What better way than to attack the defenses in an equally "short defense" by Michael Kruger and Michael Horton? Here it is, and below it are quotes or allusions with my answers:
A Short Defense of an Auto-Authenticated Canon
Sola Media | 12 Aug. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSd9oC4QM74
Even by the middle of the 7:27 second century, we have about 22 out of 27 of the books well established and wellreceived by 7:33 the church. So the idea that you need a vote or you need a council or you need a decision is just 7:38 simply out of sorts with the way the books emerge. They emerged naturally organically as God's people 7:44 recognized uh God's voice in these books and they were authorized for for public reading 7:49 in the church.
What does "God's people" concretely mean? Specifically, since the Christians (inside the Catholic Church) were millions, what kind of decision making on what part that could humanly speaking decide was done?
"God's people recognised" ... when the "people of the US" decided on "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union ..." it was concretely the Founding Fathers. Paul Revere was perhaps consulted on an earlier occasion, but his opinion, if ever given, is not recorded. The guys in Boston who threw down tea into Massachusetts Bay did not write those words.
Howeversomuch organically resistance against the British parliament and Taxation without Representation bore fruit in the War of Independence, Gouverneur Morris wrote the sentence "'we the people" ... and he did so as attending the Constitutional Convention of the United States.
8:50 Now you are speaking of these books, basically one by one.
Yes, Christians recognised Apostolic or close-to-Apostolic authorship and at the same time God speaking through the texts.
However, I would say, in each case, a hagiographer was both authorised to write the text and to give its authentification. Unless a higher one was given ... by St. Peter. II Peter basically alludes to there being a canonic list of Pauline epistles, which he, Peter, was endorsing. Clement the Stromatist says, Peter was asked to authorise Luke, read variously from Luke and Matthew which he already had, and added some own comment, and so inadvertently (at least at first) made Mark believe he was dictating a Gospel. Then he authorised in this order Mark and Luke.
So, an agreement that Jude was canon was maybe with St. Jude, enjoying his authority as Apostle, or maybe with St. Peter, enjoying his authority as the first Pope.
It never "arose organically" in an amorphous and impossible way, like how Romantics like Johann Gottfried Herder imagined that Muß i denn prior to Philipp Friedrich Silcher arose out of literal masses with no single lyricist or composer at any stage. On the contrary, if there was no overall single composer and lyricist, there was at every stage one.
And just as there was a composition (though perhaps so far not on note paper) prior to Silcher, there was a canonisation, either by Jude or by Peter, of Jude, prior to the 4th C. decisions on all 45~46 + 27.
And it was not an emergent one.
9:08 "the canon wasn't voted on, it was recognised"
It was as a totality of 27 books recognised 382 in Rome, 393 in Hippo, 397 in Carthage, and each time by an actual vote.
9:44 No one has said that the decisions of Rome, Hippo and Carthage for the canon as a whole doesn't depend on a previous tradition for each of the books.
Received? Sure. Something already true? Sure. But I'd very much challenge the idea that St. Clement of Rome ever wrote of 27 books or of having received, not only each, but all of them as a package.
You could argue that Rome in Italy and the two cities in and near Tunisia represent the middle of East and West and received assurance for each disputed book from one of the surrounding sides. But this only means that if a decisive vote had instead been held in the East, it would not have held Apocalypse or in the West not Hebrews (that being hypothetic, since we don't know the exact location of the Muratorian canon). So, again, it comes to a decisive vote.
10:04 The Catholic Church very explicitly dogmatises that the books did not become inspired by being so recognised by the Catholic Church.
In other words, that the canonisation is a recognition of something already true. You are attacking a straw man.
10:30 Each hagiographer was part of the Church.
The twelve were the most high-ranking members of the Church. Before I and II Peter were god-breathed as books, Peter was god-breathed in John 20 and in Acts 2.
Whether Jude or Peter authenticated the Epistle of Jude as canon, they did so as high ranking members of the Church and their decision was recognised by the Church for this reason.
Note, Peter, Matthew and Jude clearly were among the twelve. Mark, Luke and Paul clearly weren't. Whether James is James of Zebedee or James the Brother of God, whether John is John of Zebedee or "John who wore the golden headband" (i e a Cohen) is disputed. Three of the hagioagraphers were not as such authenticated by being god-breathed as Church in John 20. Perhaps one or both of the last two. Even if all of them were at the point of their writing recognised as Apostles, this was obviously by recognition by the twelve, or whether some were not recognised as Apostles (highly probable for Mark and Luke) their role as hagiographers also depended for recognition on the Church.
