Pages

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Orthodox objections to the Protestant canon of Scripture

Perry Robinson Says:

Patton’s article is confused and somewhat superficial. He confuses questions of knowledge with normativity. Everyone may begin from the same position with respect to knowledge but that is irrelevant to the question of whether everyone’s judgments are equally normative. A maigsterium is about normativity and not knowledge per se.

He also dismisses the problem without really engaging it, that of a continually revisionary belief system being seemingly inconsistent with a once for all revealed body of doctrine. Added to that is the implicit Pelagianism of seeing doctrine as a purely human reconstruction project. There are other mistakes like confusing certainty with knowledge, which has nothing to do with knowledge. If you know, you do not have to be certain and if you are certain you may not know, since certainty is a psychological disposition.


http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/apostolic-succession-2-presbyterian-ordination/#comment-10340

This summarizes the Orthodox objection to the Protestant canon. Sorting through the various objections, Perry’s argument seems to be as follows:

i) Protestants can know the true canon of Scripture.

ii) Although Protestants can know the true canon, their knowledge may still fall short of certainty.

iii) Although the Protestant canon could be the true canon, their canon still lacks normativity.

iv) Because their canon lacks normativity, their canon is revisable.

And what do we make of that argument?

1.If the true canon can be an object of Protestant knowledge, then it what sense is their canon still revisable? It could only be revisable in case they held a mistaken belief in the canon. But, in that event, their believe wouldn’t count as knowledge.

2.As long as Protestants can know the true canon of Scripture, why is it necessary to append additional conditions like certainty or normativity? Why isn’t knowledge of the true canon sufficient?

1 comment:

  1. When you ask, "what do we make of it":::>

    1.If the true canon can be an object of Protestant knowledge, then it what sense is their canon still revisable? It could only be revisable in case they held a mistaken belief in the canon. But, in that event, their believe wouldn’t count as knowledge.

    Without wanting to bring about a blush, I would simply put a touch or two on it, this way:::>

    1.If the true canon can be an object of Protestant knowledge, then it/"IN" what sense is their canon still revisable? It could only be revisable in case they held a mistaken belief in the canon. But, in that event, their believe/"BELIEF" wouldn’t count as knowledge.

    With those touches, let me think about it some more and hopefully before I comment, others will have already chimed in? :)

    ReplyDelete