"Catholic Church" can be replaced with any apostolic hierarchical church (i.e. Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy) from which the canonization process occurred. Does one find the Protestant justification for the canon weak, when the Canon's development was intrinsically an extra-biblical occurrence? One that was hotly debated for several centuries, with no consensus until Church authority spoke up on the matter? Where is the infallible, divine revelation for 2 Peter being in the canon under the Sola Scriptura worldview? How does one who holds scripture alone as their final authority reconcile the scriptures themselves being declared canonical by external means?
With respect to Protestantism, this seems to be one of the weakest links of their theology. I echo the words of Daniel Wallace:
...... Third, a book by David Dungan calledConstantine’s Biblemakes an astounding point about the shape of the canon in the ancient church. ... Dungan mentions that for Eusebius to speak of any books [of Scripture] as homolegoumena—those twenty books that had universal consent in his day as canonical—he was speaking of an unbroken chain of bishops, from the first century to the fourth, who affirmed authorship and authenticity of such books. What is significant is thatfor the ancient church, canonicity was intrinsically linked to ecclesiology. It was the bishops rather than the congregations that gave their opinion of a book’s credentials. Not just any bishops, but bishops of the major sees of the ancient church. Dungan went on to say that Eusebius must have looked up the records in the church annals and could speak thus only on the basis of such records. If Dungan is right, then the issue of the authorship of certain books (most notably the seven disputed letters of Paul) is settled. And it’s settled by appeal to an ecclesiological structure that is other than what Protestants embrace. The irony is that today evangelicals especially argue for authenticity of the disputed letters of Paul, yet they are arguing with one hand tied behind their back. And it has been long noted that the weakest link in an evangelical bibliology is canonicity.
....
I’m not sure of the solution, or even if there is one. But we can take steps toward a solution even if we will never get there in this world. First of all, we Protestants can be more sensitive about the deficiencies in our own ecclesiology rather than think that we’ve got a corner on truth. We need to humbly recognize that the two other branches of Christendom have done a better job in this area. Second, we can be more sensitive to the need for doctrinal and ethical accountability, fellowship beyond our local church, and ministry with others whose essentials but not necessarily particulars don’t line up with ours. Third, we can begin to listen again to the voice of the Spirit speaking through church fathers and embrace some of the liturgy that has been used for centuries. Obviously, it must all be subject to biblical authority, but we dare not neglect the last twenty centuries unless we think that the Spirit has been sleeping all that time.
[note: quote broken up despite fixing the HTML, just read it as one quote]
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