In recent discussions I have had here in Oxford the issue of the development of the canon has loomed large. Post-liberalism tends to agree with Roman Catholicism that the canon is the creation of the church, or is even a practice of the church. Quotes aren't arguments, but, here are three that caught my eye:
The idea that the Bible should rule the church is not poplar today, when leading scholars in the fields are immersed in their own mythology of cultural relativity, but it is a concept which would have seemed perfectly in order to all the Fathers of the church. Gerald Bray, Creeds, Councils and Chirst, p.52
The apostolic succession of the Church must mean that it is guided by the Canon, that is, by the prophetic and apostolic word as the necessary rule of every word that is valid in the Church. K.Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1, p.104
…the theological issues related to the historical development of the canon may appear rather perplexing to biblical scholars and theologians who would not want to conclude that the biblical canon is a creation of the church. E. Schnabel, "History, theology and the biblical canon: an introduction to basic issues" in Themelios 20:2, 1995, 16.
6 comments:
Of course, at least at one level the canon is the creation of the church: it is the church that voices its judgment as to where the canon starts and stops, as it were. The question is what category should be used to describe this act of the church. To call it a "creation" of the canon is very different to saying that the church "recognised" certain documents as canonical, for example.
And where ought we understand the place of apostolic authority in all this?
Yes recognition is a much more appropriate term than creation, isn't it.
As to the last guy, Schnabel, I'm not familiar with him and it's not clear from the quote where his line of thought is going ...
Potential sidetrack:
Since we're at the start rather than the end of a thread, I'd like to try again with a point I raised in a much earlier discussion: canon as authoritative tradition. Isn't this a case where we have received a tradition which we consider authoritative, that can't be understood-without-remainder as something derived from Scripture ... since it determines the extent of Scripture itself?
I don't consider this to be an especially revolutionary or radical statement, but (at the risk of returning to one of my themes) I think it is one that exposes the limitations of evangelical rhetoric. Our slogans about Scripture, and the practice of treating tradition as something that other weaker-minded people have (cf. the way followers of scientism speak about "myths"), don't seem adequate to the phenomena here.
Well I don't think your concerns are particularly warranted if you read the magisterial reformers who of course gave a very positive account of tradition in its place. And of course, the idea of tradition is a scriptural one itself...I think the way you have expressed it is pretty good, BY.
While I'm on record as saying it's time I read Calvin again, my concern isn't with what the great reformers held in the matter, but with the way we talk now.
You're kind enough to compliment the way I set out the situation re the canon ... but I wonder how many other people would be. This seems to me an issue not unlike that of the role of extra-biblical knowledge in understanding Scripture: a loose end that we know (at some level) we can't dispose of, but that doesn't really fit our preferred picture or influence our way of speaking.
No doubt this is a natural enough side-effect of holding onto Scripture when others have not ...
Yeah, sure, there is a polemical context that doesn't help. I think the Reformers point helps because we can point people to the sources of our own tradition (!) for reassurance that this is what the good guys have always believed! And I hope it helps you remember that you actually are of the centre party and not the fringe when you say what you have said - so say it yet more boldly!
Will do.
Is there a short version of Schnabel's position? The quote you gave in the initial post sounds like it means to be significant, but is not very substantial ...
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