in common: when asked how one knows which books are canonical, they all find the answer in the response of the Christian community.

(Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books, [Wheaton: Crossway, 2012], pp. 29-30.)

Michael J. Kruger:

     What is needed, then, is a canonical model that does not ground the New Testament canon in an external authority, but seeks to ground the canon in the only place it could be grounded, its own authority. After all, if the canon bears the very authority of God, to what other standard could it appeal to justify itself? Even when God swore oaths, “he swore by himself” (Heb. 6:13). Thus, for the canon to be the canon, it must be self-authenticating. A self-authenticating model of canon would take into account something that the other models have largely overlooked: the content of the canon itself. Rather than looking only to its reception (community determined), or only to its origins (historically determined), this model would, in a sense, let the canon have a voice in its own authentication. But this raises a number of questions. What exactly do we mean when we say that the canon is self-authenticating? And does a self-authenticating canon mean that we cannot use external data?

(Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books, [Wheaton: Crossway, 2012], p. 89.)

Michael J. Kruger:

     But what exactly do we mean when we say that the canon authenticates itself? Upon first glance, a self-authenticating canon may seem to refer to the fact that the canon claims to be the Word of God (e.g., 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21; Rev. 22:18-19), implying that all we can do is accept or reject that claim. Although Scripture’s testimony about itself is an important aspect of biblical authority (and will be discussed more below), we will not be arguing that the canon is authenticated simply by virtue of the fact that it says so. That is not how the phrase will be used here. Others may hear the phrase “self-authenticating” and recognize it as a reference to the traditional Reformed view that the books of Scripture bear evidence in themselves of their own divinity. As a result, some may assume that a self-authenticating canon means that our model will be concerned only with the internal qualities of these books and that external data or evidence plays no role in the authentication process. While we certainly agree that these books do bear internal marks of their divinity (indeed, this will be a core component of the model put forth below), this does not mean that outside information has no place in how the canon is authenticated. We shall argue that when it comes to the question of canon, the Scriptures themselves provide grounds for considering external data: the apostolicity of books, the testimony of the church, and so forth. Of course, this external evidence is not to be used as an independent and neutral “test” to determine what counts as canonical; rather it should always be seen as something warranted by Scripture and interpreted by Scripture.

(Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books, [Wheaton: Crossway, 2012], p. 90.)

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think that ye have eternal life, and they are they that testify of me;” “If ye believed Moses, ye would believe me, for he wrote of me;” “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them;” “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe though one rose from the dead.” What have you to say for yourselves? Where is your authority? If you reject these passages of Scripture, in spite of the weighty authority in their favor, what miracles can you show? However, if you did work miracles, we should be on our guard against receiving their evidence in your case; for the Lord has forewarned us: “Many false Christs and false prophets shall arise, and shall do many signs and wonders, that they may deceive, if it were possible, the very elect: behold, I have told you before.” This shows that the established authority of Scripture must outweigh every other; for it derives new confirmation from the progress of events which happen, as Scripture proves, in fulfillment of the predictions made so long before their occurrence.

(Augustine of Hippo, Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, 13.5; trans. NPNF1, 4:201.) See also: ccel.org.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

Let us suppose, then, a conversation with a heathen inquirer, in which Faustus described us as making a poor appearance, though his own appearance was much more deplorable. If we say to the heathen, Believe in Christ, for He is God, and, on his asking for evidence, produce the authority of the prophets, if he says that he does not believe the prophets, because they are Hebrew and he is a Gentile, we can prove the truth of the prophets from the actual fulfillment of their prophecies. He could scarcely be ignorant of the persecutions suffered by the early Christians from the kings of this world; or if he was ignorant, he could be informed from history and the records of imperial laws. But this is what we find foretold long ago by the prophet, saying, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the princes take counsel together against the Lord, and against His Christ.” The rest of the Psalm shows that this is not said of David. For what follows might convince the most stubborn unbeliever: “The Lord said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Thy possession.” This never happened to the Jews, whose king, David was, but is now plainly fulfilled in the subjection of all nations to the name of Christ. This and many similar prophecies, which it would take too long to quote, would surely impress the mind of the inquirer. He would see these very kings of the earth now happily subdued by Christ, and all nations serving Him; and he would hear the words of the Psalm in which this was so long before predicted: “All the kings of the earth shall bow down to Him; all nations shall serve Him.” And if he were to read the whole of that Psalm, which is figuratively applied to Solomon, he would find that Christ is the true King of peace, for Solomon means peaceful; and he would find many things in the Psalm applicable to Christ, which have no reference at all to the literal King Solomon. Then there is that other Psalm where God is spoken of as anointed by God, the very word anointed pointing to Christ, showing that Christ is God, for God is represented as being anointed. In reading what is said in this Psalm of Christ and of the Church, he would find that what is there foretold is fulfilled in the present state of the world. He would see the idols of the nations perishing from off the earth, and he would find that this is predicted by the prophets, as in Jeremiah, “Then shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth, and from under heaven;” and again, “O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto Thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will at that time cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that I am the Lord.” Hearing these prophecies, and seeing their actual fulfillment, I need not say that he would be affected; for we know by experience how the hearts of believers are confirmed by seeing ancient predictions now receiving their accomplishment.

