When one sits back and really thinks about the NT canon, several important questions should come to mind that are not often addressed. Too often, one jumps to questions such as; what was the criteria for including a book, why was book X not included, and why is the canon closed, before actually considering the concept of canon. That is, one starts their investigation of the canon before considering if there should be a textual canon or not.
To question if there should be a canon or not may seem strange, since there has been some kind of NT canon for much of the history of the church, and perhaps it is a silly question since nearly every Christian alive today would agree that there should be a textual canon. But to start an investigation of the NT canon with this question will force us to examine what we believe the place of the canon is in the Christian life, and to look deeper at why it was formed, even if we all agree on the answer already. Much like in math where you are required to show your work on a test to prove you have thought the concept through and are not simply copying what you have memorized, I think this question will force a person to think through beliefs that they may otherwise take for granted.
I am not sure my answer to the question of why we have a textual canon is correct or not. I think it would be difficult to definitively give an answer to the question, and I think more then one answer may be correct. What I will do in what follows is then only lay out my thoughts on the question of the necessity of a textual canon and invite the discussion of canon to make this question one of it’s starting points.
Who Created the Cannon: God or the Church?
Unlike a great majority of Protestants, I believe that the church created the textual canon. The canon of scripture is above all things a book of the church, the book of the church. The authority that scripture has in the life of the believer comes from God, but not directly. God set up the church as His instrument on the earth, and it was through this instrument that the textual canon was decided. This is in opposition to the view that the church merely recognized the books we have in the textual canon as scripture. I believe this view is neither historically nor theologically defensible.
If the church only recognized what was obvious, then why was there the contradicting lists, the debate, and the need to set a textual canon? Would it not have been so obvious to the church that one would not need to set a list? No, there was discussion and disagreement, true there was also much agreement that certain books needed to be included, but it was not simply because a book had some innate quality that made it scripture, but because it was a true and trustworthy account of what happened that agreed with the teachings of the church.
The textual canon did not come down from heaven like the Ten Commandments did, but it was the authority that Christ gave to the church that allowed it to come into existence. The commands to watch over and feed the sheep/flock (John 21 Acts 20:28) gives the church a general authority. The creating of a textual canon, something to hand down among the sheep to keep them on the straight path after the first few generations begin to die out, can be seen as one way (among many) the church has attempted to fulfill this authority. There really is little other command or prediction to produce such a book.
Defining “Inspiration”
The response to this line of reasoning would be to affirm that although there was not a prediction of scripture, or a command for the church to create a canon, the fact that it is inspired by God (pointing to 2 Timothy 3:16) places it in a category not unlike a gift to the church, but definitely not decided upon by the church. The argument ignores the historical context of the creation of the canon, but also relies on a very specific understanding of what the word “inspired” means.
There is much to discuss with 2 Timothy 3:15-16, but I will point out only a few thins:
1. It is not a reference to the New Testament canon. It cannot be, since it did not yet exist at the time. It is, at best, a reference to the Old Testament, but since that canon itself was still not fully agreed upon, it is likely a reference to a large group of sacred writings that was not a closed canon.
2. The term “God-breathed”, or as some version translate “inspired” appears no where else in scripture. Paul may have invented it himself. It’s therefore difficult to understand what he meant by the term. What needs to be pointed out is many non-canonical writings claimed inspiration, and some used the same term that Paul used for it (Gregory of Nyssa referred to a commentary as God-breathed [330-395], the Council of Ephesus [431] uses it when referring to their decision, and writings abut a bishop on his tomb uses it [4th century]). To make it out to a specific property that only inspired books have may be a stretch.
Why would I say that we have a textual canon then? Not because some books came from the sky down to earth, not because one was needed to tell the church what is believed, and not because the writings had some kind of magical quality around them, but because the church, in it’s role as a shepherd, recognized that there was a need to put what was believed into a book for instruction and invest that book with the authority of the church. That is quite simple, and can be expanded on for books and books, but I believe it’s the central reason.
The Question of Authority
But what does this do withe the authority of the textual canon? Does it have then only as much authority as an opinion a pastor puts forward to his congregation? By no means, the books in the canon carry the voices of those who knew Christ and the Apostles, it also has the authority of the church catholic, not simply a local pastor, and of course when picking the books to belong one of the points of discussion was their agreement with what the church taught. We can be sure that what we have in the textual canon today accurately carries the Christian tradition begun by Christ, handed down to the Apostles, and to the Church and lastly to us.
But what then of God, or the Holy Spirit in this process? I have not spoken yet of this directly, not because I do not view it as important, but because my understanding is that God uses the church to bring about His will. Simply because God did not use a supernatural process to bring about the textual canon does not mean He was not there directing the Church each step of the way. I will leave you with a quote by Craig Allert, who in his excellent book A High View Of Scripture? concludes;
Further, we need to recognize the manner in which the various documents found their way into the New Testament canon. The assertion that these documents forced their way into the canon by virtue of their unique inspiration has little historical support. In our desire to avoid the corrupting influence of tradition, we have often missed the fact that the very Bible we claim to accept as our only guide is itself a product of the very tradition we avoid. I will not mince words here because no serious study of the formation of the New Testament canon can avoid the fact that the church had a great deal to do with this formation. The Bible is the church’s book, and as many of the fathers show, the church has the responsibility to properly interpret the Bible because the church has formed it. This does not neglect the fact the Spirit sustains the entire community of the faithful. Thus, God’s providential guidance through his Spirit can be seen in this historical process.
Bryan, this article has a lot to think about and it is going to take me a while to wrap my head around it. I do know that the immediate thought that unsettles me a little bit is, why isn’t a book like Enoch a legitimate chunk of scripture? Moreover, if it was the church which started this processes, then isn’t that a fallible institution? Are we missing other portions of God-breathed scripture?
“…it was the authority that Christ gave to the church that allowed it to come into existence.
In thinking about the human church who had to decided the canon, your article made me think about the previous step, too (the step before assembling the canon). God somehow used humans (sinful and then redeemed) to write those books in the first place. As you say, the books of scripture didn’t come to us pre-written as the Ten Commandments did. No, men had to find parchment and ink, and then write down what they had seen and heard themselves, or what they had been told by others. Some just told stories that had been handed down to them, others got to write song lyrics, others got to give a word directly from the Holy Spirit. In at least one case, the writer was allowed to just give his own opinion about something.
You know, God could have done this a different way, handing the world a flawless, perfect, and complete manuscript written in His own hand. Furthermore, He could have written a separate version in each vernacular language of the earth, thus avoiding the chance that humans would mess up the meaning when translating. He could have saved us all a lot of trouble wondering if what we read from all these writers is correct, right, authoritative, truthful, consistent, or for that matter, relevant and important. But He didn’t. He seems to have used flawed people in his plan all along. Makes you wonder what was He thinking.
He wanted to give you a job!