Protestants Can't Know the Canon - Peter D. Williams

00:00:00 - crossroadcamin...
00:00:42 - Introduction
00:07:14 - Background
00:08:20 - Peter's Argument
00:28:46 - Suan's Argument: The Disclosure Problem
00:43:30 - Peter's Clarification
00:44:27 - Objections
01:05:08 - Conclusion
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Suan Sonna is a Baptist convert to Catholicism who is dedicated to curating the best Catholic intellectual content on philosophy, politics, and theology. He is also passionate about engaging people outside of the Catholic tradition on issues relevant to the Church.

[@Kehvo_exe]

I wasn’t familiar with Peter Williams before this episode, but I really enjoyed his insight. The canon problem is the topic that I’ve been doing the most research on in my journey to Catholicism. So I really appreciate the work you’ve been doing recently Suan. God bless you

[@robertotapia8086]

I was mentioning @Peter D. Williams over on the @Catholic Christian YT channel the other day and i was shocked by how little people know him he is Blessed in 2 of his debates and Dialogs with @Dr James White he helped me strengthen my faith in our Catholic church. Thank you @Peter D. Williams 🙏🏼🇵🇷

[@audreymarsh5090]

I loved the debate you guys mentioned (Peter Williams and Joe Heschmeyer vs protestants whose names I do not recall), but it was so nice to hear Peter’s full perspective and argument without a 15-min time limit. Thanks so much for this discussion!

[@AcrosstheCanon]

Love this. A canon vs The canon is a massive distinction.

[@andrewpearson1903]

I was reminded of a funny story when you talked about Protestants’ attempts to empirically discover the canon. I live in rural Tennessee, where most people belong to Baptist, Campbellite or nondenom churches. One day, while substitute-teaching high school, I told the class that I was Catholic, and a girl piped up, “Catholics don’t believe in God.” This was a charge I’d never heard before, and I still don’t know where she got it from. It was so bold and unexpected that it dazed me for a few seconds. I replied that actually yes, we do believe in God, and she pressed me, “Father, Son & Holy Spirit?” I recovered from my surprise and I couldn’t resist punching back. “Yep, the Trinity. And do you know where you got that theology? From *us.*” “Nuh-uh.” “Then where did you get it from?” I meant to ask that about her church, whichever one she belonged to, but she thought I meant her personally. After a second’s pause: “I came up with it on my own.” 😂

[@aaabbb-py5xd]

Lol, and where did you the catholic get it from? Oh yeah, the same place everyone got it from, the proto christians

[@aaronfunderburk8541]

Thank you for not interrupting and just letting Peter cook!

[@tonyl3762]

Apart from the insane Kruger-ites, there are plenty of Protestants who will admit Scripture is not sufficient for the canon and will happily rely on Church consensus or tradition and claim the Catholic tradition of the canon is only one of a few, at most, traditions and inferior one. So then how does one decide between competing traditions. *Doesn't this just get us back to the issue of authority and infallibility?* These Protestants are happy to play within our system just long enough to get the canon, still denying the authoritative decisions of popes and councils on the canon, and then dispense with it. Not sure this discussion took such Protestants fully into account.

[@edwardgannod4637]

So the point is that the canon of scripture needs to be divinely revealed because we can't arrive at the canon by human reason. So if they appeal to Church consensus or tradition, then they would have to admit that tradition is a form of divine revelation, which most Protestants believe that Scripture alone is the divine revelation that we have today. If tradition is not a form of divine revelation, then those attempts at discerning the canon are pointless and we still don't know anything about the canon at all. You could have the authority talk afterwards, but they would have to drop Sola Scriptura as a doctrine.

[@truthnotlies]

Yeah, Kruger's book is really bad 😢

[@tonyl3762]

​@@edwardgannod4637 Yes, but I believe many Protestants would deny that they have to give up sola Scriptura just because they concede sola Scriptura isn't sufficient for the canon, just because they concede Church consensus or tradition was a form of divine revelation in the case of the canon. Yes, it begs the question of whether this "one exception" is special pleading or ad hoc, but I believe many Protestants would just shrug it off as an apriori necessity to jumpstart their prior commitment to sola Scriptura. Perhaps it would be harder to shrug off among multiple instances of Protestant exceptions/traditions (like Jimmy Akin provided in his debate with James White). I believe this is why Akin tends to hone in on and question the common implicit Protestant paradigm shift from conceding the authority/revelation of early Church/Tradition to Scripture alone, especially with these kinds of Protestants (e.g. Akin's debate with The Other Paul and James White).

