Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Why the Canon Is Closed According to Roman Catholic Apologists, and Why the Canon is Not Closed According to Roman Catholic Apologists

You can't make this stuff up:

The Canon is closed:
"Scripture was Scripture before the canon was declared. Vatican I and Vatican II both state this. The canon is not Scripture itself, but the authoritative list of biblical books. Thus, there is no difficulty in saying 'Scripture existed before the canon was declared.' Indeed, this was necessarily the case, since declaring a list of biblical books presupposes that there are biblical books to be listed! The point of the canon was to end dispute once and for all as to which books are part of the Bible, since some didn't accept various books, and others thought books were Scripture that were not (as later determined by councils and popes and general consensus)."

"I would say that many Christians largely knew what books were part of Scripture, but not exactly or with precision, and that's where the Church's declarations were important and necessary: to remove any remaining doubt and make it more certain what books were in the Bible."[source]
The canon is open:
"The fourth question of the Capita Dubitationum asked whether those books that were not included in Trent's list, but were included in the Latin Vulgate (e.g. The Book of Esdras, 4 Ezra, and 3 Maccabees), should be rejected by a Conciliar decree, or should they be passed over in silence. Only three Fathers voted for an explicit rejection. Forty-two voted that the status of these books should be passed over in silence. Eight bishops did not vote. The majority won, and Trent deliberately withheld any explicit decision on these books.

...The question of Esdras' canonical status was left theoretically open." [Gary Michuta, Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger (Michigan: Grotto Press, 2007), pp. 240-241].
"Let me be perfectly clear. My assertion that the Council of Trent passed over the question of the canonicity of Esdras in silence is not a matter of my own or anyone else's interpretation of the decree. It is a historical fact." Source: Silence and the Problem of Catholic Canon Certainty

1 comment:

PeaceByJesus said...

The link to Silence and the Problem of Catholic Canon Certainty is now http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2007/04/09/silence-and-the-problem-of-catholic-canon-certainty/