A SELF-REFUTING CATHOLIC ARGUMENT

There is an old saying that basically states, “He shot himself in the foot.”  This is when someone inadvertently undermines his own chances of success or he achieves the opposite of his intended outcome. 

I would say that this is exactly what happens when applied to the Catholic Church when they put forth their “certainty of the canon” argument.

As for as I can remember, I have never heard of, spoken with, or met a Catholic who did not believe in the supposed NEED for infallible certainty on the canon of Bible books.  This basically means that one cannot have any meaningful assurance that we have the right Bible books unless an “infallible source” (like the Catholic Church) infallibly declares exactly which books are intended to be in the canon.  It appears that this is a universal concept within Catholicism. 

One Catholic source, which bears the Catholic seals of approval (the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur) states:

“Only the Church, the infallible bearer of tradition, can furnish us invincible certainty as to the number of Divinely inspired books of both the Old and the New Testament.” (The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, under the heading, “Scripture”)

A few months ago I posted an article concerning the canon and Catholicism’s claims, and I presented two major premises to demonstrate the error of the Catholic Church’s teaching.  You can see it here:

https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-two-fatal-flaws-of-catholics-when.html

Today, I will again address two premises concerning the Catholic Church’s canon, but with a different twist.

Two Premises

Major premise #1 – The Catholic Church has always proposed a NEED for infallible certainty of the canon (as just mentioned).  And Catholics (supposedly) have this level of certainty while Protestants don’t.  Note that this idea also assumes that “sufficient certainty” on the canon can never be enough.

Major premise #2 – It is clear that there was no infallibly-declared canon until the Council of Trent in A.D. 1546:

“According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the Biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church.  This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church (at the Council of Trent).  Before that time there was some doubt about the canonicity of certain Biblical books, i.e., about their belonging to the canon.” (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 3, page 29, Copyright 1967; under “Canon, Biblical”)

By the way, this particular encyclopedia also contains the Catholic seals of approval.

Two Questions

•      So, the first big question is, how did the Catholic Church operate in the first 1500 years of its existence if there was any kind of doubt about its canon?

To answer that, they will often claim something like they were able to operate on a broadly accepted 4^th century consensus.  They were also able to make use of local councils, apostolic tradition, the Church fathers, the living Magisterium of the Church, etc., etc. 

•        Ok, so this brings us to the second big question:

Exactly what kind of certainty did these things (consensus, councils, tradition, etc.) actually produce for the Church?

And the answer to that question is most important.  It seems to me that there can only be three ways to answer this question, so here is what I believe the possible answers are:

    1) Either, these things produced infallible certainty on the canon for the Church before Trent, or

    2) These things produced reasonable/sufficient certainty on the canon for the Church before Trent, or

    3) These things produced no certainty at all on the canon for the Church before Trent

I don’t see any other possibilities. 

Ok, if the Catholic Church answers with #1 above, they would be lying, since they know and agree that the Council of Trent (A.D. 1546) was the earliest time that the canon of Scripture was infallibly declared/recognized (as described by the New Catholic Encyclopedia above).

If the Catholic Church answers with #2, they would have to admit that sufficient certainty is indeed good enough and that Protestants were right all along concerning this.

If the Catholic Church answers with #3, they’d have to admit that they had a bad, or false, canon that gave them no certainty, and all their books (and the teachings therein) are in danger of being false.

This produces a trilemma for the Catholic Church and puts them in a very awkward position.  All three answers are embarrassing for them, but the best and most accurate answer of the three is to agree with the Protestants and the possibility of a sufficient certainty being good enough. 

But if they do this, it questions the very need for infallible certainty in the first place, and Major premise #1 would be false.  Either way, whether they deny or admit that Protestants have a sufficient canon, they are trapped by their own argument.

If infallible certainty wasn’t needed before A.D. 1546, it is not needed now.  This teaching of the Catholic Church is indeed a self-refuting argument.