The purpose of the following article is to summarize the contents of William J. Abraham’s massive academic work, Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology, in order that I might better understand Abraham’s provocative and challenging argument. At some points, I have included extensive quotes. I have also supplemented my summary with a few select quotes from two other Abraham books, The Logic of Renewal and Crossing the Threshold of Divine Revelation.

Reducing and Misusing the Canon

Abraham’s main thesis can be summarized in two movements: Stated negatively, we must “stop reducing canon to Scripture and cease thinking of canon as a criterion.”[1] Stated positively, we must expand our idea of canon and approach it as a means of grace.

First, we must expand our idea of canon. Quite simply, a “canon” is a list. But, when referring to the canonical heritage of the Christian faith, it is not simply a list of approved biblical books. Canon “applies not just to the biblical canon, but to the canon of saints, the canon of doctrine, the canon of Fathers, and the like, adopted over time in the Church of the first millennium.”[2]

Second, we must recognize that the canon is not an epistemological criterion, but an ecclesial means of grace. Abraham argues that the “long-standing misinterpretation of ecclesial canons as epistemic criteria” is the cause of many “fundamental problems which arise in treatments of authority in the Christian faith.”[3]

The Christian canon – which includes more than Scripture – is a Spirit-given means of grace which initiates participants into the very life of God. Abraham defines this important concept:

Means of grace presuppose a complex theological vision of creation and redemption. They take as a given the existence of God, the estrangement of human agents from their true destiny, and a network of divine action in the salvation of the world. Within this vision means of grace refer to various materials, persons, and practices which function to reconnect human agents with their divine source and origin. They are akin to medicine designed to heal and restore human flourishing; they are akin to various exercises appointed to reorient the whole of human existence to its proper goal. Their natural home is the Church.[4]

The canon is a gift of the Holy Spirit given in and through the Church. Its fundamental purpose is soteriological, pedagogical, and pastoral.

Because the fundamental purpose of the ecclesial canon is spiritual formation, it is a grave error to assume that it is fundamentally intended to be used as epistemic criteria to establish the “truth” or “rightness” of the Christian faith.

Epistemic criteria belong to a very different arena [than means of grace]. Norms or criteria generally arise out of puzzlement about gaining rationality, justified beliefs, and knowledge. Historically they have often arisen out of intellectual curiosity and out of conflict concerning what to believe as true.[5]

The canon is not given as a criterion of rationality or as a means to justify truth claims. The canon gives knowledge but it does not provide a theory of knowledge. “Knowledge is mediated through the canon; but to transmit knowledge is not in itself to transmit a theory of knowledge. The knowledge transmitted is knowledge related to salvation and liberation; it is not knowledge about knowledge.”[6] In other words, the canon is a medium of divine revelation, but it is not a sure and certain foundation of knowledge.[7]

The historical transformation of ecclesial canon into an epistemic norm began when “the term ‘canon’ ceased to be seen as a list of concrete items, such as a list of books to be read in worship, and came to be seen as a criterion of justification in theology.”[8] When this occurs, the canon is misinterpreted and misused. In the process, its original purpose – the spiritual formation of believers – is lost. “As the canonical materials, persons, and practices of the Church were transformed into norms of epistemology, they were forced into moulds which warped their original use and purpose.”[9]

We must recover the canon as soteriological rather than epistemological.

Christian Scripture is not a norm in epistemology. It does not solve the kind of problems that crop up in epistemology. In the nature of the case it cannot do so, for a set of diverse religious books cannot even count as a possible answer to the queries that are central to epistemology. Moreover, to press Scripture to serve this end will lead to a deep misuse of Scripture. It cuts Scripture loose from the ecclesial and spiritual context where it functions to create in us the mind of Christ, to bring us salvation from sin, and to equip us for service in the kingdom of God. Furthermore, it will lead us to ignore the fact that Scripture was one of the many lists of items given to us by the working of the Holy Spirit. It was the first and foremost canon of the church, of course, as the great teachers of the church insisted, to be used in spiritually appropriate ways along with the other canons of the church. It was not an epistemic norm that would somehow provide a divinely sanctioned solution to epistemological anxieties.[10]

The bulk of Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology is devoted to tracing the development of ecclesial canonicity to epistemic normativity. Abraham admits that the transition is “natural”; but this does not mean it is right. This unfortunate conceptual shift from ecclesial canons to epistemic norms has slowly led to the disintegration of the Christian tradition.