(Augustine of Hippo, Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, 13.7; trans. NPNF1, 4:202.) See also: ccel.org.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

After considering these instances of the fulfillment of prophecy about kings and people acting as persecutors, and then becoming believers, about the destruction of idols, about the blindness of the Jews, about their testimony to the writings which they have preserved, about the folly of heretics, about the dignity of the Church of true and genuine Christians, the inquirer would most reasonably receive the testimony of these prophets about the divinity of Christ. No doubt, if we were to begin by urging him to believe prophecies yet unfulfilled, he might justly answer, What have I to do with these prophets, of whose truth I have no evidence? But, in view of the manifest accomplishment of so many remarkable predictions, no candid person would despise either the things which were thought worthy of being predicted in those early times with so much solemnity, or those who made the predictions. To none can we trust more safely, as regards either events long past or those still future, than to men whose words are supported by the evidence of so many notable predictions having been fulfilled.

(Augustine of Hippo, Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, 13.14; trans. NPNF1, 4:204-205.) See also: ccel.org.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

…our belief is determined not by Faustus’ suppositions, but by the declarations of Scripture, resting as they do on foundations of the strongest and surest evidence.

(Augustine of Hippo, Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, 26.3; trans. NPNF1, 4:321.) See also: ccel.org.

George Florovsky (Eastern Orthodox Theologian and Historian):

In the same sense we have to interpret the well-known and justly startling statement of Augustine: “Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicae ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas” (“Indeed, I should not have believed the gospel, if the authority of the catholic church had not moved me”). This sentence must be read in its context. Augustine did not utter it on his own behalf. He spoke of the attitude which a simple believer has to take when confronted with a heretical claim for authority. In this situation it is proper for a simple believer to appeal to the authority of the church, from which and in which he has received the gospel itself: “ipsi evangelio catholicis praedicantibus credidi” (“I believed the gospel itself, being instructed by catholic preachers”). The gospel and the preaching of the catholici belong together. Augustine had no intention to subordinate the gospel to the church. He merely wanted to emphasize that the gospel is always received in the context of the church’s catholic preaching and simply cannot be separated from the church. Only in this context can it be assessed and properly understood. Indeed, the witness of the Scripture is ultimately self-evident, but only for the faithful, for those who have achieved a certain spiritual maturity; and this is possible only within the church. He contrasted this teaching and preaching auctoritas of the church catholic with the pretentious vagaries of Manichean exegesis. The gospel did not belong to the Manicheans. Catholicae ecclesiae auctoritas (the authority of the catholic church) was not an independent source of faith. But it was the indispensable principle of sound interpretation. Actually, the sentence could be converted: one should not believe the church, unless one is moved by the gospel. The relationship is strictly reciprocal.

(George Florovsky, “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church;” In: Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Reader: Second Edition, ed. Daniel B. Clendenin, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], p. 114. Cf. George Florovsky, “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church;” In: Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View: Volume One in the Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, [Belmont: Nordland Publishing Company, 1972], pp. 91-92.)

Cf. Keith A. Mathison (Protestant Historian and Theologian):

In this Augustine is in agreement with the earlier fathers who insisted on the necessary role of the Church. The evidence simply does not support later medieval concepts of a Church that has metaphysical priority over Holy Scripture. This interpretation (which persists today) stems from taking one sentence out of context and reading far more into it than that context will allow.

(Keith A. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, [Moscow: Canon Press, 2001], p. 42.)

Cf. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

By the mouth of God, which is the truth, I know the Church of God which is partaker of the truth [Ex veritatis ore agnosco Ecclesiam participem veritatis].

(S. Augustini, In Psalmum LVII Enarratio, §. 6 [vers. 4]; PL, 36:679; trans. Humphrey Lynde, “The By-Way (Via Devia),” 18; In: Supplement to Gibson’s Preservative Against Popery: Vol. IV: Sir Humphrey Lynde’s Via Tuta and Via Devia, [London: Published by the British Society for Promoting the Religious Principles of the Reformation, 1850], p. 279. Cf. WSA, III/17:128.)

Alt. Trans. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

A human being can lie, but it is not possible for Truth to lie. From the womb of truth I recognize Christ, who is Truth itself, and from the words of Truth I recognize the Church, which participates in the Truth.

(Augustine of Hippo, Exposition of Psalm 57, 6 [on verse 4]; PL, 36:679; trans. WSA, III/17:128.)

