I wish to make a few comments on the review by Jonathan Mclatchie of “Canon Revisited – Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books, by Michael J. Kruger”. I’ve discussed his perspective briefly somewhere else and I think this is a good place to show where he and I differ.
I am afraid that the best overall assessment I can give of Kruger’s book is that it is epistemologically muddled. Kruger’s central thesis is that the canon of Scripture is self-authenticating. The most obvious objection here is that Kruger has engaged in a textbook case of circular reasoning. For example, while Kruger suggests that the canon itself “sets the terms for its own validation and investigation” (p. 91), it is unclear why he thinks that those terms of validation ought to be derived from the canonical books and not another set. Clearly, Kruger had to use some set of criteria to determine which books to extract his criteria from. Thus, Kruger’s entire approach is to beg the question in favor of the New Testament canon.
To the charge of circularity, Kruger replies that circular reasoning is inevitable, since “If we try to validate an ultimate authority by appealing to some other authority, then we have just shown that it is not really the ultimate authority,” (p. 91). He gives the example of providing a justification for the belief that one’s sensory perception is accurate. This raises the well-known regress problem in epistemology. However, as a classic foundationalist, I would argue that every belief must either itself be basic or otherwise ultimately trace its justification back to a basic belief – that is, a belief that does not depend on any other beliefs for its justification. Such basic beliefs have the property of being incorrigible – that is to say, they are not subject to being corrected, improved, or reformed. Clearly, sensory perception is an incorrigible belief. While one may lack robust epistemic certainty that one’s sensory perception offers a representation of the world that approximately corresponds to reality, one still possesses rational justification for such a belief. Indeed, alternative hypotheses, I would argue, have a prior probability that is significantly lower than that of the face-value interpretation that our experiences are caused by a real external world of physical objects.
i) I think this starts off with a bit of an issue. This requires a commitment to a position called internalism. That is a position that usually posits the factors that make a belief justified are internal to the mind. The problem with internalism is explaining human fallibility. Jimmy Stephens explains:
Since, on internalism, all knowledge depends for justification on the knower, all justification could amount to deception, unconscious or willful. The former could just be a case of insanity – perhaps everyone is just a delusional animal.
And for the internalist, we need not bicker with him over petty details in the universe. All that matters, for the sake of his view, is that he cannot compete with God in terms of attributes. Without infinity, the internalist has no way of guaranteeing the shape of the universe is not an inherently Christocentric one. Without infallibility, the internalist cannot guarantee that he isn’t borrowing from the Christian worldview, cannot guarantee his own autonomy. Without sinlessness, the internalist cannot answer Romans 1.
http://spirited-tech.com/2017/12/21/internalism-and-the-human-condition/
ii) McLatchie’s foundationalism is susceptible to the kind of objection Stroud makes to transcendental arguments. Namely, McLatchie’s basic beliefs possess incorrigibility, and that means they are at best conceptually necessary. These basic beliefs might be indispensable to the psychology and belief frameworks of human beings, but that says nothing about whether said psychology/frameworks are cognitive. Maybe our beliefs are just incorrigibly false or confused.
iii) It’s unclear how McLatchie and other classical foundationalists escape epistemic circularity. Why suppose that you can have non-inferential knowledge? Presumably, Dr. Mclatchie will affirm that properly basic beliefs constitute something more than wishful thinking. So they are justified, but in virtue of what?
Self-evidence or perceptual justification would be epistemically circular. McLatchie appeals to incorrigibility but this constitutes an appeal to human psychology itself. So the nature of the human mind gives us the beliefs basic to the human mind. This is obviously epistemically circular. So we see that McLatchie fails to escape his own criticism.
iv) Another reason to reject McLatchie’s view is that it contradicts the nature of Biblical revelation as taught in the Bible. This was part and parcel to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. The Bible teaches that when we meet God’s word in the form of the Biblical writings, they are immediately recognized for what they are. We might quibble about how conscious the reader/hearer is, but it is no matter of doubt that the audience of God’s word always knows the divine nature of what they’re hearing. This point is argued by K. Scott Olphint elsewhere.
Kruger complains that foundationalism “overlooks the unique nature of the canon,” since “[t]he canon, as God’s word, is not just true, but the criterion of truth. It is an ultimate authority” (p. 91). Unfortunately, Kruger is not clear precisely what he means by the phrase “ultimate authority,” nor how he justifies Scripture as being an ultimate authority. The truth of Scripture is not a proposition with which we have direct acquaintance in the manner that we have with the external world. Nor is it an analytically true proposition (such as the laws of logic or mathematical truths). It cannot therefore serve as its own justification. Furthermore, I am in agreement with Thomas Chalmers that “We have a right to sit in judgment over the credentials of heaven’s ambassador, but we have no right to sit in judgment over the information he gives us” (The Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, 4th ed. 1817, p. 277).
I think Kruger has explained that he thinks they are known in virtue of them being self-attesting. What makes it an ultimate authority is the fact that it is self-attesting. This view of knowledge of God has been discussed before:
The Council 