The Emergence of the Canon

All canonical elements arose from within the worshipping Christian community. From the beginning, the canon has included more than Scripture. The first complete list of the 27 books of the New Testament is found in the Easter Letter of Athanasius in 367.[11] The first undisputed council decision “canonizing” these books took place at Carthage in 397. Though the books included in the New Testament were widely used in the Church for centuries before this official pronouncement, the Church seemed to be in no rush to approve a final list. This may have been delayed even further if not for the heretic, Marcion.

In the second century, Marcion veered from the consensus of the early church. He rejected the Hebrew Scriptures (believing that the God of the Old Testament was a different, more vengeful and vicious God than Jesus) and created his own canon of approved books which included the Gospel of Luke and Paul’s letters. He rejected all the other material we associate with the New Testament (The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, the General Epistles, and Revelation). In doing this, Marcion gained the notable distinction of being the first church leader to create a canon of sacred books. The Church’s creation of an approved canon was, at least in part, a response to Marcion.

However, before the Church officially adopted the list of New Testament books which comprise the biblical canon, the Church adopted a Creed, which is also part of the canonical heritage.

What is equally clear is the fact that the Church also canonized a creedal statement. It was not content to have merely a list of books. While the canon of Scripture was important in meeting certain needs within the community, it was not on its own deemed adequate to meet other intellectual and spiritual needs of the community. For this reason it is artificial and misleading to hold that the only canonical material adopted by the Church was that represented by the New Testament.[12]

As with Marcion, the stimulus to adding the Nicene Creed to the canon arose from a conflict with another Christian aberration, namely, Gnosticism. The Gnostic threat could not be settled by an appeal to Scripture alone. “The Gnostics had no difficulty accepting any canon of Scripture which might be proposed; being astute in their own way and eclectic in their intellectual sensibilities, they simply found ways to use Scripture to express their own theological convictions.”[13] In order to counter the Gnostics in the second century, Tertullian and Irenaeus developed a “rule of faith.” This rule of faith is the basis for the Nicene Creed.[14]

Both the “rule of faith” and the Nicene Creed served a soteriological, pedagogical, and pastoral function in the early Church. The Creed effectively summarized the shape and content of Christian belief. As such, it was an effective tool to initiate newcomers into the faith. It was used for catechizing baptismal candidates and to identify the boundaries of authentic Christian teaching. The ignorant, the initiates, and the mature all benefited from the Creed.

The Canon that was Created

We have seen that the canonical heritage of the Church includes both Scripture and Creed. At this point, it may be helpful to catalogue other aspects of the canonical tradition. Along with Scripture and the Creed, Abraham lists six other kinds of canonical tradition:

First, there are practices, experiences, and rites intimately related to baptism and the Eucharist. Second, there are liturgical traditions concerning the general conduct of worship. Third, there is a sophisticated iconographic tradition. Fourth, there are ecclesiastical regulations or canons concerning the internal regulation of the life of the Church and its members. Fifth, over time certain leaders and teachers are designated as Fathers, saints, and teachers, thus giving them a special status in the intellectual and spiritual life of the community which is clearly different from that of regular teachers and members.

The sixth and final canonical tradition is sufficiently distinct to be kept separate from the preceding catalogue. It relates to the internal structures and ordering of the community. We refer, of course, to the whole development of the episcopate as a way of securing the internal supervision of the Church as a whole.[15]

In spite of the wide diversity of materials, there is a remarkable coherence in the canonical tradition:

The scriptural material is both formally and informally divided so as to construe it fundamentally as giving access to God’s saving activity in Jesus Christ. Thus the Old Testament is carefully folded under the primacy of the New Testament, and within the New Testament, the gospels, which focus so specifically on Jesus Christ, are given a lead place before the crucial letters of Paul. In turn, the central sacraments, baptism and Eucharist, clearly involve a recapitulation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, first in the life of the convert and then in the regular worship of the community. Properly used, these are meant to connect the Christian disciple not just to the story of Jesus but to the risen Lord present mysteriously through the working of the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed dovetails remarkably with these canonical traditions and practices by spelling out what is believed ontologically concerning the God encountered in the preaching of the Gospel, in the Scriptures, and in the sacramental life of the Church. Overall, it is a portable summary of basic Christian belief which acts as catechetical material for new believers and a test of orthodoxy for the community as a whole. The iconography displays in a visual manner the same content laid out elsewhere in verbal form, while the Fathers and theologians of the Church provide extended commentary on the same basic content, exploring the grounds and implications of the faith in a fitting manner in their context. Finally, the task of the episcopate is to provide oversight for the whole life and faith of the Church, ensuring ongoing connection and continuity over space and time.[16]