8. The Old Testament Canon. Return to Outline.

Martin Chemnitz:

     4 The papalists think they have a place of refuge in that they maintain that the church received the books of the Old Testament from the tradition not of the Pharisees but of the prophets, of Christ, and of the apostles. But since, according to Augustine, an unbroken period of time is required for this thing, the Pharisees cannot be excluded from the witness concerning the books of the Old Testament. Why, then, did not Christ and the apostles, who accepted the tradition concerning the books of the Old Testament, also by the same right accept the other traditions of the elders, since they indeed bear this title: “It was said to the men of old”? By what right do the papalists repudiate the Talmudic traditions although they accept the tradition of the Jews concerning the books of the Old Testament? If they say that the Jews invented the Talmudic Cabala, these will stoutly deny it, for they name as its first authors the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets. Why, then, do you papalists not believe this their witness, especially since we do not repudiate their witness concerning the books of the Old Testament? We reply simply: “Because we learn from the prophetical books, concerning which the Jews bear witness, that as much of the doctrine of the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets as is sufficient and necessary was committed to writing. For this reason we examine all the other traditions according to what has been written, and the tradition of the Jews which is contrary to this witness, transmitting as it does much that is outside, beyond, and contrary to the Scripture, we do not accept but repudiate with the best right, for this we learn from the very books which the Jews commend to us with their witness. If the papalists have any other answer, let them bring it forward, and we shall be able to hold it up against their own objection, why, although we accept the traditions of the church concerning the canonical books, we do not similarly also accept all other things which are foisted on us under the name of traditions by the papal church.

(Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent: Part I, trans. Fred Kramer, [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971], 2.2.4, pp. 229-230)

9. The Old Testament Canon and the Synod of Jamnia (Yavne). Return to Outline.

Roger Beckwith:

     The theory that an open canon was closed at the ‘Council’ of Yavne about 90 C.E. goes back to Heinrich Graetz in 1871, who proposed (rather more cautiously than has since been the custom) that the ‘Council’ of Yavne led to the closing of the canon. Though others have lately expressed hesitations about the theory, its complete refutation has been the work of J.P. Lewis and S.Z. Leiman. The combined result of their investigations is as follows:

     (a) The term ‘synod’ or ‘council’ is inappropriate. The academy at Yavne, established by Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai shortly before the fall of Jersualem in 70 C.E., was both a college and a legislative body, and the occasion in question was a session of the elders there.

     (b) The date of the session may have been as early as 75 C.E. or as late as 117 C.E.

     (c) As regards the disputed books, the discussion was confined to the question whether Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs (or possibly Ecclesiastes alone) make the hands unclean, i.e. are divinely inspired.

     (d) The decision reached was not regarded as authoritative, since contrary opinions continued to be expressed throughout the second century.

(Roger T. Beckwith, “Formation of the Hebrew Bible;” In: Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin Jan Mulder, [Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1988], p. 60. Cf. Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church: And It’s Background in Early Judaism, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2008; previously published by SPCK, 1985], p. 276.)

Note: It is the very definition of anachronism to look back upon the intramural debate between the elders of the academy at Jamnia and impose upon these men a degree of authority which they themselves never imagined they held (and rightly so, for they did not).

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

It is thought by some that the question of the Old Testament Canon was only settled at the Synod of Jamnia, A.D. 90. But the question then discussed was not so much as to admission as to continuance and possible exclusion. There does not seem to be any proof of an unsettled Canon, but only of action against a Canon already decided. An open Canon at that date would be altogether against the plain testimony of Josephus.

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles, [London: Church Book Room Press Ltd., 1963], on Art. VI, p. 114.)

Cf. Flavius Josephus:

…we do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited [δίκαίως πεπιστευμένα], are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time.

(Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, 1.39; trans. The Loeb Classical Library: Josephus: In Eight Volumes: I: The Life & Against Apion, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, [London: William Heinemann, 1926], pp. 178, 179. [LCL, 186:178, 179])

10. The Necessity of Private Interpretation. Return to Outline.

The necessity of private interpretation → If a Roman Catholic believes that the Roman Church is infallible they do so solely upon the conviction of their own fallible ability to reason and discern truth (i.e. private judgment).

John Henry Newman (Became a Roman Catholic Cardinal): 

Now, if man is in a state of trial, and his trial lies in the general exercise of the will, and the choice of religion is an exercise of will, and always implies an act of individual judgment, it follows that such acts are in the number of those by which he is tried, and for which he is to give an account hereafter. So far, all parties must be agreed, that without private judgment there is no responsibility; and that in matter of fact, a man’s own mind, and nothing else, is the cause of his believing or not believing, and of his acting or not acting upon his belief. 

(John Henry Newman, Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, Viewed Relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism: Second Edition, [London: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1838], Lecture V: On the Use of Private Judgement, p. 157.)

