A Response to Fallible Canon, Infallible Scripture

in a post about a “fallible” canon of “infallible” texts, c. michael patton says some pretty interesting things, click hereto read his full post. there were two things that seemed to me to be contradictory in his post. one, he says, “I believe that the 66 books of the Protestant canon belong in the Bible, no more no less. I believe that all 66 books are inspired, inerrant, and infallible.” at the same time, he says, “Do we need absolute infallible certainty about something to 1) be justified in our belief about that something, 2) to be held responsible for a belief in that something. I would answer “no” for two primary reasons”

these seem to be in conflict to me, especially as he accepts that the canon in not infallible. essentially, the Scripture canon is not infallible because fallible people were deciding on what should go in the New Testament. so it is possible that they were wrong. but as he points out, we dont have to reject our belief that Scripture is Scripture based upon good evidence. one might say, there is good support to demonstrate that the protestant canon is what should have been included in Scripture, “no more, no less”. i do think so as well, in fact. reading the other books added into say the Roman Catholic canon or other canons, the books are quite different in content and style from the other canonical books. and the authorship is dubious, and and and. there are many good reasons that i believe the protestant canon is correct, but i certainly cant “prove” it.

now, let us apply this reasoning to the actually “inerrancy” or “infallibility” of the books themselves. the concept is that “all Scripture is God-breathed…”, which is from paul to timothy. so what was paul referring to? he was referring to the Old Testament, as the New Testament wasnt canonized until about 300 yrs later and some hadnt even been written at the time that he said that. clearly paul wasnt referring to the NT canon. there are other reasons that people try to give as to why the original texts of the NT are “inerrant”. but let me point out that as c. michael patton said, “Do we need absolute infallible certainty about something to 1) be justified in our belief about that something, 2) to be held responsible for a belief in that something. I would answer “no” for two primary reasons”. so for me, regardless of whether the New Testament (and Old) are “inerrant” or not, i believe there is hugely sufficient evidence for the reliability and accuracy of all Scripture, but does this have to mean its “inerrant”? and more than that, i trust it as my authority, even without as he points out, “absolute certainty”.

what do yall think?