The Bible and the Magisterium

The Bible was written by human hands, and its many books were assembled by human hands. What are we to make of the doctrine of Sola Biblia in light of this? Let us consider only the assembly of the Bible.

Nowhere in the books of the Bible do you find any instruction about what books to include in its final canonical form. So, then, when in the 3rd century the Bible took its current form (let us put aside for the moment the dispute between Catholics and Protestants about the inclusion of the Apocrypha), the men responsible for its assembly were not guided by any explicit Biblical instructions.

Nor as a matter of logical necessity could they have been guided by Biblical instruction, whether explicit or implicit. It's quite possible that a book say of itself that it should be included in the Bible. But this alone does not mean that it should be. I could at this very moment produce a document that said of itself that it should be made part of the Bible, but this does not mean that it should be. Books can tell falsehoods. Moreover, when in the process of assembly, the assemblers did not yet know what should be included and what should not. They thus could not point to this or that book and say of it that it was canonical and thus authoratative, and this of course means that they could not rely upon the supposed authority of this or that book in the decision to include the books they did. Their decisions were of necessity not Bible-guided. They were Spirit-guided, I should think.

Now, what must we say today of those men who assembled the Bible? Assume that we wish to place a supreme and unshakable confidence in the Bible (as Biblical inerrantists wish to do). We must place a supreme and unshakable confidence in them and their work, else we would have to admit the possibility that they erred; and if we were to admit that, we could no longer cleave to the Bible as we wish.

My point is this: trust in the Bible requires an extra-Biblical trust in the work of the men who assembled it. We must trust to their authority, and must do so for reasons that cannot be culled from the Bible.

Thus as the Catholic Church teaches, there are two sources of religious authority: the Bible and the Magisterium. Sola Biblia undermines itself. One we think through what must be true if we are to trust the Bible, Sola Biblia becomes (at least) Sola Biblia et Magisterium.