Phillip Blosser (Roman Catholic Apologist):

Newman admitted that by strict philosophical standards, the Catholic position could only speak of the “probable Infallibility” of the Church (Essay, 80), a position comparable to the “fallible collection of infallible books” position of some Protestants (Sproul, in SS, 66). I am reminded of Pascal’s remark in the Pensées that there is apparent evidence on both sides of the argument concerning God’s existence, enough light to give hope to the seeker, enough darkness to blind the arrogant unbeliever and keep the believer humble. The same could be said for the evidence supporting the Infallibility of the Bible and the Church.

(Phillip Blosser, “What are the Philosophical and Practical Problems of Sola Scriptura?” In: Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, ed. Robert A. Sungenis, [Santa Barbara: Queenship Publishing Company, 1997], p. 64 fn. 76. Cf. John Henry Cardinal Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1890], pp. 80-81.)

Note: R. C. Sproul often referred to the classical Protestant view of the canon as “a fallible collection of Infallible books.” (R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, [Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992], p. 22.) Rome stringently objects to this characterization and claims to have “an infallible collection of infallible books.” (Ibid.) While it is true that Evangelicals do not have an infallible, or exhaustive knowledge of the canon (only the infinite can have an exhaustive knowledge of any given subject), in like fashion the members of the Roman Church do not have an infallible or exhaustive knowledge of the authority and reliability of the Papacy, and thus end in the same proverbial boat, despite their boisterous protestations to the contrary. 

A. A. Hodge:

     Is there a God? Has he revealed himself? Has he established a church? Is that church an infallible teacher? Is private judgment a blind leader? Which of all pretended churches is the true one? Every one of these questions evidently must be settled in the private judgment of the inquirer, before he can, rationally or irrationally, give up his private judgment to the direction of the self-asserting church. Thus of necessity Romanists appeal to the Scriptures to prove that the Scriptures cannot be understood, and address arguments to the private judgment of men to prove that private judgment is incompetent; thus basing an argument upon that which it is the object of the argument to prove is baseless.

(Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology: Rewritten and Enlarged, [New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879], p. 91.) See also: monergism.com.

Cf. A. A. Hodge:

     The Romanists, of necessity, set forth certain marks by which the true church is to be discriminated from all counterfeits. These are (1.) Unity (through subjection to one visible head, the Pope); (2.) Holiness; (3.) Catholicity; (4.) Apostolicity, (involving an uninterrupted succession from the apostles of canonically ordained bishops.)—“Cat. of Council of Trent,” Part I., Cap. 10. Now, the comprehension and intelligent application of these marks involve a great amount of learning and intelligent capacity upon the part of the inquirer. He might as easily prove himself to be descended from Noah by an unbroken series of legitimate marriages, as establish the right of Rome to the last mark. Yet he cannot rationally give up the right of studying the Bible for himself until that point is made clear. 

     Surely the Scriptures, with their self-evidencing spiritual power, make less exhaustive demands upon the resources of private judgment.

(Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology: Rewritten and Enlarged, [New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879], pp. 91-92.)

George Salmon:

     That submission to the Church of Rome rests ultimately on an act of private judgment is unmistakeably evident, when a Romanist tries (as he has no scruple in doing) to make a convert of you or any other member of our Church. What does he then ask you to do but to decide that the religion of your fathers is wrong; that the teachers and instructors of your childhood were all wrong; that the clergy to whom you have looked up as best able to guide you are all mistaken and have been leading you in a way which must end in your eternal destruction? Well, if you come to the conclusion to reject all the authority which you have reverenced from your childhood, is not that a most audacious exercise of private judgment? But suppose you come to the opposite conclusion, and decide on staying where you were, would not a Romanist have a right to laugh at you, if you said that you were not using your private judgment then; that to change one’s religion indeed is an act of private judgment, but that one who continues in his father’s religion is subject to none of the risks to which every exercise of private judgment is liable? Well, it is absurd to imagine that logic has one rule for Roman Catholics and another for us; that it would be an exercise of private judgment in them to change their religion, but none if they continue in what their religious teachers have told them. An act of our judgment must be the ultimate foundation of all our beliefs.

(George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church: Fourth Edition, [Searcy: James D. Bales, 1948; originally published London: John Murray, 1914], pp. 48-49.) See also: books.google.com (1914 ed.).

Cf. George Salmon:

And yet it is easy to show that it is in the nature of things impossible to give men absolute security against error in any other way than by their being themselves made infallible; and I shall hereafter show you that when men profess faith in the Church’s infallibility, they are, in real truth, professing faith in their own.