[@PeterDCXW]

As I say, this is not about infallibility. Infallibility is 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘵 to the Canon. This is 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦, 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘦.

[@edwardgannod4637]

@@tonyl3762 So the powerful thing about conceding the point that Scripture isn't sufficient for the canon and that it was divinely revealed outside of scripture is that they have agreed to Sacred Tradition. They have agreed to divine revelation given to us from outside of the Bible that all Christians must hold to. If that has happened, Sola Scriptura can't be true, by definition. Whatever else they say, that is the position they find themselves in.

[@rhwinner]

It leaves a burning sensation in the heart. Oh, wait, that's just the pineapple and anchovy pizza....

[@billyhw99]

Gavin Ortlund in shambles!

[@donhaddix3770]

[@alexs.5107]

Great vid

[@joylian3573]

Suan, na hihna tatak ka theihma in na yt kana follow a, lawmte khenkhat in "Suan Sonna pen Eimi ahi," hon chih uapan in Lamdang kasa hi. Na yt kana en gige a, Western ah om eimi te lak ah thil theipen in kon ngai hi. Keep up the good work. I hope you know what i'm saying 😂.

[@quinnjenkins7897]

@PeterDCXW The Jews didn’t know the Scripture by revelation though, did they? That’s the thing is you’re saying you can only know inspiration through revelation, and the Jews knew through a magisterium, sure, but would you call this divine revelation in their tradition?

[@shanehanes7096]

I’ve seen a Protestant KZbinr saying at best neither Protestants or Catholics can be certain of the canon. So I ask him then, So the Catholic canon could be right ? I got no reply back.😒

[@roddumlauf9241]

The Roman Catholic Church did not get it right. Although they may have the canon "books" right, the family text type family upon which those books were interpreted into Latin is not according to the Apostolic Tradition. Jerome really messed up. Had the Church listened to Augustine, the Romans would have had a much better canon.

[@ddzl6209]

Satanic cult believing bastards of sola scriptura a man made tradition invented by a devil possessed man will not be saved because of their satanic inspired hatred without cause against the Church of saints that Jesus established under the stewardship of Peter and disrespect against the mother of God

[@shanehanes7096]

@ are you an Eastern Orthodox christian?

[@reformatorpoloniae]

I'll admit that I'm a bit disappointed. Peter D. Williams' entire argument rests on a premise, the defense of which on his part was rather brief and not very nuanced: “The canon is an object of revelation.” Meanwhile, another claim can be successfully defended: “The canon is not an object of revelation, but an artifact of revelation, i.e. an inevitable residuum of the act of revelation.” In this way, the conflict between two elements can be avoided: (1) the material sufficiency of Scripture, according to which Scripture alone is the only channel of special revelation available to us today, and (2) the necessity of obtaining knowledge of the canon of Scripture from outside Scripture, based on the consensus of the universal Church, organically worked out in ancient history, guided in the process by the providential work of the Holy Spirit. In conclusion, I find no convincing arguments for the premise “The canon is the object of revelation” being necessarily true. I do, however, find convincing arguments for the assertion: “The canon is not an object of revelation, but an artifact of revelation, i.e., an inevitable residuum of the act of revelation.” Consequently, I don't buy the Roman Catholic argument presented in this talk.

[@SevereFamine]

If the Holy Spirit guides the truth into all truth, can the church universally fall into error around something as core at the canon? I am not a good arguer but it seems obvious to me (as a biased Catholic) to be impossible based on Christs promises in scripture and the guiding of the spirit. God bless you in your journey, I love you as a brother in Christ and know that as you search you will find.

