Sola Scriptura, Canon, and Rome: Dr. Michael Kruger on the Dividing Line

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00:09

Welcome to The Dividing Line, a special edition. Today, what we're going to do here at the beginning is I have invited

00:14

Dr. Michael Kruger on the program. He'll be joining us at the top of the hour. I had contacted him back in November on October 31st.

00:22

If you want to go to the Catholic Answers archives, October 31st, I was driving home, heard a phone call and discussion on Catholic Answers Live that in light of Dr.

00:34

Kruger's work on the subject of the canon, I wanted to invite him on so that he might respond to what was said in that particular 20 -minute long phone call.

00:44

But to give you the proper context, we wanted to play that phone call for you, so you could see why we wanted to address this vitally important issue.

00:52

So before the program begins, here is the phone call from Catholic Answers Live that we will be reviewing and responding to.

01:01

Sure. All right. It's Larry in St. Louis, Missouri on 1460 AM. Hello, Larry. Well, hello.

01:08

Welcome. I'm not welcome, but good evening, Patrick and father. Thank you. Thank you.

01:13

Would you call yesterday, Larry? I did. Okay. I remember you. I'm sorry we didn't get to you with Jimmy in the first hour.

01:19

I didn't want to have his answer truncated, so I'm delighted that you called back. Okay. Well, yesterday

01:24

I called with a simple question, especially this time of year. Where did Luther go wrong? And you invited me back to answer the question, why it is you guys aren't

01:33

Lutherans. And boy, I can't think of a good reason. Oh, wait a minute. You asked me the question, why am

01:39

I not Catholic, right? Yes, correct. Well, that's a good question. And I thought about it. And, um, you know, it's kind of a tough because no matter how you approach it, you can get into the weeds real quickly.

01:50

So I guess I have sort of a two pronged answer. First is that as a

01:55

Lutheran and as a, in particular of the Missouri Synod, everything needful

02:02

I have. And that is to say that when I say, just when

02:08

I go to church, at church we hear the Word of God. We hear, you know, the

02:14

Old Testament reading, perhaps a psalm, and the gospel, and New Testament. Yeah. We have a communion.

02:21

We receive the body and blood of Christ. We, you know, I was as an adult, 25 years old,

02:26

I was baptized, and God gave me the gift of his spirit. And so, yeah,

02:37

I mean, so that, you know, all those things and, well, all those things are, you know, really what

02:44

I need. So then to flip the other side, and the only one thing I would sort of bring up is rather than sort of, you know, talk about, you know, something we might have a difference on, you know, that sort of, to me, is more of an effect than a cause.

03:01

I think the one issue that would keep me from the Catholic Church, as a primary reason, is the question of scripture and authority.

03:13

I see that scripture ultimately is the authority, and I would not include, say, you know, church teaching, or church history, or the tradition.

03:25

And of course, you know, a big thing with the Luther was the power and primacy of the

03:31

Pope. Okay, well, Larry, before we go into too many batches of weeds, you don't hold the soul of scriptura, right?

03:38

Pardon me? Do you hold the soul of scriptura? Absolutely, yes. Where do you find that in scripture?

03:45

Well, here's, it's real simple, you know, just like your guess, the word

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Bible is not in the Bible, so here's where I would base that on. Um, we believe that scripture is inspired by God.

04:04

It's what he chose to, for us Christians, to read and to understand.

04:10

Right. And we also believe that scripture interprets scripture, so there's really no need for Larry, if I may,

04:19

I'm just the host, Father Bifestio is the guest, but before I hand over the time, where do you get the idea that scripture interprets scripture?

04:27

Is that principle found in scripture? Well, the word monotheist isn't found in scripture either, but that principle is there.

04:34

Is the principle there? Well, well, I think it's intrinsic. It's intrinsic to it, of course. Here would be the reasoning.

04:42

God, God, the creator spoke to people, you know, to the writers, and he gave them the message and, you know, well, one would believe that he is of one mind and has a sort of the same direction all the way through.

05:00

So, um, so it's inherently the scripture is, uh, as a unit in task and, and, uh, you know, these are

05:10

God's words. So, right. I would, yeah. Okay. So anyway, but that's my, that's the one point though that I would, well, the authority is the primary thing.

05:19

Father, I'm sure you'd agree. The question of authority is the, is the first domino, isn't it? That's a very foundational idea.

05:26

And it is Larry, let me in here. Yeah, go ahead. You get it. You could be entering.

05:32

Go ahead. First, uh, two things to begin with. One, I want to offer my condolences not because you're a

05:38

Lutheran because you're a St. Lewison. I was kind of pulling for the Cardinals last night and it was, uh, it was pretty miserable.

05:44

Not only to lose, but there's something It's something you need to know. I moved here from Chicago about 11 months ago.

05:53

I'm actually a Cub fan. Oh, nice. A Cub fan. Nice. I'm glad you're waiting.

06:01

I'm glad you weighed in father. Uh, this is, uh, I mean, this is a little bit less than this bit of a longer discussion.

06:09

We normally have on Catholic Answers, but I think it's a good one because it's a very foundational one. Yeah. The second thing

06:14

I was going to say, Larry, is it, uh, You clearly respect Patrick and Catholic Answers and we respect you and I think that's right.

06:21

We should because we're fellow Christians and Because we all accept Jesus as our savior.

06:27

We all accept scripture as a norm for our lives Uh, we have obligation to strive for unity

06:34

I mean, we know that Jesus said that we should be one is he and the father one and you and I Larry aren't that one yet because we have some disagreements on the authority

06:42

Uh issue so we we need we need to fight about this not

06:47

I want to say fight I don't mean we need to put the dukes up, but we need to try to convince each other Yeah, we need to try and convince each other

06:54

We need to try and listen to the arguments at all the while with mutual respect and in our country at this time

07:01

Locking arms and all the issues that we share in common like pro -life and you know Supporting marriage and the family and that I mean we've got to be

07:07

We've got to be arm in arm brothers in Christ on that and at the same time we really have to to try and find out what the truth is because Both the lutherans and the catholics can't be right on all issues because we disagree on some so let's take that key issue you talked about the authority of scripture and scripture and tributary scripture being

07:29

Intrinsic to scripture and that scripture is a unit Well, let's just take historically now.

07:35

I'm not talking about anything theological just historical what we call the new testament I mean

07:40

It's not a unit in one sense It is because holy spirit inspired it all but there's 27 different books in the new testament and they were all together at the same time in fact

07:51

There was no such thing as a unit until about the fourth century almost the fifth century

07:58

And you may be aware of this larry, but I mean During the early period after christ when there were no written documents at first then gradually

08:07

There were written documents paul's letters came first probably and then some gospels and some other letters They were circuiting all around the mediterranean in ephesus, you know and antioch and jerusalem and even rome but they weren't

08:20

Together as a unit and there were a lot of other Documents that were floating around which today we call apocryphal the gospel of saint thomas the gospel of peter the gospel of james and so on So the only reason that we have a book we can buy in the store called the new testament

08:37

Is because someone decided those were the ones who were inspired And who was that someone?

08:43

As a matter of fact, it was the successors of the apostles who met in council who decided these books are the inspired ones

08:50

And these other ones are not so If we are going to call that collection of books

08:57

The new testament and call it a unit We have to accept the fact that it wouldn't be a unit unless these particular men

09:07

In apostolic succession had agreed. They were one book. So my problem is honestly with protestants is

09:15

How can you accept the authority of the new testament leave the old testament out for now? Without accepting the authority of the bishops who are the ones that constituted the new testament

09:25

Well, yeah They um, and I fully agree with him.

09:31

You just said in terms of the process and how it happened that larry Yes, I think this is such a valuable call i'm willing to put you on hold and just carry it through into the second segment

09:42

Would that be okay? Um, i'm looking at my enemy the clock here and I I have to take a pause But I do want to say thanks for the call larry.

09:47

Bye Do you want to keep the conversation going? All right. Hey, wait a minute. You're giving too much time to think about this.

09:54

Well, i'm, you know, it's Okay, we'll get a handicap we'll get a handicap that's okay larry the caller is actually a cubs fan in st lewis talking to a

10:05

A cardinals fan in san francisco about a world series that was won by boston. Welcome to the ecumenical church 1 -888 -31 -truth.

10:13

That's the number. This is catholic answers live father Joseph fess here the founder and chief editor of ignatius press is the guest their fine website is ignatius edition of the table of contents right from matthew mark luke john acts

10:26

Romans and so on all the way to revelation. You have these 27 books How did they get collected who decided these are inspired these are god's word these other ones that are in circulation they ain't

10:38

And you see the point larry that only an authority set up by christ would be able to adjudicate that Because they didn't come down like a star trek beam right all together in one book.

10:49

Does that make sense larry? um, yes and no, um Well because Yeah, i'm concerned about this concept that the the authority had to do this.

11:01

Uh, certainly Let's think about how these books were decided Uh, they were decided based primarily on objective reasons.

