Canonical Theology

The Biblical Canon, Sola Scriptura, and Theological Method

John Peckham

• Editore: Eerdmans
• Anno: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781467445801
• Argomento: Theologie & Religion
• Categoria: Christliche Theologie

What are the roles of canon and community in the understanding and articulation of Christian doctrine? Should the church be the doctrinal arbiter in the twenty-first century? In  Canonical Theology  John Peckham tackles this complex, ongoing discussion by shedding light on issues surrounding the biblical canon and the role of the community for theology and practice. Peckham examines the nature of the biblical canon, the proper relationship of Scripture and tradition, and the interpretation and application of Scripture for theology. He lays out a compelling canonical approach to systematic theology — including an explanation of his method, a step-by-step account of how to practice it, and an example of what theology derived from this canonical approach looks like.

CHAPTER 1

Canon vs. Community?

Recent generations have seen a proliferation of Christian denominations, sparked by numerous doctrinal divides. Many believe that this fragmentation of Christianity stems, at least in part, from very different answers to some complex and crucial questions: What is the role of canon and community respectively when it comes to the understanding and articulation of doctrine? Should the church be the doctrinal arbiter in the twenty-first century?

With regard to both the issue of canon specifically and the wider issue of the relationship between canon and doctrine there exists a divide regarding the role of the community. Perspectives on the biblical canon are split between those who favor an intrinsic canon perspective (wherein God is the determiner of the scope of the canon) and the community canon approach (wherein a community determines the scope of the canon). In a similar and related fashion, debate continues over the role of the canon and community in establishing doctrine. Some advocate the exclusive authority of the canon for all matters of faith and practice (canonical approaches) while others consider the community to be the arbiter of doctrine and/or the final interpreter of Scripture (communitarian approaches), with a wide spectrum of opinions in between. This divide has been the subject of considerable discussion among evangelicals in the past few decades, with an abundance of recent scholarship offering communitarian alternatives to, and/or interpretations of, the Protestant Scripture principle.¹

This chapter introduces the ongoing controversy regarding the nature of the biblical canon and the proper relationship between Scripture, community, and Christian theology by briefly summarizing the contemporary landscape regarding these issues, particularly the canon debate between two competing models of canonicity and the long-standing debate over sola Scriptura. The chapters that follow will take up these issues and the relationship between them, addressing the question of canonicity, the sola Scriptura principle, and the tension between canonical and communitarian theological methodologies.²

THE CANON DEBATE

There has been more than a little debate over the definition, nature, and function of the biblical canon, that is, the collection of biblical books that Christians view as authoritative scripture. Why some ancient books are viewed by Christians as “canonical” has received considerable attention, with various divergent views operating within the academy and in popular literature. Although Scripture is nearly universally cherished throughout Christianity, various communities differ over the nature and contents of the biblical canon. Accordingly, the questions of which books are canonical, and why, hold considerable implications for Christianity generally and for theology specifically. The prime question of the canon debate, for our purposes, is: Who determines the canon?

At the heart of this debate is the vital philosophical division between those who believe that the canon is a community-determined construction (the community canon model) and those who believe that the canon is divinely appointed and thus recognized, but not determined, by any given community (the intrinsic canon model). The intrinsic canon and community canon models posit different definitions of the canon, see the nature of the canon differently, and consequently identify different functions for the canon.³

The Community Canon Model

The community canon model defines the canon as a set of writings that are determined by the community as a standard. Accordingly canonicity is viewed as imposed upon writings by the community.⁴ Thus, the authority resides in the community to select the writings that are in the canon and thus used for theology.⁵ But this model is not monolithic. The diversity among those who believe the canon is determined by the community might be illuminated by consideration of two quite different examples.⁶

The Roman Catholic Church is representative of the view that canonicity is determined by the authority of the Church and its tradition, accepting as canonical those books which have been declared so by the institution (the ecclesial fixed canon view).⁷ Therefore the canon was determined by the approval of the church as demonstrated in the lists of the church fathers and councils, notably the Council of Carthage (AD 397) and the later, perhaps more official, affirmation at the Council of Trent (1546).⁸

A significantly different approach within the community canon model views the canon as flexible to a given community (the adaptable canon view). In this approach, the community determines which books are considered canonical for that specific community such that the canon is relative to the community’s standard in a constantly shifting context.⁹ Accordingly, the canon is flexible to whatever the contemporary needs of a specific community may be. Over time, this adaptability may allow for a change in the writings that the community accepts as canonical. Here, the authority to determine the canon does not reside in a particular institution but belongs to the contemporary consensus of any given community.

