Carl Henry was right when he said that everyone is a presuppositionalist but some people are just willing to admit it. Everyone's reasoning becomes circular in the explanation of God and so forth at a certain point.
Originally Posted by
BK
It is my opinion that the elect are given the capacity to know God and understand the truth when it is spoken to them. For me, I came to the logical conclusion that God is BIG - VERY BIG. That everything HAD to have a beginning with GOD. Something cannot come from nothing. Even if the big bang theory was true, then the two particles of energy that started it HAD TO COME FROM GOD.
So to say that there is not a CREATOR is to be completely stupid.
The idea that there is a creator is not something only known to the elect. Everybody knows it. Some just try to deny. God doesn't believe in atheists (that is if we can all agree that Romans 1:20 is God's Word).
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
It is true that the Scriptures themselves do not provide us with a table of contents. However, the assumption that there was no canon is false. The canon is assumed everywhere. Do we all agree that 2 Timothy 3:16 is true?
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, for reproof, for improvement, for training in righteousness,
When Paul wrote to Timothy he assumed that Timothy would know what he meant by "Scripture" and Timothy was not expected to look at his feelings and try to determine what they were. What would be the point of Paul saying that all Scripture is God-breathed if what he really meant was that everything that Timothy believed to be God-breathed was God-breathed? The whole point of the statement was to keep Timothy and through him the church rooted in the faith of ancient Israel. There is ample evidence and general consensus among scholars that there was an accepted canon among the Palestinian Jews and that's what they would have understood when the term "all Scripture" was used. When Jesus taught in the temple, he did so from the accepted books. The books did not become God-breathed because the Jews accepted them but the fact that there was such a widespread consensus among the visible church shows that it was part of God's plan. Peter quotes very freely from the Old Testament in his epistle with the assumption that his readers would have recognized these writings as canonical. There was no need for a council to decree the limits of canon because there was general agreement.
WCF 1.4 The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it as the Word of God.(1)
(1)2 Pet. 1:19,21; 2 Tim. 3:16; 1 John 5:9; 1 Thess. 2:13.
WCF 1.5 We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture,(1) and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole, (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts.(2)
(1)1 Tim. 3:15
(2)1 John 2:20,27; John 16:13,14; 1 Cor. 2:10,11,12; Isa. 59:21.
Both the historic Protestant definition of Canon and the p-net definition involve the Holy Spirit bearing witness in our hearts. What the p-net definition is lacking is any corporate work of the Holy Spirit. Each individual is the determiner of canon and apparently tells each individual that different parts are authoritative while others are not. I doubt that if you put BK and RH in separate rooms and told them to mark out all sections that they believe are not God-breathed that they would reach the same conclusions. Is God the author of confusion? They can't both be right.
The historic Protestant doctrine recognizes the work of God in the church in preserving His Gospel and in preserving His Word.
The p-net doctrine emphasizes autonomy. Each man does what is right in his own eyes in determining canon. Can you imagine what would have happened after Jesus preached out of Isaiah in the synogogue and one guy said to another guy "Yeah, but the real Gospel doesn't have anything to do with Isaiah."
Throughout history there have certainly been dissenters. Marcion could not reconcile the angry god of the Old Testament with the loving God fo the new and so threw out the OT. The modern evangelical cannot reconcile the OT with his own understanding of the Gospel. The dispensationalist claims these teachings are no longer authoritative because they were only for an older dispensation. The Mormon appeals to the burning in his heart as the final judge of truth.
Christianity is not about a bunch of guys sitting in front of their computers. The church in Scripture is a visible institution which can be viewed by the world. John 17 places its inner harmony as a necessity for belief by the outside world. The church is observable. The idea that you can be part of some invisible church without being a part of the visible is unbiblical and gnosticism. The idea that the church was completely wrong throughout history is a denial of God's promises.
That is not to say that the church does not mature, but it matures as a visible institution. The church of the Reformation which was a result of the organic growth of doctrine in the middle ages was able to better define justification and declare that it is by faith alone. The true church was thrown out of the false church which refused to mature in doctrine. The church must continue to mature in doctrine and practice as a visible institution and strive for the unity that God calls us to that the world might believe. Those who are legends in their own mind--who think they are little Martin Luthers who have discovered some great truth that nobody else has--who think that this truth is sufficient to not be kicked out but to remove themselves from the visible church are not Reformers at all but deformers. They are in the same league as Marcion and the Mormons. There is no excuse for anyone putting their inner-light above the clear statements in Genesis or James or anywhere else. Such is not the use of the Holy Spirit but some strange bird whose feathers they are still coughing on.
It's circular reasoning to say that Scripture is true because Scripture says all scripture is inspired, is it not? Thanks 
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