MetaCatholic

In his Thinking About Canon (Second Update) John Hobbins moves into some slightly different but related territory to his initial post, namely thinking rather more about canon in the interplay of worship, belief and truth. This is probably my fault for dragging in a mention of liturgical hermeneutics, which seems to trigger off John’s line of thinking. So before responding to John’s response, I think I should note that we are jumping the gun here. I know John has some more detailed material on canon to post, which as he maps out more of the history, will help think through these questions.

In particular we need to further reflect on:

• The relationship of the canon of faith in recognising which books are collected as a canon of scripture.
• The ways in which the multiplicity of canons (with different levels of authority) actually inter-relate in practice
• The different ways of configuring the inter-relationship of the canonical scriptures – and this is primarily what I was getting at in referring to liturgy, where the Eucharist clearly privileges the gospels.
• The question of exactly what we take to be canonical scripture: here I mean not only the apocrypha / deutero-canon, but also such passages as the various endings of Mark, John 7:53 – 8:11, 1 John 5:7b-8 (the Johannine comma). Added to this is the question of a textual tradition of transmission in relation to canon. (The arguments of David Parker’s excellent little book The Living Text of the Gospels are very relevant here)
• Then there is the question very honestly touched on in Bob MacDonald’s post, of the difference between the official canon and the many and various “canons within the canon”.whether held by individuals or churches.

All of that, I think, is essential groundwork. Just as I noted in this post, that we do better to ask what sort of writing scripture is, before defining what we mean by “Word of God” in relation to it, so I would also say that before working out what the authority of canonical scripture is, we need to explore (and critique as necessary) how canon actually functions.

That said, let me respond to John, who thinks I run the risk of downplaying “the importance of scripture in the authorization of lines of doctrinal development.” I don’t in fact disagree with him that the inter-relationships of doctrine, worship and practice are at any given moment in changing configurations. I do think that scripture and doctrine need to critique worship and deplore the way in which, for example, worship songs sometimes cut text, spirituality and practice loose from their proper moorings – see my post on Psalm 42-3.

I also think that just as the rule of faith (and so dogma) needs to contextualise the reading of scripture, so fresh readings of scripture need to critique the rule of faith. One obvious example, fresh in my mind from discussions of Mike Bird’s book, is that the implicit Lutheran rule of faith, a contrast between Law and Gospel, is under serious challenge from fresh readings of Paul. John’s conclusion supports this:

The scripture-truth correlation is more fundamental – in the sense of foundational – than the church-truth or tradition-truth correlation.

My point, however,  is that while that may turn out to be the appropriate end point of the discussions, we haven’t got there yet. After all, the “tradition-truth correlation” via the “rule of faith” was fundamental to the discernment of which books were recognized as having a “scripture-truth correlation.” That’s why I think his detailed work on mapping canon development and functioning is so useful.