Furthermore, each element provides aspects that others do not:

Hence the Creed is exceptionally useful in catechetical work; the Scriptures are useful in providing agreed texts for preaching; the Eucharist is pivotal in nurturing an intimate communion with the risen Lord; iconography is important in signifying the sanctification of matter; the writings of the Fathers are invaluable in pursuing the implications of the scriptural material and in exploring second-order questions about knowledge and language; the episcopate is vital in dealing with matters of internal order and discipline. Each element in the canonical tradition has its own place to play in the total economy of the community. To ask the sacraments, for instance, to play the role of the Scriptures is to ask for trouble; to ask the Scriptures to fulfil the role of the episcopate is absurd and ludicrous.[17]

Abraham’s inclusion of leadership in the canonical heritage may strike some as unnecessary. However, the canonical materials demand it.[18] Christians embraced “a special revelation given at one particular time, and such a special revelation requires a particular body to carry it, and special divine assistance and safeguarding to ensure that it continues to be reproduced authentically in each succeeding generation.”[19] There was surely a need to set apart leadership to teach, preserve, and protect the canonical tradition across generations. Even though leadership would erode when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, there is no reason to deny the canonical importance of recognized Church leaders.[20]

Clearly, the canonical heritage of the Church is diverse. It cannot be reduced simply to Scripture. Even Scripture itself – which is not one book, but a collection of books – contains a wide variety of materials. This diversity of materials developed over time in the context of worshipping communities. Though the canonical boundaries are fluid, the main outlines are not in doubt.[21]

Because of the great diversity and wide variety of canonical materials, and because these are embodied by living communities, the canonical tradition is not static. It is open to changes that naturally and appropriately fit. Abraham describes it this way:

Given that the Church is subject to the actions of human agents, change is surely possible. Moreover, change is also clearly welcome. The canonical heritage of the Church has developed over time. New insights can be derived from its existing canonical heritage, and fresh readings of its materials and practices can and will be creatively advanced and refined. Further, new canonical materials and practices can be developed to enrich the life of faith so long as they fit naturally and appropriately with the canonical tradition already in place.[22]

However, because of the crucial and formative nature of the canon, significantly altering its contents will have a drastic impact on the shape of the community it creates.

However, we can also envisage changes which corrupt the canonical tradition of the Church, or which so radically alter its nature and content that we are confronted either with a reconstitution of the Church or with the wholesale invention of a new religion. In these latter cases we can surely expect intense debate about the nature and boundaries of the canonical life of the Church; we can surely also expect division.[23]

The full canonical heritage of the Church is a gift of the Holy Spirit. “It is simply mistaken to think that the Holy Spirit is confined to the production of the canon of Scripture. The work of the Spirit breathes through the whole life of the Church, guiding and directing it.”[24] It is the means of grace appointed for the spiritual formation of the Church. “To see this canonical heritage as a gift of the Holy Spirit or as the life of the Holy Spirit in the church radically alters how the various elements are received.”[25]

From Ecclesial Canon to Epistemic Norm

The split between the Eastern and Western Church in 1054 introduced a “major change in a vital canonical organ of the Church.”[26] “The canonical division between East and West surfaces in three crucial areas: in the addition of the filioque clause to the Nicene Creed, in the articulation of a doctrine of papal infallibility, and in the adoption of a divergent set of approved Fathers and theologians.”[27] Each one of these areas involves disagreements in relation to the Church’s canonical heritage – disagreements about: (1) adding to the canon; (2) exalting one canonical element above others; and (3) over which Fathers should or should not be in the canon.[28]

How does one resolve a dispute where both sides lay claim to the canonical tradition? How does a group justify the intellectual merits of their proposals in the face of hostile opposition? It was this canonical crisis that was the first step in transforming the ecclesial canon into an epistemic norm. Both sides were forced to mount “arguments as to the legitimacy of their ownership and the illegitimacy of the alternative.”[29]