[@SevereFamine]

I guess one last thing I’d add is that rarely you find an argument that proves something without any possible doubt. Reasonable doubt is one thing. An effective argument requires the opposition to take a position that seems very unintuitive. In other words, makes the defender pay a price for their position that some holding the position are unwilling to pay. I think saying “the canon of scripture is not an object of revelation” is a difficult pill to swallow for a lot of people, if not yourself. Just because there’s a possible argument against the position doesn’t mean there’s a good one. God love you. Your brother in Christ. -Jacob

[@PeterDCXW]

I have to admit that I am disappointed by that response, which misses the point of the argument I was making. Having said that, I did only touch upon Kruger / White’s ‘object / artefact’ distinction-without-a-difference, so I will simply point out here that this fairly obviously a false dichotomy. It makes no sense whatever to say that the Canon is an artefact of revelation, but not an object of revelation. Quite the contrary, it flows from its nature that 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘣𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩: Canon¹ is an artefact of revelation, and it is also an object of revelation as Canon². It has to be the latter, because as I argued only God knows what texts He has inspired, and therefore He has to reveal this to us. We cannot know it through natural means (abstract rationalising or empirical research, except insofar as empirical research discovers objective public revelation), and so Canon² is a 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘮 of revelation since it is a necessary theological truth which needs to be revealed to us. And so, here is my argument: • 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘢 𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢 entails that there is no other public (special, as opposed to natural) source of 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 or rule of faith - that Scripture alone is θεόπνευστος and the sole sufficient source of revelation and (‘infallible’) rule of faith; • This contention of Scriptural sufficiency is joined to that of the 𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺 of Scripture: Holy Scripture is necessary as it is supposedly contains ‘[t]he whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life’ (Westminster Confession of Faith, I:6); • If Holy Scripture is necessary then the knowledge of Holy Scripture is necessary. If the ingredients for a life-saving medicine are kept in a series of lockers, then it follows that I also need to know 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 lockers. The ‘Canon²’ - our knowledge of what is θεόπνευστος - is therefore a necessary 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘮; • The ‘Canon²’ is something that we are incompetent to divine through natural reason or experience. Only God knows which texts He has inspired, and so He must reveal this to us. The Canon² is therefore a necessary 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘮 of 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧; • As 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘢 𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢 entails that Holy Scripture is the sole sufficient source of revelation, the Canon² must be found therein; • The Canon² is not found within Holy Scripture (this is therefore a disproof of the doctrine of Scriptural sufficiency, but that is another point); • Under the assumption of 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘢 𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢 therefore, since there is no Canon² in Holy Scripture, it follows that we have no revelation of what is θεόπνευστος, and without such a revelation, 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 of what is Canon²; • Therefore Protestants do not have a mere ‘fallible list of infallible books’, they have 𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 - no knowledge of what is Holy Scripture, and therefore no justification for holding that the Holy Scriptures are inspired, sufficient, or a rule of faith, infallible or otherwise. Only if the Canon² is in fact a Sacred Tradition (the other source of special divine revelation) passed down by the Apostolic Church and ‘canonised’ (authoritatively recognised) by the Church Catholic does it exist as revelation and therefore as 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦, properly speaking. As such, only Catholics, and other Christians who accept the revelatory nature of Sacred Tradition, know what is Holy Scripture. Protestants have no such knowledge whatsoever.

[@Matthew-eu4ps]

I think the idea that God has to reveal to us which revelations are authentic goes against the things we see in Scripture. When Moses told the people that there would be false prophets, he didn't say that God would give a revelation about which prophets were authentic. He said to look for the signs of a false prophet - prophecies that don't come true or instructions that contradict the revelation they had already received. I think the point about Canon being inaccessible to reason and only accessible by revelation may be an introduction of (what I think may be) Thomistic epistemology, where elements of knowledge are sharply divided into those we come to know by natural reason, and those we come to know by revelation. I think for the most part this sharp distinction isn't part of Protestantism. The way that natural reason and revelation work together is different in Protestantism.

[@ninjason57]

How much of the canon is needed for a person to learn how to be saved?

[@dynamic9016]

You seems not to understand what is the real issue..Protestants believes scripture is the only infallible rule for faith n practice( Sola Scriptura).. Well the Canon is the Achilles Heel to Sola Scriptura..Lastly, the Canon of Scripture is Apostolic Tradition..

[@kyrptonite1825]

In theory, you can be saved literally without ever having even read the Bible

[@roddumlauf9241]

@kyrptonite1825, You are correct. St. Paul says that salvation comes by "Hearing" not by reading. The gospel was completely oral without the written Gospel for nearly 30-40 years. Even then, hardly anyone had a "Bible" in the first centuries of the New Covenant Church.