Many who define the canon as a collection of books determined by the acceptance of a community focus primarily on the dates of such acceptance and/or the usage of such canonical books throughout history as determinative of canonicity itself. Proponents often appeal to Gerald Sheppard’s influential definitions of canon 1 and canon 2, where the former refers to books used functionally as authoritative and the latter refers to a fixed or permanent collection of writings.¹⁰ Sheppard explains, “one can say that Christian scripture had a canonical status (canon 1) long before the church decisions of the fourth century delimited a fixed list of books (canon 2).”¹¹ Accordingly, some apply this distinction of canon 1 to the history of the canon to emphasize the fluidity of the “canon” in early times, sometimes arguing that the concept was foreign to early Christians, while canon 2 applies only to a closed and fixed list of authoritative books (no earlier than the fourth century).¹² On this basis the books are considered authoritative not when they were written but later when the books were purportedly determined to be canonical by the community.

The Intrinsic Canon Model

In the intrinsic canon model, the books of Scripture are not canonical based on the determination of the community, but in virtue of the intrinsic nature of the books as divinely commissioned. In this view, divinely appointed books are intrinsically canonical independent of extrinsic recognition. That is, the books of the Bible are inherently canonical even if they are not recognized as such, similar to the way in which Jesus is truly the Messiah even though many do not recognize him.¹³

The recognition of canonical books bears on the function of the canonical books, but not on the intrinsic canonicity of those books. Whereas books must be recognized as canonical in order to be functionally authoritative within a given community, canonical books are intrinsically authoritative as the rule and norm of theology due to their divine origin/commission. Thus, intrinsic canonicity is independent of community recognition and, accordingly, the particular dating of canon recognition (whether earlier or later) is not crucial or determinative regarding the question of canonicity itself. Rather, on this definition, divinely commissioned books are intrinsically canonical as soon as they are written.¹⁴ Nevertheless, the community plays a crucial role in (among other things) correctly recognizing those books as canonical that were divinely commissioned as such.¹⁵

The intrinsic canon model’s distinction between determination of canonicity and recognition of canonicity constitutes the essential departure from the community canon model, locating the determining factor regarding canonicity in divine commission rather than community determination.¹⁶ This presupposes the providential interaction of God in relationship to humanity. If the possibility of such divine guidance is denied a priori, the intrinsic canon model is, consequently, precluded.

Impasse with Theological Implications

There is thus a significant impasse regarding the very nature, definition, and function of the biblical canon, with abundant implications for Christianity in general and Christian theology specifically. Whereas an intrinsic canon approach naturally undergirds an approach to canon as the rule or standard for theology, the community canon approach is used by some to undergird the purported theological authority of the community (as normative interpretive arbiter or otherwise; see below). For example, Craig Allert uses a community canon perspective to undergird a determinative role for the community in, among other things, the interpretation of Scripture.¹⁷ Conversely, Michael Kruger cautions against “viewing the canon as a purely community-dependent entity” and against the tendency of some to “artificially inflate the role of official church declarations about the canon — as if those declarations somehow ‘created’ or ‘established’ the authority of these books.”¹⁸

In my view, at issue is not just whether and to what extent the role of official church declarations has been inflated in some discussions of canon but also the need for careful evaluation of the validity of the common view that books become canon in virtue of the authoritative action of the church (which can be held even on a more organic functional view of canonicity). These two models will be taken up further beginning in the following chapter but, first, we turn to another impasse that further contributes to the divide between the authority of the community and that of the canon, the debate over sola Scriptura.

THE DEBATE OVER SOLA SCRIPTURA

Traditions 0, I, and II

Although many Protestants in recent decades have afforded an increasing role to the community as doctrinal (and/or interpretive) arbiter, the debate over sola Scriptura is often depicted as a long-standing disagreement between those who posit “extra-biblical oral tradition” (ecclesial tradition) as an additional source of revelation (Tradition II or “two-source” theory) and those who hold that “Scripture has final authority” while embracing “a traditional way of interpreting scripture within the community of faith” (Tradition I or “single-source” theory).¹⁹ According to this latter view, influentially framed by Heiko Oberman, the “Reformation was not a protest against tradition as such” but “simply a call to return from Tradition II to Tradition I.”²⁰ Building on this framework, Keith Mathison contends that Tradition I was “the concept that the Church universally held for the first three centuries,” “the majority of the Church held for the bulk of the Middle Ages,” and the magisterial reformers “re-emphasized under the banner of sola scriptura.”²¹ According to this view, Scripture is “the sole source of revelation” and “the only infallible, final and authoritative norm of doctrine and practice,” but it must be “interpreted in and by the church” and “according to the regula fidei.”²² For Mathison, this is the “only historical concept of scriptural authority that does not reduce to either autonomy or absurdity.”²³

Anthony Lane, however, differentiates the view of the magisterial reformers from both what he calls the “supplementary view” (Tradition II) and the pre-Augustinian “coincidence view” (Tradition I). He claims, contra Oberman, that the magisterial reformers did not promote a return to the coincid...