By uniquely privileging the Roman Pope with the capacity of infallibility, the Western Church exalted one of the canonical elements over all others. “Now one of the canons – namely, that related to Episcopal oversight – has become a foundation for everything else. It has become a norm of truth.”[30] “The attraction of this was obvious: it provided one secure locus of epistemic authority to settle matters of substance.”[31] Declaring the papacy a criterion of truth “introduced a whole new conception of one of the canonical components of the Church as a whole.”[32]

The debate began to splinter and reduce the canon. Three aspects of canon – Scripture, tradition, and the Western magisterium – began to be distinguished and set against other canons. “It became increasingly difficult to recall that the canonical tradition was a complex and subtle configuration of Scripture, liturgy, sacraments, iconography, Fathers, the Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition, Church councils, bishops, sundry regulations on the internal ordering of the life of the Church, and the like.”[33]

Furthermore, epistemology was entering the canon. It is not too much of an oversimplification to argue that “East and West were systematically canonizing different epistemological strategies.”[34] The

Eastern Fathers represent a radically different ethos in theology from that which became typical in the West. As the fascinating debate between Palamas and Barlaam the Calabrian shows, the East canonized a way of reaching knowledge of God which is suspicious of deductive reasoning, is essentially rooted in a spiritual life crowned by intimate union with the divine, and is genuinely open to those who have not been initiated into the skills of the philosophers. Whereas in the West, theology moved into the university, where it becomes a specialized science open only to those who are appropriately grounded in philosophy, in the East, theology remained in the monasteries, where it is grounded on a disciplined spiritual life within the Church and is construed as much as a healing art as an academic discipline.[35]

Medieval Times

Through Thomas Aquinas, the Western Church officially canonized an epistemology. Heavily influenced by Aristotle, Aquinas defined theology as a science that offered propositions that are universal, necessary, and certain. The emphasis on Scripture as a means of spiritual formation was overshadowed by an appeal to Scripture as an epistemic norm.

Aquinas declared theology the “queen of the sciences.” He established it as the highest science – the epistemic norm over all other fields of study. The reasons:

Given that theology directs human acts to their highest end, that it considers the first and final cause of the whole universe, and that it is derived not just by means of knowledge of creatures but from what God alone knows and yet discloses for others to share, it is wisdom in the highest degree. Theology is exclusive in its status as knowledge, for it is about truth which comes through revelation rather than through natural reasoning. Its status is so high that anything encountered in the other sciences which is incompatible with its truth should be completely condemned as false.[36]

Aquinas also effectively set apart the canon of Scripture from the rest of the Church’s canonical heritage. The canon of Scripture was then incorporated “to secure the epistemic status of theology as the highest form of scientia in the university.”[37]

Through Aquinas, an epistemology is canonized, and Scripture is set apart as an epistemic norm by which all knowledge is justified and evaluated. Scripture becomes a means of establishing universal, necessary, and certain propositions. It awaited the Reformation to privilege Scripture above all other canons.

The Reformation

The Reformation solidified the privileging of one canonical element over all others: Scripture. In order to counter the Church it had to declare that the Church’s judgment – including its judgment on its canonical heritage – was not more foundational than Scripture. Scripture was established as an epistemic norm that trumped all others. Sola Scriptura became the rallying cry of the dissenters.

Central to the claim of sola scriptura was the perspicuity (or essential clarity) of Scripture. Since Scripture was privileged as the norm by which all other norms are evaluated and justified, it was vital that Scripture be established as a clear foundation. To this end, Luther wrote, “No clearer book has been written on earth than the Holy Scripture.”[38] Elsewhere he expanded this thought: “Holy Scripture must certainly be clearer, plainer, and more explicit than the writings of all others, because by it, as by a writing clearer and more reliable, all teachers prove their statements.”[39]

How did the Reformers justify Scripture as the ultimate epistemological criterion? Through a theory of inspiration that placed it above critique. The criterion was established as infallible, clear, self-authenticating, and subject to no other means of examination.

How, then, does one know it is true? Not through the testimony of the Church (which is already suspect), tradition (which is fallible), or reason (which is fallen) but through the individual experience of the “testimony of the Spirit.” The Spirit’s work was reduced from the creation of the rich, corporate, canonical heritage and limited to the experience of the individual. Since Scripture is subject to no higher means of examination (being itself the highest epistemological criterion), the only way for an individual to affirm its supremacy was by means of an “inner witness.” Unwittingly, the Reformers paved the way for Enlightenment individualism, and the privileging of reason and/or experience over all criterions of truth.