11:09

For example, uh, say the uh, the book of thomas, uh, clearly it's a gnostic, um publication

11:18

Uh, and again, I you know, i'm oh Clear but but who's to say that jesus wasn't a gnostic.

11:24

Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. All right, uh, And uh, then the quick next question or some of the questions that are asked about each of these writings is who wrote it

11:35

When was it written? So the question becomes how how valid are the authors if we know who they are

11:42

That kind of thing. So there's there's objective uh, uh decisions that have to be made and You know the church fathers and and by the way uh kind of an underlying theme here is that You're connected to them, but i'm not and that I would dispute that but that's kind of getting in the weeds again

12:02

But uh the church fathers and the council did just look at these things and that's how they made those decisions

12:08

Of course, we would take very carefully And so I have no problem with with with that question.

12:15

Larry Okay, let's stop there for a second. Let's take it piece by piece here uh You're saying that they made the decision on objective basis and that's true.

12:23

They did But if they had no authority to make the decision, then we could undo it Now we could say well gosh

12:29

And we we actually think that the gospel of thomas is not so gnostic and it really fits in well in the gospel James has some stuff by jesus.

12:35

We didn't get elsewhere. We should include that Why would our decision be any worse or less authorized?

12:42

Than the people who made it back there I mean if they had no authority to make a decision based objectively now, we have more knowledge

12:49

We have you know more more exegetical knowledge more historical knowledge. We can make a better decision

12:54

So let's cut out. So I mean as luther said let's get let's cut out the book the letter of james.

13:00

It's a letter of straw all right, I mean Well, if that's the case

13:05

Hold on a sec. We don't have a new testament Right. Well, we don't we don't have a new testament

13:12

Um, essentially the the church fathers those men, uh who were uh central to the structure of the church uh, then uh um, they um

13:27

They you know, I mean these are the people who were Who were the church who were the authorities?

13:34

They weren't the authority authority for that they're authoritative I can call myself a christian because i've been baptized

13:41

But I mean, I just can't call myself a bishop I can't call myself a father in the church or an authority in the church

13:49

Quite frankly. I mean, I think there's a subtle claim here that you know that because you're half of the catholic denomination that you have some sort of Some sort of uh special privilege over and above other christians.

14:05

So for example, uh, you know what over a thousand years ago Uh the orthodox church and the catholic church split

14:13

And I think they would argue that no, you don't have that exclusive claim So that that's the issue.

14:20

I mean there's sort of an objective way in which it was done people of good of goodwill

14:26

Larry larry the people of goodwill were the pope and the bishops in unit in union with him at the councils of Of uh hippo and carthage and rome.

14:35

So it was it was catholic popes And the bishops in union with them it wasn't just church fathers who are authoritative

14:41

But not the authority that seems to be an important distinction um, but I don't

14:46

I don't yeah, larry just speaking for me, I don't feel any any special Magical pop rocks because i'm catholic i'm i'm humbled that god has allowed me by his grace to belong to the church that christ founded

14:59

So i'm humbled i'm not um, you know triumphalistic about it. I'm i'm happy.

15:04

I want other people to be happy By belonging to the church that christ founded Let me jump

15:13

Father go ahead go ahead Well larry look You know The other thing is

15:19

I mean, uh, you know, did let me ask you did jesus write anything? Uh, not that I know of Good answer not the way he said he did he did kneel down a scribble once we don't know it was a word or not

15:34

Exactly i'll probably get a grocery list, but that's irrelevant. But did did he Did did jesus tell his apostles to write anything?

15:44

Um, you think um He not that I know of I mean, I can't no Again, he might he might have told him something but it's not in scripture from what we knew in the new testament

15:55

Jesus didn't he he told him to go out and teach And proclaim the kingdom and to baptize in his name

16:02

And he also said in this we have a scripture he who hears you hears me now

16:11

Clearly he was giving authority to teach To those who he chose to be the 12 apostles

16:17

And the question is well would that authority be something which was passed on or did jesus think? The authority is going to last just for one generation, but jesus did not write

16:26

He did not ask his apostles to write he did give the human beings their

16:31

Authority to speak in his name and to bind and to loose In his name and the problem with the objectivity of scripture, which is there

16:41

Is that once you have no authority to interpret it? What do you get not just lutherans and catholics but methodists presbyterians baptists and all you know, 26 000 different denominations

16:53

I can't believe That jesus was not as smart as the founding fathers of the united states

16:58

Who had a supreme court to determine what the constitution meant? That he would simply commit to writing a religion in which he knew men would disagree about without having any any certitude on a proper interpretation so to me just it just it just seems uh

17:14

Unlikely that from a human point of view leave leave aside. He's the son of god that he would establish

17:21

Try to establish unity on a document instead of on a living You know authority well okay, um

17:33

I guess it sort of goes back to my original point. My my second point was that That uh, the authority of scripture here um

17:43

Is a huge huge issue And you know, this is this is an argument that's been going on for 500 years.

17:50

We're not going to settle it here um, I think For the I mean you and I sound like we agree, you know

17:58

To some high percentage but um, there is a difference in this question of And it's not a question of authority.

18:06

I I agree. It's clearly jesus Uh, you know, it was his 12 while 13 disciples, right one of them

18:13

We know what happened to him And he chose 12. Yeah Yeah, yeah for that for that faith to be to be you know, obviously communicated and carried on And uh, so I I believe that the primary source of that is scripture

18:30

And scripture alone. Well, uh, and that's that's where we differ. Yeah, we're going we're going back the scripture alone part

18:36

Is just not in scripture like faith alone is not in scripture either when when the term faith alone is used in james chapter 2

18:43

It's preceded by the word not Uh, I think we we might want to put a semi -colon on it and invite you to call back another time

18:51

We've got a lot of people waiting Um, jesus founded a church. He didn't write a book. He didn't commission his disciples to write a book

18:58

He wants people to belong to the church that he founded the catholic church does not understand herself as a denomination but as the bride of christ and that uh that bride unfortunately has

19:08

Uh stained garments because of division and sin and schism and so on and as we pray for christian unity

19:14

We direct you larry a invite you to call back and also check out catholic .com Marvelous track there free of charge called scripture and tradition.

19:24

I'm trying to think of a ignatius title that deals with this father fessio Um, well

19:31

I should but I maybe uh, it's not, uh, carl adam possibly Uh, well,

19:38

I think uh scott. Hahn's rome sweet home has a lot to offer people of the lutheran persuasion and presbyterian

19:44

Heatings the catholicism fundamentalist. Yeah, carl's book is good on that catholicism and fundamentalism larry.

19:49

You're a good man Appreciate the call very much. It's 20. Thank you I mean, I think that lutherans catholics and other christians have to have these kinds of discussions

19:56

We may not end up convincing each other But we have to end up beginning in with respect and try and find the truth

20:03

That's the key try and find the truth. Jesus is the truth. No question about that But what does he want for us in order that we might be one?

20:10

Yep. Amen. Larry. Thanks for the call before our last break And thanks for listening to that phone call that took place as I said on october 31st of 2013

20:21

And as soon as I heard especially the discussion, I didn't hear all of it I was driving home at that particular point in time.

20:27

I Grabbed the call at a later point in time and uh thought you know This is the essence of uh, the debate it was um

20:37

I thought the lutheran caller did a fairly decent job for just being a lutheran caller to the uh to the program

20:43

But especially the assertions that were made regarding the issue of the canon Uh, this is the key apologetic issue when it comes to dealing with roman catholicism

20:54

I think if uh Apologetically we were to take a test Uh that had this question on it

21:01

Uh, the trinity Is to jehovah's witnesses what x? Is to roman catholic apologists

21:10

The only proper answer to filling in the x would be sola scriptura

21:16

That is a jehovah's witness will automatically default back To the argument on the trinity because they feel that's their safest ground in the same way the key apologetic argument that has been used by roman catholics at least since the 1980s

21:32

Uh and certainly going back before that but functionally In in the trenches shall we say in the resurgence of roman catholic apologetics?

21:41

Has been the argument on the subject of the canon and so uh the first person

21:47

I thought of to talk about this And to give us his expert insight on that was dr.

21:53

Michael Kruger You can see in my hands those of you watching on youtube, uh, two books that you must have in your apologetic library

22:02

I have said many many times for uh, Just simply to be functional In the argumentation that is out there today in dealing with secularism in dealing with roman catholicism dealing with islam

22:15

Um andreas kostenberger and michael j. Kruger editors on the heresy of orthodoxy

22:22

Uh need to have this book, uh need to make sure your elders and pastors and bible study teachers have this book

22:29

It is vitally important to understanding what people what you will hear being said in the realms of scholarship and then the canon revisited

22:41

Dr. Kruger's more recent work. He has another work on the can that just came out in in paperback

22:47

Uh, so he's written two books specifically on that subject and obviously the heresy of orthodoxy touches on relevant issues because obviously

22:55

Whether there was an orthodoxy is relevant to the development of the concept of canon, etc, etc and so i'm uh,

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I I wrote to dr. Kruger and it was evidence of how busy the man is that Uh, though that was back on november 6th

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Here two months later. We are finally able to get together and uh, Address this extremely important issue.