     It is common with Roman Catholics to speak as if the use of private judgment and the infallibility of the Church were things opposed to each other. They are fond of contrasting the peace, and certainty, and assurance of him whose faith rests on the rock of an infallible Church, with the uncertainty of him whose belief rests only on the shifting sands of his own fallible judgment. But it must be remembered that our belief must, in the end, rest on an act of our own judgment, and can never attain any higher certainty than whatever that may be able to give us. We may talk about the right of private judgment, or the duty of private judgment, but a more important thing to insist on is the necessity of private judgment. We have the choice whether we shall exercise our private judgment in one act or in a great many; but exercise it in one way or another we must. We may either apply our private judgment separately to the different questions in controversy—Purgatory, Transubstantiation, Invocation of Saints, and soforth—and come to our own conclusion on each; or we may apply our private judgment to the question whether the Church of Rome is infallible, and, if we decide that it is, take all our religious opinions thenceforward on trust from her. But it is clear that our certainty that any of the things she teaches us is right cannot be greater than whatever certainty we have that our private judgment has decided the question rightly whether we ought to submit unreservedly to her teaching; and it will appear, before we have done, that this is at least as difficult a question as any in the controversy.

(George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church: Fourth Edition, [Searcy: James D. Bales, 1948; originally published London: John Murray, 1914], pp. 47-48.) See also: books.google.com (1914 ed.).

Cf. George Salmon:

     But to return. There cannot be a plainer proof that men’s so-called certainty does not always correspond with the reality of things, than the fact that there may be opposing certainties. Dr. Newman, for instance, is certain the Pope is infallible, and I am certain he is not. Dr. Newman would get over this by calling his strong conviction certainty, and giving to mine some weaker name. But what is this but assuming that he is infallible, and I am not? And when he refuses to revise his former judgment that the Church of Rome is infallible, notwithstanding that since he came to it the Pope has made two decisions which, if Newman were free to exercise his own judgment, he would pronounce to be wrong, what is this but assuming that he was infallible at the time of his former judgment?

(George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church: Fourth Edition, [Searcy: James D. Bales, 1948; originally published London: John Murray, 1914], p. 77.) See also: books.google.com (1914 ed.).

Cf. George Salmon:

     But I must bring you back to the point with which I commenced, namely, that it is absurd for Roman Catholics to disparage private judgment, or make light of the kind of certainty we can obtain by its means, since their belief, as well as ours, must ultimately rest on an act of their private judgment, and can have no higher certainty than whatever that is capable of yielding. If they use their private judgment on no other question, they must use it on the question. Are we bound to submit implicitly to the authority of the Church of Rome? The result is, that absolute certainty can only be had on the terms of being infallible one’s self. A man may say, ‘I am absolutely certain that I am right in my religious opinions, because I believe what the Pope believes, and he is absolutely certain not to believe wrong.’ But then comes the question, ‘How come you to be absolutely certain that the Pope is absolutely certain not to believe wrong?’

(George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church: Fourth Edition, [Searcy: James D. Bales, 1948; originally published London: John Murray, 1914], p. 53.) See also: books.google.com (1914 ed.).

W. H. Griffith Thomas:

The ultimate court of appeal must of necessity be the spiritually enlightened judgment of the individual Christian with reference to any and every matter of truth and conscience. This is the inalienable right of the individual, whether like the Protestant he exercises it continually and directly from the Bible, or whether like the Roman Catholic he exercises it once for all in deciding to submit himself to an external organisation which he believes to be an infallible guide.

(W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God: Second Impression, [Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n, 1913], p. 219.)

Cecil John Cadoux: 

     Since in order to become or to remain a Roman Catholic, it is necessary to accept the infallibility of the Pope, and since a great initial act of private judgment is necessary as the prius and basis of such acceptance, it follows that one cannot bow to the infallible authority of Church or Pope, without having first bowed to one’s own.

(Cecil John Cadoux, Catholicism and Christianity: A Vindication of Progressive Protestantism, [London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1928], p. 126.)

Max Müller:

We have to choose, once for all, between freedom and slavery of judgment; and though I do not wish to argue with those who prefer slavery to freedom, yet I may remind them that, even in choosing slavery, they follow their own private judgment quite as much as others do in choosing freedom. In claiming infallibility for popes and councils, they claim in reality far greater infallibility for themselves.

(Max Müller, “Freedom of Religious Discussion;” In: The Forum: Vol. XI, [New York: The Forum Publishing Co., 1891], p. 39.)

Thomas Carlyle:

The sorriest sophistical Bellarmine, preaching sightless faith and passive obedience, must first, by some kind of conviction, have abdicated his right to be convinced. His “private judgment” indicated that, as the advisablest step he could take. The right of private judgment will subsist, in full force, wherever true men subsist. A true man believes with his whole judgment, with all the illumination and discernment that is in him, and has always so believed. A false man, only struggling to “believe that he believes,” will naturally manage it in some other way. Protestantism said to this latter, Woe! and to the former, Well done! At bottom, it was no new saying; it was a return to all old sayings that ever had been said. Be genuine, be sincere: that was, once more, the meaning of it. Mohammed believed with his whole mind; Odin with his whole mind,—he and all true followers of Odinism. They, by their private judgment, had “judged”—so.