[@Old_Catholic]

Peter Williams did help me a lot with what some Protestants say about the history of the Bible. For instance, they make some amazing claim like believers in Jesus, of the first generation of Christians, knew that the books of the New Testament are scripture from the moment of their composition. That's just an assertion. I have no indication that's true.

[@renjithjoseph7135]

@@Old_Catholic Revelation wasn't universally accepted even into the 4th century.

[@Qohelethful]

That claim is made for the Gospels and Paul only. The 4 and the letters of Paul were seen as scripture immediately and without dispute except possibly 2nd Timothy. Don’t overextend the claim. It never covered 100% of the NT.

[@Old_Catholic]

@@Qohelethful You obviously hang around different Protestants than I do. The Protestants I know do extend that claim to the whole of the NT canon.

[@Qohelethful]

It’s an easy mistake to make. @@Old_Catholic. Acts belongs with Luke, my mistake. That makes up an overwhelming majority of the NT so if somewhat casual Prots forget about 123 John being in question along with Hebrews/2 Peter/James/Jude/Revelation remember that while they are wrong about the details they are completely correct that certain parts of scripture were so blindingly obvious in their divine revelation as to be accepted from the start with no council needed.

[@Old_Catholic]

@@Qohelethful As long as they stop throwing the Gospel of Matthew at me for believing Mary is a perpetual Virgin whom I can request prayer from, I am at peace with them. While they still keep attacking my faith for that practice, they can expect a fight.

[@tonyl3762]

Not the best answer to the Jews/White question. Has to be stated that there was no single Jewish canon. Best answer is that every sect of Judaism had its own tradition/magisterium and thus its own canon.

[@ji8044]

That was also true of Christianity of course.

[@MrEschaton91]

That's not a good answer either as it demonstrates that God did not need to give his people an infallible magisterium and that you actually don't need one to recognize, believe and teach scripture (since even if you don't have the same canon you're still able to recognize some scripture and have confidence in it). The claim therefore that an infallible magisterium is needed is necessary to recognize scripture at all is disproven. It likewise opens up questions about why Catholics claim that Sola Scriptura is unbiblical when it literally is biblical and was in fact the situation that God, in his wisdom, gave to the Jews in the time of Mary's parents for instance. The only infallible teaching authority given to the Jews in order to interpret the law was scripture. Not the magisterium, not oral tradition, not the rabbis. Only scripture. Any church that claims Sola Scriptura to be illogical and unbiblical when we know this is was the system God implemented does not possess infallibility. All this to say, this was actually a very good argument and has helped reinforce why the Catholic Church's claims of infallibility are false. Protestants have no problem with a fallible magisterium--only Catholics do. And we know that the Jews had a fallible magisterium while possessing infallible scripture. That's what you call Sola Scriptura (only scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith/teaching authority).

[@tonyl3762]

@@ji8044 True, there was no single Christian canon early on, and there were early splinter groups from apostolic Christianity. But unlike 1st c. Judaism, Christianity actually did have (and still has) an authoritative magisterium to settle disputes, including over the canon, that could (and can) be traced back historically to the original Apostles. No 1st c. Jewish sect even claimed an unbroken line/succession of authority going back to David or Moses, as far as I know.

[@PeterDCXW]

Yes, I should have mentioned that, too. E.g. Differences between the Sadducees and Pharisees. My point was that the *knowledge* of the Canon was present by much the same means before Our Lord as after.

[@tonyl3762]

