Resisting The Urge To Comment

I said I was going to take a break from commenting at Carrie's place, and despite her best efforts to lure me in, I am not going to do it.

In the comments for her post titled "Augustine Canon Distinction," I said that "the relevance of a canon was not the same for St. Augustine as for us" because of his perfect willingness to say (in On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 8, 12) that Christians must "judge" among the canonical Scriptures. No Protestant would say such a thing. No Catholic would say such a thing today. Whatever his exact meaning, then, it seems clear that his view of what a canon actually is differs from the way that Christians view it today.

I then go on to point out that in paragraph 13 of the same chapter of On Christian Doctrine, the list of canonical scriptures given by St. Augustine is identical to the canon defined by Trent, with the exception of his omission of Baruch and Lamentations (an omission which I suggest may be explained by an assumption on St. Augustine's part that these two books are part of Jeremiah - a reasonable assumption, given that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations and Baruch was closely associated with him).

However, Carrie seems to think I have argued poorly. She says, "You defeat your own argument."

Really? I'm a bit perplexed. She ripped two sentences out of my comment. Neither of them was an argument. They were observations. My argument, if it may even be said that I made one in that post, is contained in the last paragraph, which she has ignored:

Now, whatever his reasons for "judging" among the books of the canon, it is indisputable that he held that there actually was a canon - and he identifies it. And it is the Catholic one.

Perhaps she thinks my observations - which she quotes - defeat my argument. But that is absurd. In the first place, my observation that Augustine's view of the canon was different from ours has no bearing on the assertion that he held that there actually was a canon, nor that it was the Catholic one. In the second place, my observation that the canon St. Augustine lists in On Christian Doctrine Book II is the very basis of my assertion that he held that there actually was a canon (in spite of Carrie's quixotic attempts to suggest that the canon was up in the air).

I do not know why she thinks that I have defeated my "argument". But let's look at the rest of what she says.

Obviously Augustine's definition of the word "canon" was not the same as our definition today. So the fact the Augustine's canon appears to be the same as Trent (although you have admitted you can not account 100% for Baruch) is meaningless since Augustine was supplying a large collection of books which MAY be canonical.

"Obviously" he didn't mean what we mean. But what are the "obvious" consequences? For one, it means that he did not have a Protestant view of Scripture, which completely demolishes the idea that St. Augustine in any way believed in sola scriptura. On the other hand, such a flexible (for want of a better word just now) idea of the canon in no way undermines the Catholic doctrine of divine revelation, nor the idea that St. Augustine was in fact a faithful Catholic. Once again we see that the only ways that Protestants can possibly "claim" this Doctor of the Church as one of their own are by selectively ripping quotations out of the context of his entire life and work in order to falsely "prove" that he believed Protestant things which are false, or by showing that he believed things on which Catholics and Protestants agree (and then perhaps denying that the Catholic Church believes them - an approach born in ignorance and out of a futile hope to drive a wedge between the Church and one of her Doctors). The fact remains, however, that St. Augustine was Catholic.

Moving on.

Carrie then suggests that I've got a problem because I can't "account for" Baruch in St. Augustine's list. Of course, I did make a suggested accounting, and more to the point she can't account for the omission of Lamentations. So it really seems a poor tactic to suggest I have a problem when the same text creates a problem for herself - a problem that she doesn't even attempt to account for.

However, it is vain to suggest that my account is a poor one. No less a Protestant light than F.F. Bruce understands St. Augustine's list of OT books just as I have done:

Lamentations, Baruch, and the Letter of Jeremiah (which in the Latin Bible is counted as the sixth chapter of Baruch) are included with Jeremiah (The Canon of Scripture, p. 96).

So it would seem that the one who cannot account for St. Augustine's list is Carrie herself, unless we are to take her word above Dr. Bruce's. But there again, if we do so, we are left unable to account for Lamentations.

As an aside, it's interesting to note that despite Carrie's attempts to throw doubt upon the canon, Bruce suggests otherwise. He points out that the Council of Hippo in 393, the third council of Carthage in 397, Pope Innocent I in 405, and the sixth council of Carthage in 419 all include the Catholic canon of the OT (ibid., p. 97). So much for uncertainty. Furthermore, it is irrational to suppose that St. Augustine, a faithful Catholic who says that he only believed the gospel because of the authority of the Church, would ignore the authority of that very Church in his own lifetime when it came to declarations about the canon.

But I digress.

Carrie says that St. Augustine's list was only a list of possible canonical books. This is absurd on the face of it, given the testimony of Bruce above, and the decrees of Pope and Council during his own lifetime. The man who said "Roma locuta est; causa finita est" would not have ignored the rulings of the Church. The canon he lists reflects the teaching of the Church at his time, and it would be preposterous to assume that he would not accept its authority in this matter.

In short then: Carrie has proved nothing, and I did not defeat my own argument.