(Thomas Carlyle, Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, [New York: John B. Alden, 1885], Lecture IV: The Hero as Priest, p. 120.)

Edward Longman:

The Reformation, namely, established the principle of private judgment in matters of religion. Even converts to Roman Catholicism from Protestantism exercise that Protestant right, by resolving to change from one religious profession to another. Roman Catholic propaganda is, then, simply one of the natural effects of the freedom which resulted from the Reformation.

(Edward Longman, “Discussions: ‘Roman Catholicism in England’;” In: The Hibbert Journal: Volume XXII: October 1923–July 1924, [Boston: Leroy Phillips, 1924], p. 797.)

John Oman:

The true philosophy may be that God has not given us the power to solve our own difficulties, but has appointed us a supreme, divinely taught teacher, and holy infallible guide in life. But that would in no way rid us of dependence on the intellect, though it might save us the necessity of exercising any further our own spiritual insight. The duty of inquiring into the merit of any who might claim to be such a teacher and guide, would be entirely a task for the intellect. Only inquiry could satisfy us that we need not inquire further. Only on recognizing the true, may we lay down our task of searching further for truth, and, only on being satisfied that we have found the holy, are we justified in submitting to its guidance. 

(John Oman, Vision and Authority: Or the Throne of St. Peter, [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1902], p. 67.)

William A. Curtis:

Even Rome cannot evade the awkward circumstance that, after all, our acceptance of the pope as in any character and capacity infallible depends in the last resort upon an exercise of individual conscience and private judgment. ‘How otherwise,’ wrote Mivart to Cardinal Vaughan in 1900, ‘could we know that authority had spoken at all, or what it had said?’ Before the soul has any right to fling itself into arms extended to receive it in its quest of truth and peace, it must first convince itself that the arms are everlasting and that the proffered bosom is divine.

(William A. Curtis, “Infallibility;” In: Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics: Volume VII: Hymns–Liberty, eds. James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915], 276.)

Cf. William A. Curtis:

It is important that the wide range of the idea should be recognized. Infallibility is claimed in some measure or degree in a large number of regions of human activity. While the ecclesiastical and political uses are the most familiar as themes of literary and academic discussion, others deserve mention in an article like this, since the analogies they present are valuable, and have undoubtedly lent support to the former. Wherever in human affairs authority is respected and truth recognized, a degree of infallibility appropriate to the circumstances is implied. Usually the quality of perfect trustworthiness is attributed simply to the object, person, or institution in which it is believed to reside. But in reality it is also implied that the mind which recognizes infallibility has itself formed an infallible, an absolutely trustworthy, judgment, whether directly on the basis of evidence before itself, or indirectly on the basis of evidence accepted by a reputed infallible, external witness or authority, such as tradition, usage, or a living organization. Nothing assists the student of infallibility more effectively to appreciate its essential complexity and subtlety than a swift glance at the less notorious and controversial regions of life in which it is acknowledged to be operative.

(William A. Curtis, “Infallibility;” In: Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics: Volume VII: Hymns–Liberty, eds. James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915], 258.)

G. G. Coulton:

The man who calls upon others to follow his lead unquestioningly in the highest matters that humanity can deal with, is in effect claiming infallibility. He does not mend matters by saying it is the church which is infallible, so long as he persists in defining the church as the body of those who think with himself; and this, in the last analysis, is what the strict catholic theory comes to. There is little difference between the theory of individual infallibility and that of infallibility in partnership.

(G. G. Coulton, Christ, St Francis and To-Day, [Cambridge: At the University Press, 1919], pp. 124-125.)

Charles F. D’arcy:

     A crucial illustration of the moral and intellectual situation which thus comes into being is the position of one who in our time deliberately submits himself to the authority of the Papal See. Here the claim to infallibility is urged with all the parade of great pretensions. If a mind is merely overwhelmed by these pretensions, or yields through moral weariness, the decision has no spiritual value whatever. Only when there is conviction and deliberate choice can the action be morally justified. But this conviction and deliberate choice mean that the Papal claims have been submitted to the judgement of the individual and have been accepted. Their value for the individual is the value of his own judgement. He may fortify his decision by appealing to the multitudes who accept the authority of the Papal See, or by consideration of its august history and splendid monuments; but, in every instance, he passes judgement on the evidential value of these various considerations. In the last resort, the infallibility of the Pope resolves itself into the infallibility of his own private judgement. We find, in fact, when we penetrate deeply enough into the grounds of conviction, that, for the mind whose decision is truly conscientious, there is no power or authority which can intervene between God and the soul. This is the essence of Luther’s doctrine. It is an eternal truth.