​@@MrEschaton91 Friend, you read way too much into two sentences that merely talk about the historical facts of 1st c. Judaisms (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Samaritans, etc.). My comments said nothing about what God needed or did not need to do or about what one needs "to recognize, believe and teach scripture." Not sure it would be worth my time to engage further, since the rest of your comment is full of question-begging and non-sequiturs and mere claims rather than true evidence/arguments...but we can give it a try.... Infallibility is the property of people/institutions/agents, not writings. Writings are inerrant when they are written by people exercising the charism of infallibility. The Jewish authors of the Old Testament exercised infallibility in writing the OT; the Apostles and their scribes exercised infallibility in writing the NT. Rather than idolize script, affirm that a writing is only as "infallible" as its author. This should be obvious. None of Scripture wrote itself or fell from heaven. There is no escape from the human element, no matter how inspired. Scripture itself is full of testimony to personal God-given authority: from Moses to Joshua to David to prophets to Apostles to apostolic successors like Timothy, Titus, and Clement (and Ignatius and Polycarp as we learn elsewhere) and Paul's other co-authors to his epistles. Need I cite the verses? Authority has never been confined to script alone, as Scripture itself testifies. Without a magisterium/incarnational authority, variances in biblical canon naturally lead to variances (and contradictions) in doctrine. Even one book too few or too many can skew doctrine under a system of sola Scriptura. Thus why the issue of the canon is more crucial to Protestantism since it denies any magisterium that can teach based on Apostolic Tradition in the absence of Scripture or a complete canon. And thus the inherent need for greater certainty of the canon under Protestantism/sola Scriptura.

[@sodetsurikomigoshi2454]

Scripture isn't the "only" entity GOD-BREATHED because Jesus Himself breathed on the Apostles before sending them on the Great Commission; which concomitantly debunks Sola Scriptura because He sent them without any instructions about written scripture, writing anything down, or leaving writings with the communities they go to.

[@jamessheffield4173]

All the Books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them Canonical. 39 Articles of Religion

[@soteriology400]

It is true very few Protestants has solved the dates of revelation 12:14, Daniel 12:7, 7:25, 12:11-13, revelation 11:2, 11:3, 11:9-11, 12:6, 13:5, and Ezekiel 37:19. But very few is better than 0 (Roman Catholics and Orthodox). So this video is a sign of arrogance. Suan talks about hermeneutics in some of his videos, but never has mastered this to the point where he has solved the dates of these prophecies and never will as long as he believes some of the writings of Eusebius, who has lied numerous times about history.

[@Matthew-eu4ps]

I don't know why Williams says Protestants have no knowledge of the Canon. The same things that the early church used to discern the scripturicity of those texts we can use today, and we can also give credence to how God led the early church to accept and reject certain books. It seems like the _distinction_ between the two positions still comes down to fallibility and infallibility. (Just got to 18:35) I wonder if he just means we have insufficient justification to say that books are canonical?

[@Matthew-eu4ps]

Ah, I think he's saying that if the sufficiency of Scripture is true, then we should be able to only rely on knowledge that comes from the text itself. I think my take on this would just be that that isn't the intended meaning of the sufficiency of Scripture. I think it primarily means that no other infallible revelation was needed for the church, not that no other source of knowledge was needed whatsoever. For instance we need knowledge of language. In a similar way we need to use means to discern what is part of that revelation (our reason, seeing what the church accepted historically, etc).

[@Old_Catholic]

I can't speak for Williams, but as far as I am concerned there isn't any evidence that God (the Holy Spirit, Father or Son) have ever given the church their approval of the New Testament canon. People sometimes say (not just Protestants but also some Catholics) that the Holy Spirit guided the church and I wonder exactly what that looked like. I don't read about any event (like Pentecost) when the Holy Spirit turned up for the very purpose of guiding the church by confirming the New Testament canon. And, when would have been the appropriate time for that to have happened because the early church were arguing over the inclusion of some of the books (i.e. Revelation), so would have the appropriate time being during the life of Augustine? When people sometimes retort to me that people just have to have faith that God did guide the church, they don't realise that doing so is presuming the Bible was supposed to be God's Word. That's simply assuming your position in a presuppositional way. It's not entering the discussion.

[@renjithjoseph7135]

@@Matthew-eu4ps (1) Purely scientific: you will be forced to reject proto-canonical texts at best or include non-canonical texts at worst. This wrong canon is no longer inerrant. (2) God guided the recognition of the canon (i.e. as an object, not artifact, of revelation) outside of the written text itself. This means Scripture is not sufficient.

[@Matthew-eu4ps]

@@renjithjoseph7135 I'm not sure what to say, I think I just don't agree with the categories you are laying out. If a person had, for example, the gospel of John, and while reading he came to the conviction that it was true, I think he would be affirming two aspects of revelation. One is the content of revelation, and the other is the fact of revelation. I don't think anything external is actually needed for this. However at the same time we should also ask how we can know what is and isn't scripture epistemologically. I don't think that the Sola Scriptura / sufficiency of scripture positions limit us to only the content of scripture to answer this question. We can look at external, historical evidence and also things like how God has guided the church in the past without contradicting the Sola Scriptura position.

[@pogunkoningau2678]

Protestant indeed have zero knowledge about the Canon. They rely heavily on the Catholic Church Fathers, Councils and historical record in order to know the Canon. Without Catholicism, Protestanism is nothing.

[@richardjackson7887]

You're right, the catholic canon has nothing in common with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (By which Salvation can only be reach with) so its not worth knowing !

[@PeterDCXW]

As the Catholic Canon is substantially the same as the Canon of Holy Scripture you accept (notwithstanding that you have no genuine knowledge of what that is, as we demonstrate in the video), it would appear that you do not think the Holy Scriptures have anything in common with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which seems an odd position for a Protestant to take...

[@richardjackson7887]

@@PeterDCXW There is only one canon and that comes from God not men! If you were born of God you would know this!

[@richardjackson7887]

@PeterDCXW the Catholic canon is not holy scripture but the traditions of men. Even if it was 99% true, it's that 1% poison that's going to send you to the lake! Catholics do not know the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it and it alone can save you! God clothed Adam and Eve with the Gospel but you are still naked!

[@defeatingdefeaters]

Peter is a gangster 🔥

[@quetzelmichaels1637]

The crucifixion story is imagery and prophecy for two appearances, within the same generation, at the end of the ages, when the sacrifice is made, at the time of the harvest - the sacrifice followed by the resurrection. The warrior Messiah followed by the suffering servant Messiah. The wrath of the sacrificial lamb followed by the child sacrifice as the scapegoat with the sin placed on him. Peter walked on water (people) thinking like God, far above human thought. Jesus turned water (people) into wine, treading the wine press of wrath. The waters (people) parting for Moses is more familiarly known as the highway in the desert. Moses reached the border of the promised land with a matter of weeks. The waters that you saw... represent large numbers of peoples, nations, and tongues. (Rev 17:15 NABO)

[@racsooj456]

I think one can remain a protestant by holding to an epistemological prima scriptura (scripture as the highest authority) and still have knowledge of the canon through faith. For while the tradition is a means of access to Gods revelation, alongside scripture - it doesn't follow that there is no heirachical distinction between them. Indeed the means by which God reveals anything is not the same as that which He reveals. Nor does it follow that The Church, as Gods chosen means, is necessarily infallible in any other way - other than its recognition of the canon - if indeed His guidance makes it so. God is the ultimate source of revelation and thus it is upon His reasons alone that any instrument should be functionally infallible or inerrant or otherwise. If there is then strong reason to think that such a hierarchy does exist i.e between that which scripture reveals and that which recognized it as scripture; and further reason to think that the claims of ecclesial infallibility made by Roman Catholics etc are not plausible - in light of that hierarchy (and other considerations); then, insofar as the protestant has reason to trust that God would provide a reliable and accesible witness to His public action, there remains justification for the position. This might end up in a kind of practical sola scriptura, but ultimately one grounded in an epistemological prima scriptura. Concerning the question of 'who says what God has revealed' - if the abovementioned justifications succeed, and if a protestant is justified in holding that God can reveal things to people outside of scripture and still does. And that God can work through people and still does - then they are also justified in trusting in that which it appears God has revealed to and through The Church as a tradition - since it is made up people. And since it is likely in no small part the very same means by which they came to faith in the first place.

[@PeterDCXW]

𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘢 𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢 doesn’t work either. If the Canon² is revelation as a Sacred Tradition, then a) that opens the door to there being other non-Scriptural Sacred Traditions, and b) whatever that Sacred Tradition is, since it is a divine revelation, it is obviously of 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭 authority to that which is θεόπνευστος as it has God as its Author just the same. The Canon Objection is just as destructive to any attempt to privilege Holy Scripture as revelation and as authoritative rule of faith as it is to any attempt to assert Holy Scripture as the sole sufficient revelation and rule of faith.