In spite of its perceived advantages, the doctrine of sola scriptura is wrought with problems. Abraham presents a staggering list for our consideration. He prefaces it with, “Sola scriptura is a fine rhetorical device to arouse our interest and to drive us to examine the Scriptures with fresh eyes; it is another matter entirely when it is offered as an exclusive foundational principle for ordering the whole of the Christian life and theology. The problems that arise are manifold.”[40]

To begin, the sharp reduction of the total canonical heritage of the Church to that of Scripture leaves the Church deeply impoverished. It cuts the Church off from a vast body of materials and practices which have their inimitable place to play in the life of the Church. Thus it gradually erodes the place of the Fathers, of the early liturgical treasures of the faith, of the Creed, of the regulatory canons, and of iconography.[41]

A further problem in the implementation of sola scriptura is the fact that its use puts in doubt within the very heart of the Church the content of basic Christian doctrines and fundamental Christian practices. Crucial Christian doctrines, like that of the Incarnation and the Trinity, have to be proved ever anew to ensure that they are properly derived from the appropriate foundation. They can no longer be construed as constitutive of the Christian tradition. The same applies mutatis mutandis to sacramental practices.

Over against such doctrines as those of the Trinity and the Incarnation, doctrines of inspiration and revelation become pivotal and mandatory; for, without these, the appeal to Scripture as the foundation of all theology becomes entirely arbitrary.[42]

Moreover, revelation and inspiration became so much identified with divine communication of the divine Word that the revelation of God in history, both in Israel and in the Incarnation, became marginal to revelation. The very term ‘revelation’ became defined in terms of the supernatural communication of supernatural information. Emphasis on the communication of propositions displaced the teaching of Scripture on divine revelation, where such a notion captures only one dimension of the topic.[43]

In addition, the adoption of sola scriptura led to a thoroughly profane vision of the life of the Church. The Church qua institution was seen as a purely human body, bereft in any substantial way of the leading of the Holy Spirit. The chief attitude directed to the Church was, therefore, one of criticism and suspicion. Governance and oversight within the Church were construed primarily in secular terms which left no real space for the working of the Holy Spirit in the Church outside the reception of the Word and the reception of salvation by the individual.

Concomitant with this, a tremendous burden was placed on the individual as the locus of discernment and insight. Only the individual could be the subject of divine inspiration and direction.[44]

The early history of canonization makes this clear, in that the debate with Gnosticism in the second century revealed that the Church needed both a canon of Scripture and a rule of faith if it was to preserve the distinctive intellectual core of the Christian message. It was precisely because sola scriptura was inadequate that Irenaeus insisted that the Church also needed a rule of faith. The Reformers ignored this aspect of canonical history.”[45]

The Reformer’s experiment quickly failed in practice. The Scriptures simply were not as clear as they had argued. “The deep problem… is that the clarity of Scripture was absolutely essential to their epistemology of divine revelation. Once the clarity of Scripture, in the terms in which they framed it, was called into question, then their whole proposal about canon was in serious trouble.”[46] Disagreements, debates, and divisions abounded: “The Reformers very quickly found that they reached radically different theological conclusions regard the sacraments, Church order, the place of predestination in the scheme of things, the Trinity, and the like.”[47]

Furthermore, the Reformers’ could not appeal to their supreme epistemic norm – Scripture – to justify their claim to the “inner witness of the Spirit.” It simply is not taught anywhere in Scripture. The Spirit witnesses of our adoption but not of the boundaries of the biblical canon. “The really deep problem with the appeal to the inner witness in Calvin is that either it is circular, or it shifts the foundations of Christian belief from Scripture to religious experience.”[48] When foundations of faith are discussed in the biblical canon, they are not epistemic, but spiritually formative practices (e.g., Hebrews 6:1-3). This underscores the fact that “[t]he primary setting envisaged for the use of Scripture was not that of the science of theology, or that of the debates of scholars, but the spiritual nourishment of the people of God. This cannot be emphasized too heavily.”[49]

After the Reformation

The failure of sola scriptura to provide a unifying epistemological norm did not blunt the Reformer’s commitment to this doctrine. Instead, they divided into factions, and began to create their own extra-biblical “rules of faith” to unite their various communities. New confessions took the place of the ancient creeds. New leaders replaced the ancient Doctors and Fathers of the faith. They effectively recapitulated the church’s beginnings while reducing the ancient canon to Scripture alone and transforming it into an epistemic norm.

The consequences of this for Western culture are staggering: “The Reformation effectively created a massive epistemological crisis for the whole of Western culture.”[50]

In the context of various communities claiming the right to be the true Christian community, people had to wrestle with discerning which group was right and which groups were wrong. What then is one to do in order to justify one’s commitment to one Christian faith community over another? What criterion does one use to evaluate the various expressions that lay claim to the ultimate criterion of Scripture? This is the dilemma that Descartes found himself in.[51] The problem of criterion in deciding canon resulted in a more general query about the criterion of truth. What is the right criterion by which to decide which criterion is right?[52]

While religious wars raged around him, Descartes wrestled with how to resolve the canonical crisis. In attempting to find an absolutely certain foundation for human knowledge, Descartes rejected any foundation that left possible the slightest bit of doubt. The one thing he could not doubt was that he was a thinking being: “I think, therefore I am.” Although, he initially assigned this revelation to intuition (seeking to establish a foundation beyond reason and experience), the fruit of his work set forth “a whole way of life for human beings conceived fundamentally as thinking substances.”[53] The stage was set for reason to be established as the most privileged epistemological norm.

Descartes established an epistemological norm – individual reason – by which to evaluate the canonical claims of competing religious groups. This was in direct conflict with religious groups who claimed epistemic supremacy in Scripture. Descartes also changed the way we think of knowledge.[54] Knowledge was reduced to only that which can be proven absolutely, universally, and certainly. His demand for absolute certainty (knowledge without any doubts whatsoever) set the stage for reducing authentic knowledge to a limited range of experiences and expressions.

The remainder of Western Church history up to the present consists of desperate attempts to grapple with the new terms established by the Enlightenment.

In attempting to find a middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism, Anglicanism set out a three-fold epistemological canon of Scripture, reason, and tradition by which to evaluate theological claims. Through this, the inherent limitations of sola scriptura could be supplemented with appeals to tradition and reason. Initially, this appeared to solve the problem, but it was not long before reason was given the upper hand. “What began among the Anglicans as an appeal to Scripture, tradition, and reason has become by degrees a straight appeal to reason.”[55]

Anglicanism also attempted to minimize controversy by advocating that Scripture was clear on “essentials”, but unclear on “non-essentials”. Again, this proposed solution quickly turns into a problem: Who decides what is essential and non-essential? On this, Abraham writes, “it is surely questionable whether we can reduce Scripture to a kind of handbook on the essentials of salvation. The very notion of the essentials of salvation is thoroughly ambiguous. It is derived in part from the Continental Reformers’ attempt to secure a clear component of Scripture which will not need the interpretative tradition of the Church in order to be understood.”[56]

Descartes distrusted his senses and established rationality and reason as the foundational epistemic criterion. In contrast, Locke gave priority to experience and made the senses the foundation of all truth. Schleiermacher followed his lead, and grounded theological truth in experience. The result was the impoverishment of canonical content.

The Princeton Theologians – A. A. Hodge, Charles Hodge, and B. B. Warfield – effectively reduced the Bible to a collection of facts to be arranged in an orderly system. They supported this move by theories of inspiration and revelation that resulted in biblical inerrancy. Their appeal to inerrancy was intended to prop up Scripture as an infallible epistemological norm. They hoped to create a watertight foundation, but they failed. What good is an inerrant text without inerrant interpreters? Abraham suggests that they should have gone farther than simply ascribing infallibility to Scriptures.

To finish out the development of his argument, Warfield should have called not just for an infallible revelation, an infallible record, and an infallible communication. He should also have summoned up the resources of an infallible listener to receive them, an infallible interpretation to understand them, an infallible memory to retain them, and of an infallible insight to apply them aright to life. Given the litany of uncertainties, doubts, errors, and lies, how else can poor sinners find safety for their feet?[57]

Advocates of inerrancy assume that if inerrancy is not true, then the biblical witness is unreliable. This is a clear example of establishing criterion of impossibly high standards that have little reference to the way people live in their daily lives. Abraham points out that this is not the nature of witness:

First, it is not essential to the general reliability of a witness that the witness be infallible or absolutely, 100 per cent reliable. All that is required is that the witness be overall reliable; a single mistake does not negate that general reliability; otherwise we could not rely on any witness, for no witness is completely reliable.[58]

Problems arise when any one canonical element – whether Scripture, tradition, magisterium, etc. – is declared the prime epistemological criterion that trumps all others. This wreaks havoc on the whole of the canonical heritage, and furthermore, distorts the very purpose of it in the first place. What was intended as the means of spiritual formation becomes a club to hammer dissenters into the ground.