(Charles F. D’arcy, “Christian Liberty;” In: Anglican Essays: A Collective Review of the Principles and Special Opportunities of the Anglican Communion as Catholic and Reformed, [London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1923], p. 11.)

Jordan B. Cooper: 

Rome does not offer a solution to the problem of the subjective interpreter, it merely pushes the problem one step back so that it is not only Scripture which must be interpreted by the individual but Church Councils, Papal proclamations and Patristic consensus.

John C. Peckham:

Any purported interpretive arbiter must also be interpreted, ad infinitum.

     Why not, then, give up the futile quest for an interpretive arbiter capable of resolving hermeneutical diversity and recognize the canon as the rule of faith? The practitioner of canonical sola Scriptura posits the canon itself as rule not because she naively thinks the canon requires no interpretation but because she does not believe any rule or normative interpreter (other than God) could actually eliminate hermeneutical diversity. According to this view, the canon functions as the standard against which all theological proposals are measured, without expecting to eliminate hermeneutical diversity.

     In this regard, no reading of Scripture is deemed perfectly adequate and that is why the canon is never bypassed or replaced by any other standard. 

(John C. Peckham, Canonical Theology: The Biblical Canon, Sola Scriptura, and Theological Method, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2016], p. 134.)

John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (c. 347-407 A.D.):

What then shall we say to the heathen? There comes a heathen and says, “I wish to become a Christian, but I know not whom to join: there is much fighting and faction among you, much confusion: which doctrine am I to choose?” How shall we answer him? “Each of you” (says he) “asserts, ‘I speak the truth.’” (b) No doubt: this is in our favor. For if we told you to be persuaded by arguments, you might well be perplexed: but if we bid you believe the Scriptures, and these are simple and true, the decision is easy for you. If any agree with the Scriptures, he is the Christian; if any fight against them, he is far from this rule. (a) “But which am I to believe, knowing as I do nothing at all of the Scriptures? The others also allege the same thing for themselves. What then (c) if the other come, and say that the Scripture has this, and you that it has something different, and ye interpret the Scriptures diversely, dragging their sense (each his own way)?” And you then, I ask, have you no understanding, no judgment? “And how should I be able (to decide),” says he, “I who do not even know how to judge of your doctrines? I wish to become a learner, and you are making me forthwith a teacher.” If he say this, what, say you, are we to answer him? How shall we persuade him? Let us ask whether all this be not mere pretence and subterfuge. . . . “There is such a multitude of men, and they have different doctrines; this a heathen, that a Jew, the other a Christian: no need to accept any doctrine whatever, for they are at variance one with another; but I am a learner, and do not wish to be a judge”—but if you have yielded (so far as) to pronounce against (καταγινώσκειν) one doctrine, this pretext no longer has place for you. For just as you were able to reject the spurious, so here also, having come, you shall be able to prove what is profitable. For he that has not pronounced against any doctrine at all, may easily say this: but he that has pronounced against any, though he have chosen none, by going on in the same way, will be able to see what he ought to do. Then let us not make pretexts and excuses, and all will be easy. For, to show you that all this is mere excuse, answer me this: Do you know what you ought to do, and what to leave undone? Then why do you not what you ought? Do that, and by right reason seek of God, and He will assuredly reveal it to thee.

(John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, Hom. 33; trans. NPNF1, 11:210-211, 211.) See also: ccel.org.

Cf. Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531 A.D.):

How are you ever to overcome your obtuseness, that you do not believe the Spirit of God who offers you the truth, but put your trust in fallible men, who can do nothing without the grace and spirit of God, subscribing and defending the abuses of which they are guilty? You believe that men can give you certainty, which is no certainty, and you do not believe that God can give it you. Do you not know that the mind and understanding of every man must be brought into captivity to the obedience and service of God, and not of men? But I see your error, and in God’s name I will show it you. You do not know that it is God himself who teaches a man, nor do you know that when God has taught him that man has an inward certainty and assurance. For you do not know what the Gospel really is. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The word Gospel is the equivalent of good news or tidings which God gives to men in matters of which they are either ignorant or doubtful. Illustration: (30) A man is longing for his soul’s salvation, and he asks a Carthusian: (31) Dear brother, what must I do to be saved? And the answer will undoubtedly be this: Enter our order, and you will assuredly be saved, for it is the most rigorous. But ask a Benedictine (32) and he replies: It is worth noting that salvation is easiest in our order, for it is the most ancient. But if you ask a Dominican (33) he will answer: In our order salvation is certain, for it was given from heaven by our Lady. And if you ask a Franciscan, (34) he will say: Our order is the greatest and most famous of all; consider then whether you will find salvation more easily in any other. And if you ask the Pope he will say: It is easiest with an indulgence. And if you ask those of Compostella (35) they will say: If you come here to St. James you will never be lost and you will never be poor. You see, they all show you some different way, and they all contend fiercely that their way is the right one. But the seeking soul cries out: Alas! whom shall I follow? They all argue so persuasively that I am at a loss what to do. And finally it can only run to God and earnestly pray to him, saying: Oh God, show me which order or which way is the most certain. You fool, you go to God simply that he may distinguish between men, and you do not ask him to show you that way of salvation which is pleasing to him and which he himself regards as sure and certain. Note that you are merely asking God to confirm something which men have told you. But why do you not say: Oh God, they all disagree amongst themselves; but you are the only, unconcealed good; show me the way of salvation? And the Gospel gives us a sure message, or answer, or assurance. Christ stands before you with open arms, inviting you and saying (Matt. 11): “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