23:17

And so let me welcome. Dr. Kruger to the program. Dr. Kruger Thank you very much for taking your time to be with us today

23:23

Thanks james great to be with you You know, I was thinking uh the last uh, when we uh, when we met when

23:29

I was uh there in charlotte, uh a year ago I had a sort of life -changing experience, um in your office

23:36

I don't know if you remember but I was sitting there talking with you and with dr Anderson, and I and I all of a sudden came to the very shocking realization that I was the oldest person in the room

23:48

Yeah, that'll be life -changing for you and it was uh, it's still depressing to this day, but you know, what can

23:54

I say? Um, It was it was uh, good to have the opportunity of being there. I can't believe an entire year has passed

24:00

And it's gone fast. Oh, well for you, especially because you Uh have been um, uh installed as the president there at rts in in charlotte

24:10

Um, is it really cold there? I mean you you all snowed us out when I was there Oh, man, you you you're talking to me the two coldest times of the year apparently because you were here last and it was

24:20

Snowing and even though you're not here now, we're talking and it's very cold here We got down to nine last night. Wow, which is a new record in north carolina

24:27

And actually I had pipes freezing my house that are still not unclogged. Oh, i'm hoping they're hoping they're not going to break exactly.

24:33

Wow Yeah, yeah Yeah, I I'm it's really it's really it's hit us too it it dropped out of the 70s to 67 so uh for the highs

24:44

Well, maybe you have to put a jacket on when you go bike ride I I might have to do that now. I sent you that I sent you that I I knew you would find interesting because you did mention to me as we were discussing that one of the things that you had found

24:59

Unexpected In putting out the can revisited was the amount of pushback you got from roman catholics.

25:06

Um, yeah, it's also a little bit about that Well, yeah, I wrote the book. Uh Whenever you write a book you always have sort of a a standard, uh person in mind when you write it

25:16

Even though there's multiple components to your audience and I have to admit that when I wrote canon revisited I was probably thinking of modern critical scholarship.

25:22

This is the major conversation partner With the book even though of course I address Roman catholics in one portion of the book

25:28

It wasn't really my main conversation partner nor what I really had in mind because most of my interactions are in the academic community

25:34

With critical scholars and secular scholars. And so those are the types of arguments I was trying to engage

25:39

But then after the book came out Most of my interaction negative interaction I might add was from roman catholics

25:46

I was surprised at first even though as I reflect upon it, I really should not have been um surprised but I was surprised because I really didn't expect the level of pushback

25:53

I got and the area I got it in was also Unexpected which is they were contending Not so much so much around the issue of authority, although that was playing a part

26:02

But they were really even pushing back on historical questions, which I thought we'd agree more on They wanted to argue that canon was you know, a bit of a mess in early christianity and No one really agreed on much of anything at all and therefore

26:14

You have to have an infallible church to tell you which books are in the canon and and I realized that in essence They're making the same argument

26:20

As many critical scholars make in that regard, uh trying to show that the history of the canon was just uh,

26:26

Not that uh smooth and that therefore you need to have you can either abandon it all together or rely on the church, right?

26:32

Right in order to have one now, uh Before we can even uh meaningfully engage with the claims that were made in in the phone call obviously many many pages of uh, your two books on on canon

26:48

Uh, and of course you've you've obviously written other books Dealing with the history and ancient the ancient context of of the new testament, but many many pages are addressed

26:58

Uh to the very issue of what canon is uh One of the biggest problems that I have found in dealing with roman catholics is the assumption of a particular uh concept of canon that may or may not actually be historically valid or relevant and obviously

27:16

For me and for what we do in apologetics what I want to try to do in in this time that we have you on the phone is to try to Help people understand what some of the basic issues here that are that that so often are never discussed

27:31

Well, so often or never that that really doesn't work are often never discussed in Evangelical contexts in in in the church

27:38

Specifically on the subject of canon we bring so many presuppositions and assumptions that have never been fleshed out never been challenged never been

27:45

Uh historically verified or anything like that that that's really where a lot of the problem lies.

27:51

So yeah You've done a series of blog posts Uh at michaeljkruger .com

27:58

Is that not not is that the right address? Yeah, that's the url The title of the blog is actually canon fodder, but you're right.

28:05

The url is my name michaeljkruger .com. Okay Uh, and uh on the blog you did a series, uh on the subject

28:12

I think it was something along the lines of the the 10 top things you need to know about the canon Was that the title something like that? Yeah, there's two different ones

28:18

One is 10 things every christian should memorize about the canon and then the other one was 10 misconceptions about the canon um, and they they

28:25

Have similar a lot, but they're different series. Okay, so I I would direct people there, uh for for that information, but let's let's talk a little bit, uh, and again, you've written many pages on this and so it's very difficult to to uh, to condense but Let's talk about what the concept of the canon is first um

28:45

If you were to if someone just walk up to you at church and say why are you concerned about the canon? What what really is the canon how would you explain someone to someone accurately?

28:56

Recognizing they may be bringing some some bad presuppositions with them How would you explain to them, uh in an accurate way, uh what we're dealing about with when we talk about the canon?

29:06

Yeah, well definitions are key right even as you indicated You can't really have a cogent conversation without agreeing on what the term means and the term canon

29:14

Confuses people, um, they don't know exactly what we're talking about Uh, of course the term itself, uh, even though that's not always the term of what the word means

29:22

It simply means standard or some sort of uh, you know, uh objective, uh measuring stick if you will by which we can gauge something

29:30

Early christians use the term canon to refer to lots of things Uh sort of the the standard of truth the standard of teaching but eventually it got attached to refer to Uh, the the collection of scriptural books that we affirm is from god the official definition

29:43

I use in my book Um, this is a paraphrase there's something along the lines of the collection of scriptural books that god has given his corporate church

29:51

Now the reason I use that definition the collection of scriptural books that god has given his corporate church is because it sort of Sucks in all the key issues there

29:59

Uh, one of the major ones being that canon is not something that that men ultimately determine It's ultimately god that's determining canon.

30:07

Uh, men can receive canon. They can affirm it. They can acknowledge it They can submit to it or I guess not submit to it

30:12

But they are not the the the the agent that constitutes canon And this is where I think a lot of the the misconceptions come into play and particularly with our roman catholic friends

30:22

Uh, the idea of canon in many people's minds means authoritative church declarations

30:28

Um or authoritative church teaching and things like this now There's some truth in that of course because we think the church does make declarations about which books are from god

30:35

But one of the things about that definition that I want to point out to the listeners is that we think uh

30:41

That that canon ultimately is something that god determines So if that's true what you can actually have a canon

30:46

In principle without having anybody know about it or anybody respond to it if god has given his books

30:51

Uh, then they can exist apart from any reception at all and still be technically canon And so I cover this at length both in canon revisited in some journal articles i've written

31:01

Um, but I think it's a good place to start to make sure we have our definition straight Right and especially in this area, uh my experience obviously i've been come at this from uh a very different background, uh as far as What's causing me to think about these things?

31:17

Uh, I had to struggle with the issue of the canon uh in in debating roman catholic apologists and It was very first and those were the first debates that I did the first formal debates.

31:27

I did starting in 1990 um, uh, you were much younger than uh, as was

31:32

I uh, We're with people like jerry matitix who was a former pca minister and I would listen to him doing debates all over all over the place and it was always his go -to argument to uh hit up the evangelical on the subject of the canon and generally the response was uh stuttering stammering, um wondering what in the world to say and and so obviously

31:57

I had to deal with it and it seemed like the the Most difficult area to deal with and I had read uh, since i'd been dealing with mormonism before that The issue of the can wasn't new to me.

32:09

I mean you've got people with the book of mormon You've got to be talking about canon issues why you would think the can was closed, etc, etc

32:14

But rome comes along and rome is basically saying that you need to have

32:20

Infallible knowledge of the canon before the scripture itself can function as the norm within the church now historically

32:28

That automatically raises problems uh Because as you know from the roman catholic perspective the first dogmatic definition of the canon

32:36

Is not till april of 1546. So if scripture can't function within the church till 1546 you have a bit of a problem

32:43

But but still pointing that out is just a negative response. It's not it's not a positive response and so What I the conclusion

32:51

I came to and I I guess bb warfield must have helped me somewhere along the line though I don't even remember that happening

32:57

And what was so encouraging when I when I first read canon revisited Is that you were saying the exact same thing is that I recognize that the real problem was most of the books on the subject canon

33:08

Come at the subject backwards. They come at it anachronistically from our standpoint looking backwards

33:15

They look at it from a historical perspective They're saying well, what how'd the church do this? How'd the church do that?

33:20

And obviously the very issue of canon is theological in nature It's a theological concept and yet the vast majority of books except yours

33:29

Uh and warfield, like I said, I think touched on this approach it from From a as if you can define it and discuss it outside of its theological context and it just turns things on its head

33:41

Yeah, I absolutely agree. In fact, that's one of the major reasons I even wrote the book was that as I taught an elective on new testament canon here at rts

33:49

I began to recognize that the books I was assigning just weren't covering the issues I wanted covered. I would have to cover them in the lectures, but there was no book

33:56

I could assign That would cover the theology of canon or even the epistemology of canon No one was addressing these issues.

34:02

No one was talking about them Almost every book on canon was what I call the data books where they basically just unload a dump truck of data on you

34:10

About what book was received by which church father in which year now Those are important issues and I cover some of those in my book

34:17

But you just can't think that extends the discussion that doesn't cover the issues of canon that need to be covered

34:22

And so what's happening in the church and this is Of course part of the impetus for canon revisited is that the church is just ill -equipped to deal with these objections

34:29

Whether it be from roman catholics or critical scholars on canon And they find themselves as you put it a minute ago stammering and stuttering without any answers and that's just not acceptable

34:38

I think as christians we need to be more ready for an answer regardless of who we're talking to And this question is so central that we have to be able to articulate why we believe what we believe about it most definitely and the key issue that I that I Came up with and that you mentioned and and fill out so much more fully than than anything i've done

34:54

Was i've i've pointed out the fact i've written a number of books and so There is a canon of my writings now

35:02

I did not have to sit down open up a document on my computer and type out canon

35:07

Of the books of james white for that can to come into existence as soon as I wrote that first book

35:12

That canon existed now I had infallible knowledge of it because i'm the one that wrote the books

35:18

Nobody else has infallible knowledge of it. Uh, no one was there when I typed every single letter of every single word

35:26

Um, you know, there might have been a ghost writer or something over there and though that's a real issue in Evangelicalism these days, but anyway, uh,

35:34

I had infallible knowledge of the canon because i'm the one producing the works And what rome was basically saying is you need to have god's level of knowledge of the canon

35:44

For scripture to function as scripture and that was the first thing that I started realizing

35:49

Look canon is an artifact of inspiration. It comes into existence because of what god has done And my fellow protestants who are trying to defend this issue

35:59

By only looking backwards at history and not dealing with it first as the theological thing that it is

36:05

That's why that's why they can't they can't deal with this and that's why they're not being able to give a meaningful and strong response to rome

36:12

Yeah, I mean there has to be a theocentric Angle on this um, and you'd think that'd be obvious wouldn't you about canon?

36:18

But it isn't it there needs to be a sense of which These are books that god has given and there's historical and ecclesiological angles to that As I cover in my book

36:27

But those but those do not determine what canon is ultimately god is the one who determines canon Most definitely and of course the roman catholic will argue.

36:34

Well, okay, but but how do we know? What god has determined becomes becomes the the issue at that point uh now

36:45

Uh, is there is there is there something more foundationally you'd like to lay out before?

36:51

Uh, we we dive into the call or do you just want to bring those out as the statements are made? I think they'll come out naturally because as I listen to the call, uh, you know many times now

37:00

I think they they naturally bring up a number of the issues that are Key here in this discussion. So I think we could just go ahead and jump right in because I think they'll come up on their

37:08

Own, okay. Uh, we're gonna be starting about six minutes into the phone call Uh, we skipped the stuff about the world series and uh, the cubs and the cardinals things like that That really wasn't only unless you wanted to say something about your favorite team.

37:21

I you know, I i'm not sure I'll stick with canon And uh, so and I also

37:28

I always make mention of this in case anyone complains I am playing the call a little bit quickly. It's at 1 .2

37:34

Speed so we can get through more of it, but it's obviously very understandable. So, uh, dr Kruger if there's a a point where you just simply want to say

37:41

Uh, there's something I want to I want to talk about Um, i'll i'll make a break at some point anyways

37:47

But if there's something you don't want to forget that one, uh real quickly Just go ahead and I I should hear you saying that and I can back back up replay stuff

37:55

It's real easy the way that I have it laid out here. So let's uh, let's dive into the call here So let's take that key issue

38:00

You talked about the authority of scripture and inscription proving scripture being intrinsic to scripture and that scripture is a unit

38:09

Well, let's just take historically now i'm not talking about anything theological just historical what we call the new testament

38:14

I mean, it's not a unit in one sense It is because holy spirit inspired it all but there's 27 different books in the new testament and they were all together at the same time in fact

38:24

There was no such thing as a unit until about the fourth century almost the fifth century

38:30

Okay, uh, yeah perfect stopping point. That's exactly where I would have stopped it. Okay Yeah, so What what's amazing about this is the first quote from the call is addressing some of the things?

38:41

You and I just discussed about three minutes ago, which is a confusion in definitions and terminology So here's his claim.

38:46

There was no new testament, um until the fourth or fifth century This is a claim that is repeated over and over again by critical scholars everywhere from barterman to elaine peggles and on keep saying the same thing again and again and it's interestingly the same thing that Our roman catholic friend in this phone call saying is that there is no new testament until the fourth century

39:03

The problem with that claim is it's a semantic slide of hand To say there's new testament to the fourth century is a bit of an odd claim because what he really means is

39:11

Is that there's no church declarations and that have any formal ruling until then? Of course, I would contest that too and i'll come back to that Um, but it's obvious that the books existed before then and more than that It's obvious to know that the books existed

39:23

But there was quite an amazing amount of consensus on these books long before the fourth or fifth century So to say there's no new testament until then is a misleading statement

39:31

It makes it sound like things were in utter chaos Completely confusing no one agreed on anything until some official church council in the fourth century cleared it all up for everybody

39:39

But no one did that there was already a great amount of unity around the core long before that And so you can see this this confusion in terminology

39:47

He actually even seems to acknowledge us at one point when he makes a statement I forget how he put it something along the lines of yes, the books were inspired, right?

39:54

But then he just goes on and just just runs right over the top of that as if it's not relevant And I think this is one of the major mistakes that gets made the roman catholic argument here is exactly like the argument

40:04

You'd get from critical scholars It does make me wonder a little bit if some of the form of the modern roman catholic argument has not been deeply influenced by Post vatican ii developments within roman catholicism as far as the flourishing of a less than conservative

40:21

Bibliology within the academy within rome Interesting, isn't it? The language is so close.

40:27

It does make you wonder except yeah, yeah, except that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that the the

40:35

The people that are involved in apologetics tend to be the most conservative And hence would take the dimmest view of uh of much of the less than conservative, uh bibliology in the academy

40:46

Yeah, which is surprising because i'm in my books. I've labored to show that the canon was actually, uh

40:52

You know had its challenges but as a whole historically speaking it was a lot more unified than people give it credit for but I get pushback from Surprisingly from catholics on that.

41:00

I would think they would like the fact that there was more unity around the books But in fact, they don't they don't want there to be less.

41:05

Uh, exactly and that uh, again, this is one of the key Uh mechanisms it is the it's not one of it is the key mechanism whereby they establish

41:16

The concept of the authority of the papacy so it's exactly right Let me add one more thing to that if it can be shown

41:23

That there was a remarkable around amount of unity around the core books of the new testament even by the middle of the second century

41:29

The problem with that for roman catholics is it shows that somehow people could tell which books are from god, right?

41:35

Somehow there was a way for people to know which books were from him and which books were not

41:40

And so once you acknowledge that unity that early Then you have to acknowledge that there was a means by which people could know which books are from god apart from official church

41:49

Uh infallible declarations and that that undercuts the roman catholic claim Um along with the claim of guys like walter bauer and folks like that, right?

41:56

And I think that's just one of the most critical issues here. Well, well just a couple things there's Obviously the problem they have there is they cannot allow for the possibility of coming to that kind of conclusion

42:07

Without a functioning papacy and even they recognize many of them have already given into the development hypothesis of cardinal.

42:14

Newman Uh, even they recognize there was no functioning papacy at that time that that early

42:19

So if you can actually have that level of agreement without a functioning papacy, why do you need it later on?

42:26

Exactly. Exactly. In fact, I think he makes that mistake in the very next remark coming up, right? He starts talking about bishops and so forth and there weren't really any

42:34

Exactly. Exactly. And and the other thing, uh i'll just repeat the story very quickly because I don't remember if I mentioned this to you when when we spoke, uh last year, but uh, there was one time that I absolutely

42:46

Reversed the tables on a leading roman catholic apologist on this subject um, and uh

42:53

It's so much so that that what I asked him has become known as the white question I'm, not did I mention that to you?

42:59

I don't think so Okay, I was on a radio program in wmca in boston with again, jerry matitix

43:04

And i'm not sure if you've ever heard jerry speak Jerry is one of the only human beings on the planet that can out out talk me

43:10

I mean, I think he has gills. He does not have to breathe. He can just simply go forever without ever taking a breath He is just that uh that fast a speaker and we were uh, we had debated at boston college on the subject of the apocrypha

43:22

And so we were on a radio program a couple days later. He was still in high speed debate mode

43:28

And out of the blue out of the blue. I had never thought of it in this Context before but I said to him

43:34

I said jerry I said let me he was pushing the idea that you cannot have a functional scripture without a uh infallible definition of what that uh scripture is

43:45

I said, okay jerry. Let me ask you a question How did the believing? jewish person

43:51

Know that second chronicles and isaiah were scripture 50 years before christ

43:58

And it got amazingly quiet It got so quiet for so long that the host said

44:07

Well, let's take a break right there. And uh, and when we came back after the break

44:15

It was still quiet. He just didn't know what to say now since then roman catholics have come up with some very interesting responses like well

44:22

He could have used the urim and the thummim Um, you know cast the divine lots, uh to know whether isaiah and second chronicles are scripture.

44:30

Um, And uh, then then there's the infallible jewish magisterium Which you and I both know doesn't work because of the very issue of the apocrypha

44:38

Uh, and the apocryphal works and so that's not going to fly. I've never heard a meaningful response, uh to that particular

44:45

Now, I think it's an excellent point In other words, we just we have precedent Not only in the early churches people somehow figuring out which books from god without official declarations, but we have the old testament

44:55

Example as well. In other words, we have plenty of historical instances where people seem to understand which books are from god with a great deal of clarity without Uh official papal declarations and that I think is a real historical problem

45:06

Oh, yeah I mean jesus held people accountable to what was in scripture and no one ever went back at him and saying well

45:11

That's not in scripture Uh, they never used ironically all the debates with the pharisees there wasn't one over the extent of the canon no no even yeah

45:20

So anyways, I thought that was a interesting in a dialogue that we'd had. Let's uh, let's play a little bit more here and uh,

45:27

See what comes up here And you may be aware of this larry, but I mean During the early period after christ when there were no written documents at first then gradually there were written documents

45:37

Paul's letters came first probably and then some gospels and some of the letters They were circuiting all around the mediterranean in ephesus, you know and antioch and jerusalem and even rome

45:46

But they weren't together as a unit and there were a lot of other Documents that were floating around which today we call apocryphal the gospel of saint thomas the gospel of peter the gospel of james and so on So the only reason that we have a book we can buy in the store called the new testament

46:01

Is because someone decided those were the ones who were inspired And who was that someone? Okay, um

46:09

Uh Were they just circulating around on the exact same level in that kind of a concept?

46:17

uh Yeah, so once again the same argument is made here that look these these are these letters circulated randomly right alongside supposedly

46:25

He mentions the gospel thomas and the gospel of peter Um as sort of almost on par with these books in terms of their circulation and in their uh uh

46:36

Sort of involvement early christianity, but the problem with that is the gospel peter and gospel has been written Right for another hundred years after these books

46:43

Um, and so bringing them up is is a bit of a red herring here There was already a great deal of consensus on the canon before those books were even penned

46:50

Um, I would argue that many of the gospel decisions if you even call them decisions were made In the middle of the second century for the gospel thomas was even written

46:58

And so once again, it's a lot less problematic than he makes it out to be The other thing he he slips into the discussion here is this issue of decision

47:06

And this is one of the things I challenge in my my my online. Uh On my website. I have these misconceptions about canon.

47:12

There's this idea of people's heads Clearly in this person's mind too and in many evangelicals minds that the canon is the result of a of a official declaration, right?

47:21

That somebody somewhere got in a room and they voted or they decided or things like this But that's simply not how it happened

47:28

We have no historical evidence for this at all But this is how the canon was formed the canon was formed by general consensus around these books

47:34

It was not formed by some official declaration from any single council or any single individual If you don't have any evidence of that at all

47:40

What's what's remarkable is this seems to be much more organic and natural if you go up to the average christian in the second century

47:47

And if you said why did you why did you guys choose matthew mark luke and john? If you ask him that he would look at you like you

47:52

Had two heads like what do you mean chose matthew mark luke and john They were the books handed down to us is what they would say.

47:59

In fact, when you look at the early church, uh, discussions amongst the patristic writers That's the language they use they use the language of these are the books that have been handed down to us

48:08

Not the books that we chose in some meeting somewhere So once again, there's serious category mistakes here within the discussion on a historical level

48:14

But that is unfortunately on both sides of the tiber river. I mean, uh,

48:20

I was raised in a christian home uh the whole nine yards and yet Uh, when

48:25

I started thinking about these things, it's it's rather natural to think uh that at some point in time a bunch of wise men got together and They hashed these things out

48:37

And so you put together uh the I think rather amazing, uh effort on the part of many within academia to push

48:47

Things like uh, the gospel of thomas as early as is humanly possible to get it into the mix

48:54

You you combine that with just which is what they're going to be getting Reading the bart ermans and all the people who follow after bart ermans in their in their

49:03

Philosophy of religion class at the local community college you you put that together uh with the natural idea that we

49:13

We just come we just come to the conclusion that there has to be a cooperative effort in Making decisions about these things as if well, you know

49:24

They looked at john and they looked at thomas and john won but thomas lost now as you point out

49:29

There's no evidence of that ever happening you would think that there would be all sorts of discussions of When the council was and who was involved and what the arguments were there's nothing like that at all

49:39

I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard i've had someone tell me not normally a roman catholic, but uh muslims and mormons that that all happened at the council of nicaea

49:50

It's the dan brown da vinci code line. Oh, yeah, it is, right It's internet lore that gets spread around that There's no evidence for at all and even the declarations we have about the canon in the fourth and fifth century

50:02

They're not ecumenical councils like trent or trent really wouldn't ecumenical council, but they weren't there were regional declarations

50:08

That were were made for particular reasons even athanasius festal letter Was not a letter that was originally about the canon.

50:14

Uh, it's not like he's like now i'm deciding it, right? Uh, there's a sense in which they affirm what they believe just like we affirm what we believe

50:21

But that doesn't mean the belief started then or became official then. Um, they simply affirm what they believe the church has always believed

50:28

Um, and so there's a sense here in which the there's there's nothing in that fourth fifth century range

50:33

That can accommodate their need for an official declaration and yet on a very pastoral level, uh, dr

50:40

Kruger, this is where your work is so important is because it's one thing for you to be engaging critical scholars on these subjects and and the holes that exist in the in the critical literature on this vitally important issue and trying to point out that this is a theological construct and addressing it in a non -theological way is going to be disastrous, but I see that the pastoral application because there is

51:05

You know, let's face it two generations ago. This wasn't nearly as important in the pew in the college setting in in in the cultural encounter between christianity and the world now it is front and center and if we are not

51:21

If we're not putting out seminary graduates Who can sit down with their people and explain these things?

51:29

Um, we're we are crippling the next generation and its ability to engage in apologetic interaction with the world around us

51:36

Yeah, the issue is front center. It won't go away The the response that people had at the da

51:42

Vinci code is a good piece of evidence for how poorly equipped we are You know, just like I know you experienced back then

51:47

I couldn't believe the number of christians who were rattled by the whole thing And and I think that whole da

51:52

Vinci code phenomenon said a lot less about the book and a lot more about christians It really did reveal how little the average christian knows about the origins of the bible and why they believe what they believe

52:02

And so you're right. We need to do a better pastoral job of equipping people Yeah, it's vitally important and uh, like I said in in most in my experience

52:11

I even though raised in a christian context the idea of the canon was

52:16

You know, well, there's a table of contents up the front and that's just you know There had never been any discussion about and it can be and i've unfortunately talked to Just today got an email from someone who calls himself a former christian and one of the issues is

52:34

Well, we don't know who wrote most of these books and it's like You know once you became a christian if that wasn't one of the first things that was explained as to giving you the background of the book and And the fact that it didn't just float down out of heaven bound in leather with with thumb indexing

52:52

Then that's the church's fault that's that's where we failed these people maybe thinking that well

52:57

I might scare this person away or you know, I want them to feel all warm and fuzzy and all the rest of stuff and What we're really doing is playing the seeds of their own destruction just down the road

53:08

Almost coddling them in an overly protective way felt like they can't handle some of the more intense discussions But they got to have it because if we're not going to talk to them about it

53:16

Then then then the bartermers of the world will and they will do it in the context of unbelief rather than the context of belief

53:21

I've often said in teaching seminary classes Brethren, if I do not step on your toes in this class

53:28

Then i'm not earning my paycheck because if it doesn't happen here Then it's going to happen in the wrong context of unbelief out there

53:35

So this is where it's got to be happening. Anyways, i'm preaching to the chorus here the choir. Let's uh, continue on with uh, the priests comments here

53:45

As a matter of fact, it was the successors of the apostles who met in council who decided these books are the inspired ones

53:51

And these other ones are not So if we are going to call that collection of books

53:58

The new testament and call it a unit Uh, we have to accept the fact that it wouldn't be a unit unless these particular men

54:06

In apostolic succession had agreed. They were one book. So my problem is honestly with protestants is

54:11

How can you accept the authority of the new testament leave the old testament out for now Without accepting the authority of the bishops who were the ones that constituted the new testament

54:20

Okay, I think he said Constituted wasn't it? I think that was the term that he used there. Yes. Yeah, this is a

54:26

This whole stretch is remarkable to me how he slipped in so many different untested and Undemonstrated things for example, he asked the question.

54:34

Well, how did this get decided? And and which again implies it was a formal decision, but then he just answers it for you

54:41

It was the successors of the apostles was the language he uses here That made this decision in council

54:48

That's the language he used and we can replay it if i'm not remembering it correctly I think it's correct. So the successors of the apostles in council in the fourth or fifth century

54:57

Where where where was this again? I mean historically this is just a statement that's out of thin air uh first of all

55:03

We have no evidence of anybody in that time period thinking that they were Successors of the apostles in the same way that peter and paul had authority

55:09

In fact on the contrary all the early church fathers seemed to distance themselves In terms of their authority from the apostles making it clear the apostles were a distinctive office that did not continue

55:17

Secondly, what where is this apostolic council? Where is the evidence for this historically?

55:23

There is none Well, let me let me give you the response that they gave I mean they specifically and I think it was patrick coffin the host who said well

55:30

It was a hippo carthage and the council of rome in 382 Okay, so they're going to talk about these regional councils as Apostolic run by apostolic successors, even though we have no historical evidence that those are the people who ran them

55:42

Nor historical evidence that people saw themselves that way Um, yeah, this is just remarkable Revisionism if you ask me in terms of the way to look at the first four centuries of the church

55:51

Well, dr. Kruger, how can you interpret the history of the church without turning to the church to interpret her own history?

55:57

I'm playing well actually yeah, that's a great question. And my answer is well, actually let's look at the church fathers um

56:03

And and and let them speak to the way they identified their own authority And so that is letting the church speak, uh, and on their own terms the church itself does not back up um their own perspective

56:15

On this now, let me add another angle to this one of the things that I think Our roman catholic friends misunderstand about the process of use

56:21

They they almost think that we think the the the response of the church is irrelevant, right? And I just want to clear that up.

56:27

We don't think that's the case at all I think as I argue in my book I think the the the consensus of the church around these books is a very key factor and for why we believe they're

56:35

Canonical and from god and so we think the church's response And the church's consensus around these books is very much important part of how we know they're from god

56:42

But that doesn't mean they constitute them canon and that doesn't mean that we couldn't know That they're canon without the church and so the analogy

56:49

I give in my book which I think is really helpful for people and And at least I found helpful over the years is

56:55

Is thinking about the role of the church on the protestant level and on the catholic level as the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer

57:02

Um, think about a thermostat and a thermometer for a moment both have to do with the temperature in the room But one determines it and one responds to it um in the catholic view of Of the church is the church is like a thermostat it determines canon

57:15

Whereas the protestant view of the church is the church is like a thermometer. It responds to canon. It responds to what's already there

57:21

Um, and so thermostat versus thermometer, I think is a good analogy of the difference between the catholic view And uh the protestant view but the key point is we still think the church plays a role, right?

57:30

We just don't think it plays the same role that rome puts it in well, and uh, there's there's right here is where so much of uh,

57:39

Of what they've been taught and here on programs like catholic answers comes into comes into focus

57:46

For example, as you pointed out, uh carthage and hippo are provincial their local, uh councils

57:53

They are not quote -unquote Ecumenical even from the roman catholic perspective of the subject of what ecumenical, uh could possibly later mean

58:00

Uh, those weren't really terms that were relevant at that particular point in time. There is so much anachronism

58:06

In the understanding of your average roman catholic apologist as to church history Uh, but then again, um, if we talk about your average presbyterian or baptist as to church history

58:17

Well, at least the presbyterians go back to calvin for the baptists. It's billy graham. So You got a bit of an advantage at that point

58:25

No, well our baptist friends are free to appeal to calvin too if they want well as some of us reform baptists do but uh, exactly, uh, but that uh, the the problem of course is that uh church history itself

58:38

Uh, how do How do you deal with an issue like this that requires a knowledge of what the early church fathers said?

58:48

The fact that they were not all consistent with each other they had they had different views not so much on the core issues, but You you could read anybody and you're going to find jerome and augustine arguing about about things even on issues of canon

59:03

You're going to have them arguing with each other how How is anyone supposed to really grasp hold of this stuff when you can pick up even the standard works

59:14

Uh the gonzalez's and and uh shafts and things like that and you're going to find different understandings

59:20

Even in the secondary sources let alone when you go to the primary sources and the roman catholic says see

59:26

When you do that, you're never going to come to answer you need to have an authority that can even interpret the tradition

59:34

As well as being an authority that can interpret the scripture and so without infallibility you're just going to be left with all this uncertainty

59:44

That is the argument, um that keeps going on is that you need this, you know, you can't have an authority

59:49

So the roman catech's claim that doesn't have external validation That can be called infallible right and that sounds really good on the surface until you start backing up the question one notch

01:00:00

So if scripture requires external validation for us to receive its authority And its authority is determined by the church

01:00:06

Then where does the church receive its external validation from right? And this is where the real problem, uh comes into play in my opinion is, you know

01:00:14

If we always needed an external authority outside of scripture to believe it Um or outside of any authority always have to be confirmed by an external authority

01:00:22

Then the church should have to be confirmed by an external authority And you quickly realize that in the roman catholic world the church is self -authenticating it doesn't need an external authority

01:00:31

And so you really have solo ecclesia versus solo scriptura at the end of the day. Yeah, believe me they uh, they really don't like when

01:00:38

I use that terminology of solo ecclesia, but No, i'm sure not but but but but every time they argue against it

01:00:46

They prove my point because it's rather simple you ask them Who has the authority to determine the extent of scripture?

01:00:53

The church does who has the authority to infallibly interpret the content of scripture the church does Then who has the authority to determine what is and what is not sacred tradition the church and who has the infallible authority to interpret?

01:01:06

That sacred tradition and it's the church. So how you can have the church under the authority

01:01:12

Of two things that she alone can determine the extent of and she alone could interpret it,

01:01:17

I can't begin to understand, and I don't think anybody has ever figured that out. No, I don't either. I think what you have is a clearly, on a functional level, which is the key issue, on a functional level, that the

01:01:26

Church is the highest authority. Even if verbally they claim otherwise, I think it's clear that the

01:01:31

Church does function as a higher power. Okay, now let me become the

01:01:36

Roman Catholic apologist here and ask for you to flesh out a couple of the statements that you have specifically made.

01:01:42

You said that there just isn't anything in this early period that would provide the

01:01:53

Church with the foundation of the claims that she's making. So are you saying that, how did someone in the days of, let's just use

01:02:04

Tertullian as an example, how did he know what Scripture was and Scripture was not, if he wasn't appealing to an ecclesiastical authority as a foundation for his knowledge?

01:02:16

Yeah, well, several ways. In this course, I get into a trifold way in my book, in terms of the model of how you know.

01:02:23

Several ways that early Christians seemed to know whether a book was to be received as Scripture. One is its apostolic origins.

01:02:28

I mean, it's clear that when we read the early patristic writers, they weren't appealing to infallible Church declarations. Instead, on the contrary, their basis for receiving one book and not another was apostolic origins.

01:02:38

When they understood a book to be apostolic, then they understood that to be something they should receive as authoritative Scripture.

01:02:44

So one way to know was the apostolic origins of the book, and that seemed to be playing a major role in the early

01:02:50

Church Fathers, as opposed to infallible Church declarations. A second way that people seemed to know which books were

01:02:55

Scripture in the early Church was about usage, or another way to say it is the general consensus around these books.

01:03:02

And as I said earlier, I think that's entirely valid, to look to the general consensus of the Church. In other words, look how the Church, filled with the

01:03:08

Spirit, is responding to books, and the consensus they developed around books is a great indicator of canonicity.

01:03:15

A third way that I get into in my book, which of course my Roman Catholic friends just really get upset with me about, is this idea of books bearing within themselves marks of their own divine origins.

01:03:27

Protestants refer to this as the self -authentication of Scripture. Calvin talked about it extensively, it's the idea that there's indicators or divine marks or qualities or characteristics about these books that set them apart as from God.

01:03:39

And we can dive into the full details of those, but historically, that's not only what

01:03:44

Protestants have believed, not only what Calvin and the Reformers articulated, but I show in my book that's actually what the early Church Fathers believed.

01:03:51

In fact, Origen himself, as a representative of many different statements in this regard, is very clear that it's when you read these books that you recognize they're from God.

01:04:00

You don't need all these external things, you have the books themselves, and so you add up the apostolic origins, the consensus of the

01:04:07

Church, and the internal characteristics of the books themselves. Those three things work in tandem, I think, to provide excellent sort of epistemological grounds for canon, and nowhere in the mix is infallible

01:04:16

Church papal declarations. Okay, before we expand upon the nature of Scripture as foundational to a truly biblical concept of canon, which

01:04:29

I think needs to be sort of how we wrap things up, really, because it's, I think, especially where Reformed Christians need to set up their standard, and that's the hill to die on.

01:04:41

Why though, if that is the case, why then did someone like Athanasius in his

01:04:52

Festal Letter feel the need to enunciate these things, and why was

01:04:59

Marcion's mutilation of the canon so violently responded to?

01:05:08

I mean, for a period of time, if you were a Christian author, you wrote a book against Marcion.

01:05:15

I mean, that's what identified Christian authorship for a while, was you wrote a book against that particular heretic, and he was well known for his alteration, his mutilation, of the

01:05:27

Christian canon. And if it wasn't like what the Catholics and the critical scholars are saying, then why did they feel the need to address these things, or was there that much of a reaction to Marcion, canonically speaking?

01:05:43

Yes, I think Marcion's actually a tremendous piece of evidence for the argument that we've been making, which is that there was an accepted core very early.

01:05:51

You don't have that kind of unified response to Marcion unless he's violating an accepted norm. In other words, it's already clear what the books are, and Marcion has mutilated them and edited them and changed them.

01:06:02

And so the Church's response is fairly consistent and unified across the board. Everybody, as you indicated for the most part, condemns

01:06:08

Marcion. How could you do that if things were in complete disarray? In other words, if things were in complete disarray and no one agreed on much of anything, then

01:06:15

Marcion's own truncated canon would have been just standard fair. In other words, it would have just been like, well, there's one more view in the mix.

01:06:22

There wouldn't have been this unified response to him. There wouldn't have been this sense that he's violating the norm everyone seems to already accept.

01:06:28

What Marcion did is he responded to an existing canon. He shrunk the four

01:06:34

Gospels down to an edited Luke and took out all the offensive parts of Paul's letters and so on, so we at least have evidence for a fairly established canonical consensus around both the

01:06:43

Gospels and the Pauline letters by the time in the middle of the second century. So I think, once again, Marcion's approach is a very confirmatory of a canonical core in the second century that was well -established, and if it was well -established and churches could condemn people for violating it, that means that they expected people to know which books are canonical and which weren't, which is a pretty amazing thing to say that early.

01:07:07

That early especially. So comment, please, then, on what does drive, eventually,

01:07:16

Athanasius and then Carthage and Hippo? Why are they there?

01:07:23

Are they correcting some kind of wild diversity of view, or is this just a natural development that you would expect coming from the

01:07:36

Church and coming from the period of history that they find themselves in? I think every age of the

01:07:42

Church finds themselves having to correct Paul's teachings, whether you're in the 1st century or the 4th century or in the 21st century.

01:07:49

Churches are always making declarations, here's what we believe, and here's what we think is true, over and against people who disagree with them.

01:07:55

There's no doubt that in the 4th and 5th century there was people that still needed correction about biblical books, there were still heretics writing things.

01:08:02

We still have apocryphal weird things being written well into the 3rd and 4th century and beyond. So no doubt the

01:08:08

Church felt the need to respond and to write some of these things out. But that is not an indication that it was a free -for -all.

01:08:16

What historical critics will often do is they'll take one disagreement or one instance of heresy and they'll make a declaration that, therefore, no one agreed on anything.

01:08:24

But you can actually read the evidence very differently. Rather, what you can do is you can see that instance of heresy being so boldly condemned by people like Athanasius is actually evidence of the opposite, namely, there was a fairly well -attested consensus around these books, and that when you violated it, you were condemned.

01:08:39

So I think what you have in the 4th and 5th century is the Church doing what it always does, which is correct false teaching when it pops up.

01:08:46

Okay, now, I don't want to get us too far away in the last about 12 minutes we have here.

01:08:54

And again, thank you for taking so much time with us today. We've barely scratched the surface, even at that. It's like three quotes for three clips so far.

01:09:02

Yeah, yeah. But that was the heart of the argument. It just sort of got retreaded after that.

01:09:08

But I don't want to take us too far away from here, but my audience especially, given the fact that these poor souls suffer with me fairly regularly, will find this,

01:09:19

I think, somewhat interesting. Because this ties in another of your books, your book on the text of the

01:09:25

New Testament in the ancient period. Could you comment just briefly on the fact that there seems to be some good evidence that given what we find in the form of the early manuscripts, for example, in the fact that we find

01:09:43

Gospel manuscripts, P75, P66, the Gospels are gathered together at a very early 2nd century period.

01:09:51

You've got P46 and you've got Paul's letters, even with Hebrews coming right after Romans.

01:09:58

There's clearly, in the form of these manuscripts, there is historical information to be found in the way that they're being gathered together.

01:10:12

Is that not an area that I think may in the future even provide, especially with what's hopefully going to be coming out later this year in regards to the new finds, even more documentary evidence that will shed more light on the subject of canon?

01:10:27

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I believe it's chapter 8 in my Canon Revisited book, forgive me,

01:10:33

I forget which exact one, I devote a whole chapter to sort of the material, physical, artifactual development of canon.

01:10:41

In other words, what do we learn from manuscripts that can affirm or confirm what we think we know about the development of canon? And you've mentioned several of those already.

01:10:47

One of the major things is just the nature of the early Christian book. So, as well known by now, early

01:10:53

Christians didn't write on scrolls, they wrote in what are called codexes or codices. These codices were typical leaf books where you could write on the front and back.

01:11:01

And what's interesting about the codex, of course, as you indicated, you can hold multiple books in them much more efficiently than you can in a scroll.

01:11:08

So Christians began to do this at a very early time. We have good evidence that by the end of the 2nd century, we have our earliest fourfold gospel codex,

01:11:15

P4, 64, and 67, there's good reason they all come from the same fourfold gospel codex.

01:11:21

You mentioned a couple 3rd century examples, P75 and P45. It's clear that Christians were combining books together, including

01:11:27

Paul's letters and P46. What's interesting here is that means in the 2nd century, this is amazing, in the 2nd century and in the early 3rd century,

01:11:35

Christians already began to see these books as a unit, as a collected whole, as something distinctive from other books, and they put them in a codex to show that.

01:11:41

That tells you there's already a canonical consciousness, it tells you there's already awareness of how these books fit together, all of this, of course, without any official church declarations.

01:11:50

And then, in addition to that, what's interesting is that in these codices, particularly the gospel codices, you don't find a mix of apocryphal and canonical texts.

01:11:58

So we don't have a codex that has, say, Matthew, Mark, Thomas, and John, or Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Peter. It's always the canonical four or the canonical gospels circulating individually, never do we have a mix.

01:12:08

And that tells you that the unity around the gospels was remarkably consistent at a very early time. And so I think these artifactual discoveries are interesting.

01:12:15

One more thing I'll throw out in that regard, and that is what we learn from the manuscripts in terms of the relative popularity of books.

01:12:20

So for example, when we discover manuscripts, that tells us a bit about how much a book was copied and used in the ancient world.

01:12:27

So the more manuscripts we discover, the more relative sense of a book's popularity you can determine. What's interesting is that the canonical gospels far outpace the apocryphal gospels in terms of manuscript remnants, showing that the popularity of the canonical gospels was substantially greater than the canonical gospels.

01:12:43

And scholars have noted this for a long time. If apocryphal gospels were as well -read and well -established and as widespread as is claimed, we should have a lot more copies of them than we do.

01:12:54

Well, of course, it's just because those nasty Christians destroyed all of them later on. I mean, it's just... Yes, exactly.

01:12:59

I love that argument. Didn't you see the Da Vinci Code? I mean, come on. It was pretty obvious. Well, the people, interestingly on that note, the people doing the book -burning in the earliest centuries were not

01:13:08

Christians. It was the Roman Empire burning Christian books. Oh, yeah, of course. And so it's actually the opposite. And so for the

01:13:14

Christians to have so many books still surviving, even after all the books of theirs that were burned, it's just remarkable how many copies there must have been.

01:13:20

Okay, now really quickly, it's chapter 7, by the way, and... Oh, thank you. I knew it was somewhere in there. Well, I've got the books in here.

01:13:27

And, okay, let me anticipate an objection to what you just said.

01:13:34

P72, earliest manuscript of 1st, 2nd Peter and Jude, also has some non -canonical work in it.

01:13:42

And, of course, Sinaiticus has Shepherd of Hermas, things like that.

01:13:48

What can we really quickly draw from that? A couple of comments about that.

01:13:54

First of all, when I said about no apocryphal books circulating with canonical ones, of course, as I said that a moment ago,

01:14:00

I was talking about the Gospels. But we do find occasional books like P72 that seem to have a mix.

01:14:07

What's interesting, though, is P72 is an anomaly, meaning that we don't really have any other examples like it. I'll get to the

01:14:12

Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus or Alexandrinus in a minute. But what we have here is this interesting mix between apocryphal and canonical material.

01:14:21

What's interesting about P72, though, is it's clear that whoever put P72 together actually tore out books from different codices and combined them in a new one.

01:14:29

And it's very interesting that 1st and 2nd Peter and Jude seem to have been pulled out from another place and put in with these other apocryphal works, even so that the pagination doesn't match, and even the scribal hands don't match, which is interesting.

01:14:41

It looks like a composite codex that someone put together for private reading of books they wanted to have. So I'm not sure how telling it is about any canonical collection.

