In my previous few posts, I have been breaking down some of the reasons I became Catholic by first focusing on the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura and some of its major issues. In this post today, we will cover what I believe to be the biggest and most intractable problem for Protestants as it relates to the notion of SS.1 Namely, the canon issue. Ultimately, this was a matter I never found satisfying answers for from Protestants, and it eventually played an influential part in my conversion to Catholicism.
What’s the “Canon”?
As a former Protestant appealing to SS, I had regarded the Scriptures as the supreme authority and the only infallible rule for the Church on matters of faith and morals. It was, as many say, the “final court of appeals.” But one question that I did not seriously devote enough thought and attention to was How do I know what is Scripture and what is not? This question, of course, has to do with canonicity.
The word canon means “measuring stick” or “rule”. As Christians, when we talk about the canon of Scripture, what we are talking about then is which books serve as a rule of faith for Christians and which ones don’t. For Protestants and Catholics alike, before one can even begin to claim that Scripture is an infallible rule of faith, we must first wrestle with a fundamental preliminary question: namely, how do we know that the books we have in our Bible are the ones that should be there?
After all, this question is unavoidable, because the Bible didn’t simply fall from the sky into our lap, nor was it written by one single author who purportedly received direct revelation somewhere in a cave or remote location, as other religions might claim regarding their sacred texts, such as Mormons or Muslims. If that were the reality, Protestants might have an easier case to make for SS. But that’s not how we got the Bible. Rather, the books of the Bible were written by multiple different authors over the course of millennia, and then those books were eventually collected, compiled, and collated by the Church into one single volume centuries after the death of the last apostle.
Protestants might have an easier time making a case for SS also if it were the case that the canon of Scripture was formally recognized and defined by the time the last apostle died. In that case, you’d be likely to have clear and definitive apostolic authority witnessing to which books were canonical and which ones were not. But that wasn’t the case either. Instead, leading up to the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, there was dispute over which books were to be considered Scripture and which weren’t, and it wasn’t until the regional synod of Rome and the councils of Hippo and Carthage towards the end of the 4th century that the matter was resolved and the canon of Scripture was officially recognized and declared (albeit non-infallibly) by the Church.
This is not to say that the Catholic Church made the Scriptures inspired, or that they “created” the canon, in the sense that they somehow gave the authors of the Scripture the ability to write divinely inspired texts. The Catholic Church has never claimed to have determined Scripture in that way. That power belongs to God alone. The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states,
“It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books.” [italics added for emphasis]2
Ultimately, the Church discerned and recognized what was inspired and what wasn’t, and then declared it, and that declaration was understood as authoritative for the faithful. Simply put, God determined and the Church declared.
That being said, this presents issues for Protestants.
The Canon Conundrum
For starters, what does it say about the authority of the Church if Protestants ultimately appeal to it in order to determine what’s canonical? Catholic Apologist Trent Horn, in his book The Case for Catholicism, states the conundrum for Protestants quite clearly:
If Scripture is the “final court of appeal” or “the only infallible rule of faith”, then on what basis does a Christian determine whether certain writings are or are not Scripture? If one appeals to an authority outside of Scripture, that authority becomes at least equal in authority to Scripture.3
In other words, Protestants are forced to appeal to an authority outside Scripture to determine what Scripture is and they must regard that authority as infallible, or else they can’t be sure as to what constitutes Scripture. It’s not as though Protestants can appeal to the authority of Scripture alone to determine what Scripture is. That would be circular reasoning. Nor does Scripture tell us what the canon is. That being said, Protestants are in a conundrum. They can’t appeal to Scripture to determine the canon but they also recognize they can’t appeal to the authority of the Church either, because that would effectively undermine their position on Sola Scriptura.
However, as one should expect, Protestants object to this and reject these sorts of formulations. They contend that they’re not appealing to any authoritative declarations of the Church to know what the canon is.
“Fallible Collection of Infallible Books”
Protestants will claim that someone doesn’t have to be infallible in order to say something inerrant. As it goes, even a blind dog finds a bone every once in a while. This is why the late Dr. R.C. Sproul, renowned Protestant scholar, infamously stated that the canon of Scripture is a “fallible collection of infallible books.”4 He asserted that the Church’s process of collecting the books and discerning which ones were inspired Scripture was ultimately a fallible process. Most Protestant scholars, such as Dr. Michael J Kruger, Dr. Gavin Ortlund, Dr. James White, along with many others, agree with him.
But this begs the question: if the process by which the books of Scripture were collected and canonized was ultimately fallible, then how can Protestants be sure that the wrong books didn’t end up in their Bible or that the right books weren’t left out? Sproul even admits as much. He says,
“If you ask me, is it possible, R.C. Sproul, that there’s a book in the New Testament that doesn’t belong there? I’d say, yes, it’s possible. If you say to me, R.C. Sproul, do you think it’s possible that there’s books that were written like the first Clement that didn’t get in that should get in there? I’d say, it’s possible.”5
That being said, Protestants readily admit that one can’t be certain that the canon of Scripture they have is the correct one, which I find to be a stunning admission for a group who claims that the only infallible rule of faith is contained within the canon of Scripture. After all, this is no minor issue. We’re talking about what can be rightly considered the very words of God and what can’t. It’s of grave significance to get these things right, because it’s no small thing to call something that isn’t the word of God the word of God or fail to acknowledge the word of God when the time calls for it.
However, this lack of certainty over what constitutes inspired Scripture isn’t perceived as a major problem by many Protestants. Instead, scholars like Dr. Gavin Ortlund tend to dismiss the matter as an unsettled need for certainty.6 Yet, to be fair, they do maintain that, despite lacking that certainty, one can still have immense confidence that they have the right books in their canon opposed to the wrong ones.
But this is problematic for the Protestant, because without accepting the infallibility of the Church’s judgment, they have to appeal to certain criteria to ground their confidence in the canon they do have. Yet, that criteria is insufficient and inconsistently applied to the point that it ends up placing their canonical footing on shaky, unreliable ground.
Different Canons
For starters, it’s worth noting the fact that Catholics and Protestants (as well as Eastern Orthodox) have different canons of Scripture. While we share the same 27 books of the New Testament, we have different Old Testament canons. Catholics have 46 books in their OT (45 if you count Jeremiah and Lamentations as one), whereas Protestants have 39 in theirs. Catholics have 7 books in their OT that make up what is called the deuterocanonical books, whereas Protestants don’t (they refer to these 7 books as the “Apocrypha”).
Yet, interestingly enough, the Catholic canon was the canon that was recognized and declared at the councils of Hippo & Carthage in the late 4th century, then reaffirmed again at the Council of Florence in the 15th century, and then again reaffirmed and dogmatically defined at the Council of Trent in the 16th century. It actually wasn’t until the Reformation that the 7 books of the deuterocanon were removed by the Reformers from Protestant translations of the Bible. This could potentially sound a bit shocking to hear for the Protestant who grew up hearing from other Protestants that Catholics added books to the Bible, but church history tells a different story.
Moreover, it’s not as though the councils are the only thing that attest to the inspiration and canonicity of the deuterocanonical books either. A vast amount of early church fathers quoted from the deuterocanonical books as Scripture. St. Augustine repeatedly referred to the deuterocanon as Scripture, being perhaps one of its strongest witnesses to its divine inspiration and authority (which is quite a noteworthy fact given that Protestants often try and claim Augustine as a sort of proto-Protestant).
Moreover, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian, and Jerome all quote from the deuterocanon and often qualify their statements with phrases such as “It is written…”, “The Scripture says…”, “Thus saith…”, and more. Protestants tend to be selective with the church fathers in response. They often try to point to rare exceptions in the church fathers where the deuterocanon could be understood as not constituting divine Scripture but approximating something less divine yet still instructive. But when you look at those exceptions in context, the reality is far more nuanced, with Protestants lacking strong evidence in their favor.
But, like anything, the OT canon can be debated and that debate is beyond the scope of this article.7 The point here is that all this should raise concerns for Protestants when it comes to how confident they can be in their canon of Scripture. After all, it’s no small thing to point out that, if Protestants believe the Holy Spirit led Christians to discern which books of the Bible were canonical and which ones weren’t, then it would be quite the claim to suggest that the Holy Spirit led the Church into error for, at least, over 1000 years of church history when it came to the canon of Scripture.
Yet, many wiser Protestants don’t take this line, and reject theses formulations as well. Instead, they claim that the OT canon wasn’t actually settled until the Protestant Reformation. But this is problematic, considering Protestants claim that Scripture was the sole infallible rule of faith throughout church history. If the canon wasn’t settled during that time, how can you appeal to it as the only infallible rule? To appeal to Scripture would have to mean that you know what it is.
Corporate Reception / Consensus
But Protestants maintain that SS holds up even if the canon wasn’t fully settled, because they maintain there was still a core consensus of books widely upheld throughout history that weren’t disputed, and that those books contained enough revelation necessary for one to be saved.