(Ulrich Zwingli, Of the Clarity and Certainty or Power of the Word of God; In: The Library of Christian Classics: Volume XXIV: Zwingli and Bullinger, trans. & ed. G. W. Bromiley, [London: SCM Press Ltd, 1953], pp. 83-84.)

11. No “Infallible” Canon List Until the “Council” of Trent. Return to Outline.

George Tavard, A.A. (Roman Catholic Theologian and Historian): 

The question of the “deutero-canonical” books will not be settled before the sixteenth century. As late as the second half of the thirteenth, St Bonaventure used as canonical the third book of Esdras and the prayer of Manasses, whereas St Albert the Great and St Thomas doubted their canonical value.

(George H. Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation, [Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978], pp. 16-17. Ecclesiastical approbation: Nihil Obstat: John P. Haran, S.j., Censor Depvtatvs. Imprimatvr: John J. Wright, D.D. Bishop of Worcester (Mass.).)

Cardinal Yves Congar, O.P. (Roman Catholic Theologian and Historian):

Cullmann is right not to speak of “the fixing of the canon”: an official, definitive list of inspired writings did not exist in the Catholic Church until the Council of Trent, just as there was no official and definitive fixing of the number of the sacraments until then…

(Yves Congar, O.P., Tradition and Traditions: An Historical and a Theological Essay, [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967], p.38. Ecclesiastical approbation: Nihil obstat: Joannes Coventry, S.J., Censor deputatus. Imprimatur: Patritius J. Casey, Vicarius Generalis, Westmonasterii, die 23 Maii 1966.)

H. J. Schroeder, O.P. (The Official English Translator of the Council of Trent):

The Tridentine list or decree was the first infallible and effectual promulgated declaration on the Canon of Holy Scriptures.

(Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent: Original Text With English Translation, trans. H. J. Schroeder, O.P., [St. Louis and London: B. Herder Book Co., 1960], p.17 fn. 4. Ecclesiastical approbation: Nihil Obstat: Fr. Humbertus Kane, O.P., Fr. Alexius Driscoll, O.P. Imprimi Potest: Fr. Petrus O’Brien, O.P., Prior Provincialis. Nihil Obstat: Sti. Ludovici, die 5. Septembris, 1941, A. A. Esswein, Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur: Sti. Ludovici, die 5. Septembris, 1941, Joannes J. Glennon, Archiepiscopus.)

The Catholic Encyclopedia:

The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council.

(George J. Reid, S.T.L., “Canon;” In: The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church: Volume III, [New York: The Universal Knowledge Foundation, Inc., 1913], p. 274. Ecclesiastical approbation: Nihil Obstat, November 1, 1908: Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur: John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.)

The New Catholic Encyclopedia:

According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church (at the Council of Trent).

(L. F. Hartman, “Canon, Biblical;” In: New Catholic Encyclopedia: Volume III, [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967], p. 29. Ecclesiastical approbation: Nihil Obstat: John P. Whalen, M.A., S.T.D. Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur: Patrick A. O’Boyle, D.D. Archbishop of Washington, August 5, 1966.)

The New Catholic Encyclopedia: Second Edition: 

St. Jerome (A.D. 340-420) distinguished between “canonical books” and “ecclesiastical books.” The latter he judged, were circulated by the Church as good “spiritual reading,” but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. …The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries . . . e.g., John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. …The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent.

(J. C. Turro, “Canon, Biblical — 2. History of the Old Testament Canon;” In. The New Catholic Encyclopedia: Second Edition: Volume 3, [Detroit: Thomson/Gale; in association with: Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 2003], p. 26.)

Note: John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado (and most other Theologians) did not doubt the canonicity of the Apocrypha, they explicitly and repeatedly rejected them (as being canonical in a primary sense). For extensive primary source documentation of this fact see: William Webster, Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith: Volume II, [Battleground: Christian Resources, 2001], pp. 301ff. See also: christiantruth.com and part 3 endnotes. 

Note: Click here for additional resources on the canon.

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria