A Problem with Authority (Canon Objections) - 10/26/14

Prayer: Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit

Summary / recap - Last time, we discussed how we know what belongs in the Bible.
1. Both the contents of the Old and the New Testaments were debated in the early Church. Some NT books, including Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and Revelation were disputed. Other books eventually excluded from the canon were thought by some Christians to be inspired, including Clement's First Letter and the Didache.
2. In essence, we depend on the authority of the Catholic Church to know which books belong in the NT as well as the OT.
3. Echoes of the Septuagint – e.g. the names of the books of the OT, the order of the OT books also much closer to LXX

Objections (students read objections out loud):
1. Objection 1: The Catholic Church forbids reading the Bible! (DQ #10)
  1. First, let's see what the Church actually teaches on this: CCC 133
  2. The Bible was written, compiled, and carefully copied and preserved by ....?
  3. At every Mass, Catholics hear 2-3 readings directly from the Bible as well as many prayers based on Scripture.
  4. First printed Bible was printed by the Catholic inventor of the printing press, Johann Gutenberg. He was supported by the Church, which purchased most.
  5. etc.

Objection 2: “Then why did the Church put Bibles on the Index of Forbidden Books?” (DQ #11d) – see guide (These particular Bibles were bad / erroneous / misleading / heretical.)

Objection 3: “Bibles were chained in Catholic Churches so that people couldn't read them.” (DQ #11a) – see guide
1. Actually, this is the opposite of the truth. Catholic churches were – and for the most part still are – open all day for people to come in and pray quietly. Keeping a Bible in the church building actually made it possible for people who could not afford to buy a Bible to still be able to read it.
2. And they were chained because they were so valuable – to prevent theft.
3. As with a pen at a bank, it is chained so that people can use it, not to prevent them! :)

Objection 4: “The Catholic Church kept the Bible in Latin so that people couldn't read it.” (DQ 11b) – see guide
1. In those days, educated persons – i.e. those who could read and write – could do so in Latin. It was used as the language of scholarship in general, not just by the Church, even into the 17th century (e.g. Newton's Principia)
2. There were many vernacular translations before the Protestant ones. e.g. St Bede's in England. In fact, the Vulgate was itself a vernacular translation!
3. Also why would the Church proclaim the Scriptures in liturgies if she was trying to keep them hidden?

Objection 5: “The Catholic Church even burned Bibles! This proves that it hates the Bible!” (DQ 11c)
1. see guide – misprinted letters
2. Besides, if the Church wanted to get rid of the Bible, she could easily have done so during all the centuries when it was in her sole custody. Instead, she spent a great deal of effort in preserving the Scriptures.
Find more information on all these objections and on the history of the Bible in Henry Graham's excellent book Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church.

Objection 6: Often the Protestant response just turns the argument against the Catholic. "How do you know Scripture is inspired? Your reasoning is just as circular. You say the Church is infallible because the inspired Scripture says so, then you say that Scripture is inspired and infallible because the Church says so!" (Tim Staples)

A (from same article): Not only is this not an answer, but it also misrepresents the Catholic position. Catholics do not claim the Church is infallible because Scripture says so. The Church is infallible because Jesus said so. The Church was established and functioning as the infallible spokesperson for the Lord decades before the New Testament was written.
It is true that we know Scripture to be inspired and canonical only because the Church has told us so. That is historical fact. DIAGRAM THIS: Catholics reason to inspiration of Scripture through demonstrating first its historical reliability and the truth about Christ and the Church. Then we can reasonably rely upon the testimony of the Church to tell us the text is inspired. This is not circular reasoning. [More like a spiral.] The New Testament is the most accurate and verifiable historical document in all of ancient history, but one cannot deduce from this that it is inspired.

Objection 7: We know, for example, that Athanasius included some of the deuterocanonical books in what he called apocryphal writings (cf. Easter Letter39). So we can conclude that the Church Fathers did not agree among themselves about which books should be included in Scripture.
1. A: It is true that in the history of the Church, the inspiration of some books was disputed. This is true not only of the OT deuterocanonical books, but also of certain NT books. It took church councils to finally decide the question authoritatively. The disagreement among the Fathers is actually a lot more problematic for Protestants since they have no authority that can decide.

Objection 8: (from a Protestant site) When it came to the Old Testament, three important facts were considered: 1) The New Testament quotes from or alludes to every Old Testament book but two. 2) Jesus effectively endorsed the Hebrew canon in Matthew 23:35 when He cited one of the first narratives and one of the last in the Scriptures of His day. 3) The Jews were meticulous in preserving the Old Testament Scriptures, and they had few controversies over what parts belong or do not belong. The Roman Catholic Apocrypha did not measure up and fell outside the definition of Scripture and has never been accepted by the Jews.
1. We began to discuss this but ran out of time. We will pick up here next time.

Let us pray: Lord, we thank you for the gift of Your Son, the Word made Flesh. We thank You for the gift of the Church that He founded and endowed with His own authority so that she might lead us always back to Him.

Return Bibles / books / supplies to cupboard.