01:14:49

So that would be P72. In terms of the books at the end of Sinaiticus and also at the end of Alexandrinus, you know, you've got books like 1st and 2nd

01:14:58

Clement at the end of Alexandrinus, and then of course Shepard and Barnabas at the end of Sinaiticus, scholars have made a big deal about this.

01:15:06

They say, look, hey, look, they're just as canonical as everything else. But one of the things they don't even take into account, it seems, is where they occur in the

01:15:12

Codex. Right. The fact that they occur at the end is very telling. After the Book of Revelation, what you have is clearly supplementary works that were not unusual in when people would list books.

01:15:24

When you would list books in the early centuries, we see what Church Fathers would do, they would list the core books, then they would list disputed books, and then occasionally even list books that were helpful but not considered

01:15:33

Scripture. I think that's probably what's going on with these external books. The fact that they come after Revelation and are not put with the other letters tells you that it is supplementary books that are helpful, useful, orthodox, but not scriptural.

01:15:45

Yeah, I've never heard of a canon list mentioned by anybody that sticks those other works in the list someplace.

01:15:52

They're always some type of addition. They don't come with the other letters, even though we have multiple authors.

01:15:58

We've got John, we've got Peter, we've got Jude, we've got James, we've got Paul. Why not stick in the

01:16:03

Shepherd? Why not stick in 1 and 2 Clement? But they don't, they put them at the end every time. Exactly. All right, we only have a few minutes left, and we need to,

01:16:10

I think, finish with what I think is one of the most important elements of this that people need to grasp.

01:16:17

And that is, and again, I was so encouraged, as I've mentioned to you,

01:16:25

I do most of my reading on the back of a bicycle, and so for some reason I remember this particular hill

01:16:30

I was climbing, listening to Canon Revisited. I could tell you exactly,

01:16:36

I could find the address on Google Maps if I needed to. That's how my mind works. I know exactly where I was. But I just remember being so encouraged to hear a scholar pointing out the absolutely necessary element,

01:16:53

I think, for Christians to grab hold of the concept of the canon and to do so in a way that I think is just simply honoring to God and the concept of Scripture.

01:17:02

And that is to recognize that this flows forth from our very understanding of what

01:17:08

Scripture is. So much of the issue that comes up in looking at the canon is from people looking at it from a simply naturalistic perspective, which makes no sense.

01:17:18

I mean, canon really is irrelevant. All it is is a historical thing to talk about, unless there's something supernatural going on that provides a consistency upon which you could even talk about the subject of a canon.

01:17:33

And I think one of the biggest problems we have in academia today is that so much of what is done is done by pulling apart

01:17:40

Scripture and treating portions of Scripture as completely separate from others, rather than what theologians used to do, and that is being constrained by the entire body of God's revelation, and that it provides light upon itself.

01:17:57

You brought that out. Talk to us a little bit about the theological foundation of how we should view

01:18:04

Scripture and the canon in that way. That's exactly right. In other words, another way to say it is, you can't just authenticate this book like every other book, because it claims to not be like every other book.

01:18:14

And so if you try to claim that you can authenticate it on sort of naturalistic terms that the unbeliever can agree to, or something like this, then you're actually denying the very thing you're setting out to prove, which is the name of this book is from God.

01:18:27

If the book is from God and constituted by God and constituted by Spirit, then this book is a living book.

01:18:32

If it's a living book, then you actually meet God in this book. And so when you talk about authenticating and recognizing which books are from God, you're actually talking about recognizing the divine, or recognizing

01:18:41

God himself, which means that you've got a whole theological category you have to have in order to talk about what constitutes the recognition of God.

01:18:49

And the answer is, you can't recognize God without having the Spirit rightly working in your heart to do so.

01:18:55

And so what I make the point of is that if the book of the Bible is living and powerful and active and God is in it, then it is able to authenticate itself.

01:19:03

In other words, it has the marks and the qualities about it that can show that it's God speaking in it, just like God has his own marks and qualities that tell us who he is.

01:19:12

And so this is really what makes the Bible unique, and I think what's unique about the self -authenticating model which

01:19:18

I advocate, which is it basically argues that the Bible is the kind of book that can authenticate itself because of its power and because of the

01:19:25

Spirit working in it. And what you'll notice about every other canonical model is that they deny that. They're saying, well, the

01:19:30

Bible's just not that kind of book, it's not able to authenticate itself. The Roman Catholic claim is exactly that, which is the

01:19:35

Bible may be inspired, but it's not so inspired, it doesn't have the Spirit so in it that it could then demonstrate its own divinity. It has to have some external authentication.

01:19:42

And I think that's just a lower level of—it's a lower view of Scripture. Well, unfortunately, that low view predominates in much of academia today, and that has given rise to so much of the discussion of this.

01:19:54

But I've said many times, I truly believe that the act of regeneration, I believe a regenerate soul, a regenerate individual, the

01:20:03

Spirit of God testifies to His people. And when the Spirit of God recreates us and makes us alive, that recreated person will have a respect for and an obedience to the

01:20:17

Word of God. I just cannot see how they are not connected to one another. I just don't see it. They really are. And this is why

01:20:22

I'm not expecting my book or even this argument to be necessarily compelling to the non -Christian.

01:20:28

The non -Christian will hear this whole line of reasoning that you and I are discussing right now, and they'll just laugh. They'll think that's crazy, the self -authenticating

01:20:34

Bible, and you recognize it by the Spirit, that's nuts. But, of course, they have a completely naturalistic approach to it, and so of course they're going to conclude that.

01:20:42

And so you really do have to start with the Scriptures as your guide if you're going to understand how to authenticate them. Dr. Kruger, you have given us an entire hour of your time, and I am very, very grateful for that, and I think the audience has been greatly blessed as well.

01:20:57

The Canon Revisited, The Heresy of Orthodoxy, Texts in the New Testament, so many books that you're producing.

01:21:04

Are you working on anything else you can tell us about? Yes, I'm working on a book right now for SPCK and InterVarsity, it'll be a joint publication, and it's going to be a book on Christianity in the 2nd century.

01:21:17

You'll love this. So it's basically a look at Christian history in the 2nd century, it's designed to be a textbook for colleges and seminaries.

01:21:25

Excellent. I'll be teaching Church History in Keeve next month, so I doubt I'll be able to use it there, but...

01:21:31

Yeah, it'll be a while, it'll be a while, but that's the current thing in the hopper right now. Wow, excellent.

01:21:37

Well, Brother, I want to encourage you to keep providing sound, believing scholarship.

01:21:43

Those of us who are on the front lines in mosques in South Africa and places like that find it to be extremely helpful, and so I hope you realize it's getting there and getting into the

01:21:54

Church, and that's where it needs to be. So we thank you very, very much for your work, and pray

01:22:00

God's blessings upon you and the work there at RTS. Thanks, James. It was a great time talking to you.

01:22:05

Let's do it again sometime. Oh, we'll definitely do so. Thank you very much, sir. God bless. All right, thank you. Bye -bye. All right, folks, thank you very much for joining us today on the program.

01:22:14

I hope that was as useful to you as it was to me. Dr. Kruger is obviously a brilliant scholar, and it, again, gives evidence to the fact that on this subject, we listen to what

01:22:28

Rome says. I don't hear that Rome very often listens to what we have to say.

01:22:34

That has been one of my criticisms for quite some time now. Rome just keeps repeating the same arguments. We listen, respond, and they just keep repeating the same arguments, and that's not the way that it should be.

01:22:46

So thanks for listening to the program today. Tomorrow morning, tomorrow morning, very early, it will be 10 a .m.

01:22:58

Eastern Time, 10 a .m. Eastern Time, 8 a .m.

01:23:03

Mountain Standard Time. I will be joined by an entire group of scholars.

01:23:09

I will be contacting the staff at the Evangelical Biblical Training Center in Berlin.

01:23:15

I actually will be joined also by someone from Zurich. I have been doing some teaching for EBTC.

01:23:22

I was just taught textual criticism for them over the summer in June. I'm going to be teaching down in Zurich next year.

01:23:28

And so I want to not only introduce our American audience to Christian Anderson and the other gentlemen there, but also we are gaining a growing

01:23:39

European audience. And I want those of you in Europe to know that there is a sound Bible -based ministry there.

01:23:47

So you can get to know these guys, they can be of assistance to you, and you're learning more about the Word of God and things like that.

01:23:53

So tomorrow morning, 8 a .m. our time, 10 a .m. Eastern Standard Time, which of course the reason we're doing this is because they're going to be live, and of course they're in Berlin.

01:24:03

So it's in the afternoon time for them. I believe it's 4 o 'clock their time. We're going to be getting together with Christian Anderson and all the other gentlemen there.

01:24:11

We'll be talking about their work, the situation for the church in Europe, in Germany, in places like that, and who knows, maybe even taking some of your phone calls.

01:24:22

So be with us tomorrow morning for that as well. Thanks for listening to Dividing Line today, and we'll see you next time.