Contra Liccione on the Canon Question

A commenter at CatholicNick's place decided to copy+paste a comment from Dr. Michael Liccione and originally posted at Called to Communion on the question of the canon of Scripture.  The copy+paste begins here.  I offered my critique of the article, which I am going to cut into the comment's text here.


I should think the burden would be on RCC to give some reason to believe that it is in fact infallible.
But first, to prove that it is the only One True Church®.


the teaching that the Tridentine canon is divinely inspired is one that we accept as irreformable

1) This is an ignorant thing to say, since the Tridentine canon passed over at least one book in silence. So your canon of Scr is not closed or complete.
2) Further, for a Sola Scripturist, the canon of Scr is identical to the list of infallible teachings, since only Scr is infallible.
What is Rome's infallible canon of infallible teachings? If you can't provide it, what is Rome's fallible canon of infallible teachings?



You can’t even tell us which visible body counts as “the” Church whose allegedly fallible authority you nonetheless want to cite.

So he just got finished telling us that SS-ists don't think that the church is infallible, that we think the canon is made by a fallible church. And then he rubs it in our faces that we can't claim an infallible church? Um, isn't that what we were saying the whole time?


For if whatever-it-is you call “the Church” could always be wrong

But we don't depend on the church. We depend on and trust in God to make His revelation known. We're theists.


how do you make your case?

My case is found here.


The formation of the canon is the work of God working through the Church.

Prove it by bringing fwd:
1) your infallible canon of infallible teachings;
OR, FAILING THAT
2) your fallible canon of infallible teachings;
OR, FAILING THAT
3) your infallible canon of Scr.

....

which church is “the Church,”

Great question. If you are suggesting that we accept the RCC a priori as the infallible interpreter, please let me know why I should. After all, there's lots of competition out there for that spot! EOC, the Watchtower, the LDS, David Koresh, José Luís de Jesús Miranda, etc. If your response resembles: "Just check which church has the pedigree and the line of apostolic succession," then
1) EOC claims the same thing. How can I know who's right?
2) Is it just your non-authoritative interp that apostolic succession/pedigree are the hallmarks of The One True Church®?
3) If I were in fact to check apostolic succession, wouldn't that be non-authoritative interp on my part? If you proceed to tell me to give up on that personal interp stuff, isn't that begging the entire question?
4) If JW/LDS, for example, is the infallible interpreter, wouldn't their interpretation of church history (including a Great Apostasy and later Restoration) be correct by definition, since it's infallible?



without identifying some church as “the Church” that does the pertinent “work of God,”

But we DO identify it. It is the Church.
But "the Church" here is not "the RCC", b/c the church to which I refer is not identical with the modern RCC. But we're not reliant on the church, we're reliant on God Himself to make His revelation known.



What you give us thereby is only your opinion and that of your particular branch of Protestantism, which does not claim infallibility.

1) False dilemma - it is not true that there is either infallibility or "just your opinion". In between is an educated, argued-for position.
2) The individual RC cannot claim infallibility for himself, so this argument cuts his own position's throat. Simply citing another infallible source doesn't get you anywhere either - SS-ists do that when we cite God as infallible source.
So try as you might, I'm very sorry, but you have no epistemological advantage here in this question.



a fallible church that you can’t even identify with a visible body cannot count as such an authority.

Strawman. We DO identify a visible body - the Church. Doesn't mean it's infallible.

See, we trust our omnipotent, loving God to make His self-revelation known to His people. There is little reason to think this would require that His people be infallible. Indeed, did He not successfully make His Word known to the Old Testament people of God? And what was their infallible interpreter? The Sanhedrin which put Jesus to death? The Sadducees who denied the resurrection in the Eschaton?

We further know it through the impossibility of the contrary. If God has not spoken clearly, sufficiently, and in a way understandable to people, then let us eat, drink, and be merry, for neither today nor tomorrow do we know anything about God, eternal life, atonement, sin, judgment, resurrection, or moral law. Indeed, I'd argue we have no basis for ANY objective epistemology or metaphysics. Such an idea is certainly unlivable, and if one is inclined to argue that its unthinkability is a crutch for weak-minded people, I simply respond that if God did not speak, there's nothing right OR WRONG with being weak-minded.