At this point, we begin to see more clearly some of the criteria Protestants appeal to as a standard for evaluating what’s canonical. Namely, something such as corporate reception. And while the Church certainly used some of this criteria when it came to the formation of the canon, there’s several problems for Protestants if they expect this criteria to be sufficient on its own for discerning what’s canonical without the authoritative and infallible judgment of the Church.
Take the criteria of corporate reception, for example. On this point, Protestant scholar Dr. Michael J. Kruger writes,
It is important to note that the work of the Spirit does not happen only on an individual level, but also on a corporate level. Thus, there are good reasons to think that God’s collective, covenantal people would eventually recognize the books that are from him. If so, then we can look to the consensus of God’s people (in both old and new covenant times) as a reliable guide to which books are from him.
This does not mean that we should expect God’s people to have instantaneous and absolute unity over the canonical books. There will always be pockets of disagreement and dissension (just like there would be over any doctrine). But we can expect a predominant or general consensus through the ages—which is exactly what we find.8
For starters, this reveals a major inconsistency. After all, if the Spirit works on a corporate level (as Catholics readily recognize), what do Protestants do with the fact that the universal church did have absolute unity on the canonical books for over 1000 years (the ones that included the deuterocanon)? Moreover, what do Protestants do with things like ecumenical councils? Are these Spirit-led or not? If they are, why are they still regarded as merely fallible human projects?
Secondly, if “consensus of God’s people” is a reliable guide for which books of the Bible are from God, then why wouldn’t consensus of God’s people be a reliable guide for other doctrines that Protestants reject? After all, the early church had consensus on matters like the Eucharist being the real body and blood of Christ, baptismal regeneration, apostolic succession, infant baptism, and the possibility of losing one’s salvation. If the Spirit could lead God’s people to unanimously recognize a core list of books as the true word of God, then why couldn’t the Spirit lead the church to truth in these matters also?
Lastly, there’s the simple fact that several NT books didn’t have consensus in the first few centuries of the church and were widely disputed. Books such as Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were all disputed and were left out in many early canonical lists that were circulating amongst Christians during that time. These books did not even begin to receive unanimous corporate reception as part of the NT canon until after the Church resolved the matter through the councils in the late 4th century.
That being said, this criteria simply doesn’t work on its own. Without the authoritative and infallible judgment of the Church, the criteria of corporate reception proves to be insufficient and problematic for Protestants.
Other Criteria
Of course, corporate reception isn’t the only set of criteria that Protestants appeal to. For the NT, they may take into account something like apostolic authorship. In other words, can the supposed work be traced back to an authoritative author such as an apostle? But this is problematic also because this, by no means, is a necessary condition for a book to be considered canonical. After all, no one knows who wrote the book of Hebrews. In scholarship, it’s virtually a mystery. Jude wasn’t written by an apostle either. Moreover, two of the synoptic gospels—Mark and Luke—which are core books of the NT, weren’t written by apostles either. In these cases, a Protestant might try to expand it to mean someone within the “apostolic circle.” But, once again, that excludes a book like Hebrews. Moreover, how small or big that circle may be is generally subjective. After all, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Ignatius of Antioch all had been within the apostolic circle in the first century, but their letters weren’t included. All that being said, this criteria simply isn’t sufficient on its own to give Protestants confidence in their canon.
Additionally, Protestants may appeal to orthodoxy as a measure of what’s canonical, which is also deeply problematic for the Protestant trying to ground their confidence in the canon using this criteria. After all, if Scripture alone is the only infallible standard by which we evaluate what’s orthodox, then how do you appeal to the criteria of orthodoxy to help determine what’s Scripture? It’s another circular argument. It’s clear that Protestants must admit that they’re relying on infallible aspects of Tradition to discern what can be considered canonical and what can’t. But regarding tradition as infallible isn’t compatible with SS.
Is the Canon “Self-Authenticating”?
It’s clear that, while useful, each of these forms of criteria—corporate reception (consensus/catholicity), apostolic authorship, orthodoxy—are not sufficient in and of themselves to be a reliable guide for what can be considered canonical and what can’t. All of this leaves Protestants on shaky ground when it comes to the canon, if they’re trying to ground their confidence apart from the judgment of the Church. Yet, that does not stop Protestants from claiming that the canon of Scripture is ultimately self-authenticating.