So, even if you go back to the inspired writing itself, you need a recognition by the Church. You will not find any of the holy writings buried down in the 1st C and then dug up centuries later, like certain golden plates of a certain sect. They were each recognised by at least part of the Church before John died (if dying is the best description). Whether other parts forgot later or whether other parts hadn't heard the full picture, there was still a need for further action from the Church. The one taken in the late 4th C.
10:51 "In a smokefilled room ..."
Much as Tolkien would have appreciated the idea of pipeweed grown in pre-Columbian times in the Old World, it would seem that Nicotiana tabacum and its use in pipes arrived into Europe well after the 4th C. councils, more like 1000 years later.
11:09 How does writing with authority and writing authoritative books for the Church contradict?
The authority that St. Paul time and again explicitly assumed over recipients was mostly that of Church planter (Corinth and most of the rest) and three times as ordaining bishop or consecrating bishop, like Justus of Canterbury had over Paulinus of York or like Drogo of Metz had over Ansgar. In other words, the explicit authority as hagiographer is an authority that pre-existed the writing as authority in the Church.
By contrast, St. Luke is not explicitly assuming authority any more than the author of I Maccabees, when he writes his books. He is narrating the facts after stating he would try to narrate the facts, and it is very arguable someone above him (like Peter in the account by the Stromatist) decided with authority that he had succeeded.
11:22 So, either they wrote with an authority assumed by the inspiration or they had no idea the Church would later canonised their books. False dichotomy. Tertium datur.
St. Paul already wielding authority wrote that authority into his books. St. Luke was writing with an explicit search for approval of an at least intermediate authority.
11:46 So, St. Peter, the First Pope, authentified the Pauline epistles. Perhaps Hebrews was missing on the occasion.
And St. Paul authentified St. Luke, apparently? A reference would be useful.
Hence, clearly at least some of the non-Apostle hagioagraphers of the NT received authentification from a higher CHURCH authority in their lifetime. Probably all.
12:05 Again, you are adressing a strawman. The 4th C canonisations are not the first time each book is recognised as canon, but the first time the whole collection is. Along with, note well, a 45~46 book OT collection (depending on whether a book, probably Baruch, but I've also seen Lamentations, is counted as part of or separately from Jeremias).
By the way, I Tim 5 need not cite Luke as on par with Deuteronomy, St. Paul could have cited a well established targum in the Jewish tradition which was also cited by Jesus in Luke. But which the student of Gamaliel would have known independently of Luke. Though, no doubt, having it from Jesus' mouth would have added to its authority. The words "Scripture saith" could in that case encapsule an authentification of Jewish oral teaching as correctly paraphrasing the words in Deuteronomy. Overall, it's probable that St. Paul was referring to Gospel of Luke, but it's not certain.
But if it was Luke, not only Peter (as the story goes in Stromata) but also Paul had higher authority in the Church than Luke and could thus authenticate.
12:17 As a Catholic, I agree. As soon as the book is received by someone with authority in the Church capable of authentifying a lower or recognising a higher authority, that book has status of canon.
But that was not for all of the books universal tradition in the Church afterwards. And the decision on these 4th C. Councils was not independent of tradition, but deciding what traditionS to rely on, in the cases of conflict.
13:03 "because you didn't have bishops yet"
Where do you get that from, even?
Protestant reconstruction without basis in the Bible. The first twelve bishops obviously had another name. That doesn't mean they weren't bishops. So were some other groups with special names. While these specificities were dying out, the general name was sought and found in the LXX version of a psalm cited in Acts 1.
Τὴν ἐπισκοπὴν αὐτοῦ λαβέτω ἕτερος.
13:20 "It's not a hierarchic polity"
Did Jesus set 72 out of the rest of His discples, 12 over these, Peter over the 12 and then the 12 also chose 7 deacons? If that's not a hierarchic Church polity, what is?
[tried to add]
I wonder if one would be so incoherent even from cannabis ...
14:55 "there was no unified polity structure"
This is not what "everybody knows" but what every Protestant assumes. However, I've already dealt with the canon, so I end here. Yes, each book was originally canonised well before 4th C Rome, Hippo, Carthage. But it was so by an already extant polity structure which was already hierarchic.
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