[@PeterDCXW]

𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘢 𝘚𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢 can’t help you. If Sacred Tradition is a species of revelation, then it can only have 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭 authority as Holy Scripture, as it has God just as much as its Author as Holy Writ. There is no basis for privileging one form of special revelation over another. As soon as you admit that Sacred Tradition is revelation, you commit yourself to ‘Dual Source Theory’ (Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition as the two wings of Special Revelation). Meanwhile, infallibility, for all the reasons I gave in the video discussion above, is irrelevant to the Canon Question. The issue here is not one of ‘fallible’ vs ‘infallible’ knowledge, but 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘦. Only one who admits Sacred Tradition - of which the ‘Canon²’ is one instance - is a species of divine revelation has knowledge of what is canonical Holy Scripture.

[@racsooj456]

@PeterDCXW Yes, all revelation is of equal authority. I was distinguishing between the means of revelation and that which is being revealed. There is an important difference between saying God revealed something through tradition and saying tradition is revelation - for the latter entails more than is justified from mere acceptance of the canon. A protestant need only trust that God has revealed the canon through The Church in order to have knowledge of the scriptures - the question of whether or not to go further with respect to tradition was the one I was addressing. In this case, revelation of the canon, while necessary to know the scriptures, does not reveal much more than that. Conversely, the scriptures arguably provide the foundational witness of the faith to The Church (beyond the apostolic generation). It is significant when one revelation exists to point to the other and not the other way around. As such, the acknowledgment Gods revelation of scripture through tradition - while indeed opening up the potential for further authoritative revelation through it - is nevertheless compatible with prima scripture - if it's a comparison between that which scripture reveals and that which tradition contains (outside of the canon) - which, as per my aforementioned points, can lead to a practical form sola scriptura depending on other data. This is why I was addressing infallibility. Partially also in response to Suans argument from inerrant canon to infallible church

[@Lya3588]

👍

[@Qohelethful]

This just isn’t as strong an argument as you think it is.

[@dezlovecraft5247]

How so? if the canon was stablished by the Church in the council of Rome in 382 AD.

[@Qohelethful]

Rome was not an ecumenical council, and therefore it was fallible and could not make a dogmatic claim regarding the canon. That canon list was undoubtedly reliable but it was never claimed as infallible until Trent. Protestants are generally ok with having a reliable canon and a reliable and trustworthy church. We don’t require infallibility.

[@declansceltic198]

@@QohelethfulIf you have a fallible canon then the Bible becomes useless.

[@pogunkoningau2678]

@@Qohelethful and who decide canon universally in Protestanism? Who have the final say? Who have the divine authority to canonized the inspired scriptures?

[@Qohelethful]

@@pogunkoningau2678 no one does infallibly although some are more reliable than others. Overall the Catholic Canon is mostly ok, the OT stuff is a bit weird but I’ve been reliably informed that the DC books don’t serve as the foundation for any key dogmas. Obviously the NT canon is accepted without exception and even books like 1 clement and shepherd that could have made it in didn’t. The early councils were dealing with regionally relevant heresies and they issued regionally relevant canons that were not intended to bind the entire church else they would have been ecumenical councils which were also definitely used when appropriate.

[@janglalgoupiak1891]

What about the Orthodox? Amau leng schismatics hilou u hia, Heutu Suan?

[@roddumlauf9241]

The Orthodox Cannon is what I follow (Septuagint as my Old Testament Scriptures).

[@TheZealotsDen]

Visit us in The Zealots Den will ya yea?! God bless 🙏

[@MarkClement-y2o]

I love Peter Williams, but I disagree. First, Sola Scriptura does not deny that we need the church to recognize and transmit the Scriptures. Williams anticipates this by arguing that, under the Protestant view, Scripture *must itself* account for the canon. But since (in his view) it doesn’t, Protestants supposedly have no way of knowing the canon. However, this objection has been thoroughly answered in the work of Michael Kruger. The short answer is that Scripture does account for the canon by providing clues for how to recognize canonical books. One of the clearest indicators is the unique authority given to the apostles, which establishes why apostolic writings are canonical. Jesus explicitly granted the apostles the highest authority in the church, entrusting them with divine revelation: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:18) “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21) “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me.” (Luke 10:16) The apostles, in turn, recognized their own writings (and those of other apostles) as uniquely authoritative and inspired: Paul refers to his own writings as “the command of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37). Peter acknowledges Paul’s letters as Scripture alongside the Old Testament (2 Peter 3:15-16). The early church was explicitly “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). From these passages, it’s clear that the apostles had the highest authority in the church, given directly by Christ. This is how the early church could recognize canonical books-they had to be either written by an apostle or carry clear apostolic endorsement. The New Testament itself provides the framework for identifying Scripture, even if it does not contain an itemized list of books, something Williams fails to recognize.