In fact, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Reformer John Calvin stated this clearly. He claimed the Scriptures are “self-authenticated” and that it’s not right to “subject [them] to proof and reasoning.” He went onto explain how this was so. He writes,
“How shall we be persuaded that it came from God without recurring to a decree of the church? It is just the same as if it were asked, how shall we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Scripture bears upon the face of it as clear evidence of its truth, as white and black do of their color, sweet and bitter of their taste.”9
In other words, how can you know something is Scripture? Simply by reading it. After all, if God can reveal Himself more generally through creation and the natural order and be clearly known in that way, then how much more should His Word be clearly recognized through what’s written. After all, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice” (Jn. 10:27). Only sin would thus blind a man from being able to discern rightly what the word of God is. Therefore, those who have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit have the Spirit as an internal witness and guide to what can be considered inspired Scripture and what can’t. At least, so the Protestant argues. But this is problematic also for Protestants.
For starters, the early Church never disputed that the natural order was clear evidence of God’s existence. Yet, they did dispute which books were canonical. If the Holy Spirit is an internal witness to the canon of Scripture in the same way that He is to believers through the natural order, you would expect the Holy Spirit to guide the Church unanimously on what was canonical from the beginning. But that’s not the case. Moreover, it would call into question the faith of all those who accepted the deuterocanonical books as Scripture, such as St. Augustine. Now, I don’t know about you, but if the Holy Spirit didn’t dwell in St. Augustine, then I think it’s safe to say all of our souls are in jeopardy.
Frankly, when I first heard Protestants (scholarly ones, at that) make this assertion, I was a little flabbergasted, because I hear Mormons routinely make the same claims when it comes to authenticating the writings of Joseph Smith as divinely inspired. Mormons contend that all one has to do is read the texts for themselves, and the text itself will testify to you that is truly from God, and “your bosom will burn within you.”10 But simply suggesting that you can know the canon because “Scripture bears upon the face of it as clear evidence of its truth” not only completely ignores church history, but it presumes that only those individuals who accept the Protestant canon of Scripture are guided by the Holy Spirit, and ends up dismissing the Spirit at work in the Church for the first 1500 years of its existence.
To be candid, I think when one rejects the infallible judgment of the Church, and then examines all the criteria that’s been listed thus far as a means to ground one’s confidence in the canon of Scripture, it doesn’t surprise me that the last option is to resort to the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. Because, there’s not enough objective criteria left that is sufficient on its own for Protestants to stand on. Consequently, even minds as great and stalwart as John Calvin’s are forced to resign to the claim that Scriptures authenticate themselves, which is the only option left for someone who rejects the authority of the Church.
Conclusion
When you take all these things into consideration, the fact of the matter is that Christians ultimately had to appeal to another authority outside of Scripture to discern what was Scripture. Namely, they had to appeal to the discernment of the Church and they regarded their judgment as infallible. What this reveals is that the more one surveys church history, the more clear it becomes that Christians did not operate according to the paradigm of Sola Scriptura. If they did, they likely would have shored up these disputes on the canon much sooner.
Instead, Christians trusted that God, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, had entrusted the teaching office of the Church with the ability to make definitive judgments on issues such as the canon of Scripture. After all, our Lord promised that the Spirit would guide the Church into all the truth (Jn. 16:12-13), and that’s what He did, because our Lord is faithful to His promises. It’s why we can confidently say, just as the apostle Paul did, that the Church is a “pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15), and why, if you remove that pillar, things become unstable and unreliable.
Ultimately, it’s one of the reasons I could no longer remain Protestant. It’s not that I had an unhealthy craving for certainty. I just came to discover that Catholicism had something more secure; something that Christ promised us the gates of hell would not prevail against; something I could have true and genuine confidence in. Namely, it had the Church. I found solid ground my feet could stand on.
I pray you find it also.
Footnotes
- Throughout this post, for the sake of brevity, I will routinely abbreviate Sola Scriptura to SS. ↩︎
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2000), §120. ↩︎
- Trent Horn. The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, 76. ↩︎
- Sproul, R. C. Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1992, chap. “The Canon of Scripture.” ↩︎
- https://www.truthnetwork.com/show/renewing-your-mind-r-c-sproul/65118/?utm_source=chatgpt.com ↩︎
- From Gavin Ortlund’s Youtube Video: “A Fallible List of Infallible Books?” ↩︎
- For a good introduction to the debate on this matter, I suggest watching the debate between Catholic apologist Trent Horn and Protestant apologist Jonathan Sheffield on this issue: “Should Christians accept the Protestant Old Testament Canon?” ↩︎
- The Biblical Canon: An Essay by Michael J. Kruger ↩︎
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.7.2. ↩︎
- Doctrine and Covenants 9:8. ↩︎