Lesson 7 - Canon (Part 1)

Question 1

What is the key difference between the de facto objection and the de jure objection? Why is it important to distinguish the differences between the two?

Answer 1

De Facto: Christian belief in the canon should be rejected because its false

• • Most common reason people argue against canon
• • The canon is false (these aren’t God’s books)
• • Books contradict, Christianity is early theological mess
• • Evidentialist argument on true/false

De Jure: Christian belief in the canon should be rejected because it has no rational basis (regardless of whether its true or false)

• • Even if it is true, You can’t know and you have no grounds for knowing
• • How can you know? Is broken down into 3 models
    1. Community-determined
    2. Historical determined
    3. Self-Authenticating Models

Why it’s important?

1. De Jure is about whether the Christian religion provides sufficient grounds for thinking that Christians can know which books belong in the canon or not
2. De Jure is more foundational (not just evidential proofing, but asking the deeper question)
3. De Jure is more theological in its approach, because it is dealing with if Christianity can account for the canon (not if it’s true or not historically).

Question 2

What are the various elements of each of the community-determined canonical models? What problems do we encounter with each of them?

Answer 2

Summary of Community-Determined Models (Key Issue)
– Key problem in all = they pin canonicity/authority purely and solely in community; not the Scriptures

1. ) Historical Critical
   - Canon is human production (not divine)
   - No right books, jsut the books the church has and gathered
   - Canon = a fixed/closed list (around 4th c.)
   - Problems: Christian community cannot have only role in canon; strips the canon of divine authority; view deconstructs the canon; doesn’t answer major question: how can they know canon is just human product? Their conclusion is just a starting point)
2. ) Roman Catholic
   - How do we know what books are in the canon? Our Infallible church
   - 3 structures of authority: Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium
   - Hardline version (church is cause of canon)
   - Soft version (church is way you know canon)

Problems:

• NT is exactly opposite (Eph. 2:20) - church is built on apostolic teaching, it didn’t cause the teaching
• Earliest Christians already had canon (OT) without church declaration
• 1546 Council of Trent was first official declaration
• No distinction between ultimate and proximate causes
• How does Rome establish its authority (ends up with higher authority than Scripture)

3. ) Canoncial Criticism
   - What books are canonical? The final stage of church editing gave us
   - Canon consists of the books finally settled upon and received by the early church as the basis for their understanding of the gospel
   - Function definition = you have canon when these books are functioning as Scripture (2nd c.)

Problems:

• biblical text is changed throughout the history of transmission
• Communal Inspiration = community continues to edit the Bible
• Canon is authoritative not because its historically true, but simply because they are books the church has decided God will use
• books are now dependent on the community, not the other way around

4. ) Existential/Neo-Orthodoxy Model
   - Individual/Experiential Model
   - Canon is authenticated through experience of individuals/groups as they encounter these particular groups
   - The locus of authority is not within the books themselves, but within the individual/group
   - How do you know which books are canon/authoritative? The ones you experience God in existentially

Problems:

• Books are not important because they are true; but because these are the ones God uses to have experiences with his people through
• Ground of canon is your experience (Why could God not just speak through other books like Koran)