[@mooretristan719]

What about Hebrews?

[@TheOtherCaleb]

Right on.

[@stormchaser9738]

So if we found 3rd Corinthians would that be inspired? That would carry Apostolic authority since Paul wrote it. I think you might be missing the problem (maybe not, it is the internet after all). From where I’m sitting, it seems that the point is there is no amount of natural facts about a book (authorship etc…) can add up to the supernatural conclusion that a book is inspired, since only God knows that. If anyone else comes to know it is inspired by God, it is because God revealed it…but this is precisely the thing that Sola Scriptura denies, that there is any revelation from God outside of scripture. Therefore as long as you live in a sola Scriptura framework, it is impossible to have any knowledge of the canon. As soon as we admit that tradition is a 2nd revelation bearer (in addition to scripture) and that God guides the recognition process for the scriptures, then the problem is dissolved and we can have knowledge of the canon.

[@Akhgy]

- I don’t think you know history. The Apostle were given Authority because they are the Shepherd of his Flock. The Shepherd is heard and Guided by the Flock, Christ will Guide us Shepherd through the Holy Spirit. 2. The scripture attest the writing of Others that is true, but how do you know these scripture are from Paul without the Church? The church community are those that recognize these writings as authentic. You can say Peter attest Paul, but you wouldn’t know what those writing were without the Church community, these could be forgeries. Secondly there are attest seven books that were debated about, until it was accepted late in the 2-3rd century as authentic. The Bible doesn’t give us what those books are, and the name of those books. The New testament gave provide ways to identify scripture? Not even the Gospel give you what is scripture after it apart from the Law. I don’t know where you getting these idea from. - Bible doesn’t name you what books are to be there - apostle attest to writings but what are those writings without the church providing it. -who wrote what book? The Bible doesn’t give to that. Scripture can’t be the sole rule of faith, if the church has to try a recognize what books is authentic or teaching against the apostle. Not even the Gospels , if there are false Gospels out there.

[@ninjason57]

They don't fail to recognize it. They refuse to acknowledge it as supportive evidence. Because if they did it would start to show cracks in their flawless system.

[@MerePleb]

Christian Wagner has also made this exact point regarding the canon. It can be found here for those who would like a more formal presentation on the topic: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3vLhaF3ZdR0j5Y

[@ReformedCatholicity]

We know you guys really need this argument to work, but it just doesn't. It would be so much more profitable for us both to move on.

[@declansceltic198]

Can you please, very clearly, outline how a Protestant can KNOW and SHOW their canon to be God’s canon?

[@name-k7t]

Yeah, explain.. I’m currently a Protestant.

[@quinnjenkins7897]

This ain’t a response

[@dezlovecraft5247]

"I have 0 arguments but that leaves protestantism naked so I feel insecure, can we go to another topic like what a liberal media talked about your pope?"

[@MarkClement-y2o]

@@name-k7t see my comments elsewhere in the comment section for a brief explanation. If you want something more detailed, Michael Kruger answers this at length in his book, Canon Revisited.

[@donhaddix3770]

rcc is a cult

[@declansceltic198]

Not it is not. :)

[@JonnyDurock]

This is goofy. Luther was a catholic and he knew the bishops and pope were misinterpreting the scriptures.

[@paulcapaccio9905]

No. Luther had serious problems

[@Rsambo00]

Luther knew? How was his interpretation true? How would you know it’s true if you claim it?

[@renjithjoseph7135]

@@JonnyDurock that's why he had to add the word "alone" right? Was he fixing the Church's interpretation or what God actually said? The same Luther that moved the Deuterocanon, right?

[@JonnyDurock]

@Rsambo00 because he was a catholic and in your opinion that's what he must be to interpret scripture in the first place(according to this post)

[@JonnyDurock]

@renjithjoseph7135 the same Luther who was CATHOLIC(a necessary qualification to properly discern whether the bishops or pope were misinterpreting scripture according to this post)