Abraham ends his treatment by demonstrating how proponents of radical feminists are calling for a complete replacement of the Church’s canonical heritage. By replacing the general doctrine of sin with the “particular sin of patriarchy as the fallen condition from which we must be rescued,”[59] the canon is considered hopelessly corrupt and irredeemable. It must be rejected and replaced by a new canon. The loss of canonical content results in a complete redefinition of community.

Ultimately, the complete abandonment of the canonical heritage is the tragic – yet logical – result of treating it as an epistemic norm.

Recovering the Canon

The Church has effectively reduced and misused its canonical heritage. In order to correct this, we must expand our embrace to encompass the whole of the Church's canon and rightly use it for the purpose of spiritual formation instead of epistemological criterion. Put simply: the reduction and misuse of the canon must be corrected through the full embrace and right use of the whole canonical heritage.

Why is this important? Because it is the canon that shapes the community. “[T]he very identity of religious communities is bound up with the identity of their canonical traditions. A simple adage applies: change the ecclesial canons of a community, and you change the community.”[60] This is most clearly evidenced by the radical feminists who wish to completely abandon the historic canon and create a new one. Remaking the canonical traditions of a community drastically reshapes it.

Conversely, recovering the canonical traditions also reshapes a community. A complete recovery of the full breadth and depth of the diverse canonical heritage of the church is at the heart of Abraham’s proposed solution. Since the Church has existed on a reduced and distorted canon for so long, the recovery of the full canonical heritage may initially seem intrusive, foreign, and foreboding. A complete recovery of the canonical heritage will most certainly reshape the community – it will stretch it in ways it has not previously known. As difficult as this may first appear, over time the new community will be more true to the Spirit’s intent in giving the canonical heritage.

In his most recent book, Crossing the Threshold of Divine Revelation, Abraham describes the full embrace and right use of the Church’s canonical heritage as “canonical theism”:

By canonical theism I mean here very simply the vision of theism adopted publicly, intentionally, and explicitly by the church as it was initially driven to articulate, celebrate, and live out its fundamental convictions on the other side of conversion and the gospel… the theism, beliefs about God, listed and officially adopted by the church prior to the schism between East and West.[61]

One significant advantage of canonical theism is that it helps “keep epistemology in its place.”[62] Canonical theism refuses to make philosophy master in the Church. It takes seriously the biblical warnings against such a practice (e.g., Colossians 2:8; 1 Timothy 6:20). When philosophy and faith are so entangled that a crisis in philosophy puts faith at risk, these warnings have gone unheeded – something is clearly wrong!

In canonical theism, the Church’s canonical heritage is returned to its rightful use:

The church is first and foremost in the business of holiness. It is failure within this horizon, that is, lasting failure in spiritual formation, that is the root cause of its current troubles. The church has lost faith in its own canonical heritage, much of it engendered by insisting on the propriety of this or that epistemological vision. Worse still, the church in the West has transformed its canonical heritage into a network of epistemic theory and thereby damaged the use of its own most fundamental means of grace.[63]

As a gift of God’s Spirit given in and through the worshipping community, the canon provides true knowledge of God. Contrary to the assumptions of knowledge couched in Western philosophy from Descartes onward, this knowledge is not absolutely certain or universally experienced. These impossibly high standards for “true knowledge” have left us in the philosophical morass we presently find ourselves in. All true knowledge is not absolute, certain, or universal. Whether we are willing to admit this or not, we live this out every day of our lives. How many times do you think and act upon things with which you have less than absolute certainty?

Canonical theism does not deny that the canon gives true knowledge. It denies that the canon gives knowledge about knowledge. “It is simply mistaken to confuse knowledge of God with a theory of knowledge of God.”[64] In other words, the purpose of the canon is to know God and not to provide an epistemology of theology. This is not unusual. “A history text may well contain lots of accurate information about the past, but this does not entail that it contains a theory of historical knowledge.”[65]

Since the canonical heritage of the Church has not authorized any one theory of knowledge, Abraham cautions us to be “epistemologically agnostic” – “As in many other areas of life, it may be that in theology we know much more than we can either explain or show that we know.”[66]

Summary © Richard J. Vincent, 2006