(I would like to thank Scott Yakimow for making me aware of Peirce, Semiotics,
and Pragmaticism. After hearing him present two papers and going through a
class of his on semiotics, I am still an aggressive amateur. Therefore all the
things that I do understand about the field I owe to him; whereas all the
mistakes are proudly my own.)
Many Christians are troubled with the historical process of
canon formation. Many want to believe that the Bible fell straight from heaven
and was simply discovered by the early church in the style of Joseph Smith’s discovery
of the golden plates. Others value church tradition as inspired and argue that
because the apostolicity of the books, these were the obvious choices decided
by the followers of the apostles. Further conspiracy theorists – most recently
with Dan Brown in their company – think that what should be included and what
should not was decided by church elites to put down the masses at the council
of Nicaea. The reason for all of this speculation is that the actual story of
canon formation is far less exciting. There were never meetings to decide what
ought to be included in the canon of the New Testament and what should be
excluded. The process was far more gradual based upon general use and practice.
What bothers people about this is not so much that it is not exciting, but that
the process was so dependent upon the usage of Christian communities so that it
seems random. The concern is one of authority/inspiration of scripture. If
people were the key in deciding which books ought to be included and excluded
from the Bible, it seems less likely that these particular books were inspired
by God. This essay applies Pragmaticism as depicted by Charles Sanders Peirce –
as applied by Peter Ochs and Scott Yakimow – to show that while the process was
not deliberate in a Cartesian propositional sense, it did have good pragmatic
logic and that at the end of the day, this process is how most decisions are
made based upon habit rather than formal reason.
This project is therefore conjectural. In order for it to
function, I am applying a theory that was developed in the late 19th-early
20th centuries to discussions and texts from the 1st-5th centuries.
Whenever this is done, it has to be very carefully applied. It is bad
scholarship to tacitly assume that one’s own logic is consistent with all
logics that have come before and therefore can be applied to any other human at
any other time. This is a Cartesian error known as “internalism.” All thinkers
use logic – as Wayne Meeks has pointed out, the things that seem to “make
sense” are based upon a logical framework and that framework needs to be
proved.[1]
These theoretical frameworks are
historically bound. However, just because we can’t assume that all people
thought in a manner developed in the modern era, there is no reason to
conversely think they couldn’t have
thought in that manner. All inquiries into the past must use theoretical bases,
most all of which are modern conceptions. Further, while there are ancient
frameworks of knowledge, the questions that we, as modern thinkers, ask are
essentially different than the questions asked by ancient thinkers. Therefore,
it is no surprise that we need to use modern frameworks to understand modern
questions to ancient texts. Given this caveat, I find Peirce’s pragmatic
framework helpful because it can best explain
the historic phenomenon we know to have occurred – it does not change the
historic phenomenon, it only enlightens it for us as readers to address new
questions.
Further, a fundamental view of pragmaticism is that ideas can be used in ways that the original
author could not have imagined. This is summarized well by Scott Yakimow:
As an additional issue, I am
concerned that such a restriction of claims to particular space-time
occurrences itself goes against a pragmatic logic of vagueness which recognizes
the possible applicability of propositions or discrete claims in ways hitherto
unperceived. It is possible that such claims may take on unexpected force later
on and yield not only accurate portrayals of the world at hand but also of
one’s relationship to God and can function to create new habits of thought an
action in unpredictable ways. After all, for Peirce, the import of a
proposition is in what it conceivably could
result in as long as it is in the realm of real possibilities. I take this to
be the import of the statement [from Peirce] like the following: “Pragmaticism
makes the ultimate intellectual purport of what you please to consist in
conceived conditional resolutions, or their substance; and therefore, the conditional
propositions, with their hypothetical antecedents, in which such resolutions
consist, being of the ultimate nature of meaning, must be capable of being
true, that is, of expressing whatever there be which is such as the proposition
expresses, independently of being thought to be so in any judgment, or being
represented to be so in any other symptom of any man or men. But that amounts
to saying that possibility is sometimes of a real kind.”[2]
Here, Peirce is discussing the possible meanings that can be
extrapolated from an A-reasoning, through his theory of vagueness that empowers
meanings that can be multiform, and even contradictory. This can be done so
long as those situations are found in the real. The way to ensure something is
“real” is its practical application – as this paper will attempt to apply the
theory to the process of canonization as a “real” issue that was being
addressed.
To show the unease that many feel with canon formation,
consider how the development of canon is still taught in some textbooks. Some
scholars put together hypothetical qualifying categories that all books had to
“pass” in order to be included in the New Testament. These categories are
presented as 1) apostolicity, 2) catholicity, 3) antiquity, 4) orthodoxy.[3]
These categories were even taught to me as an undergraduate in my first
“History of Christianity” class. This was presented, I now realize, to try and
make the process propositional. Some books were antilegoumena because they struggled to reach all of these categories.
The books then could gain some authority as truth claims, because they were
based upon truth claims that would logically coincide with inspiration.
The problem with this analysis is that it has no basis in
historical analysis. There is no place where we have any writer challenging a
work on these four criteria. Further, in the way that it is presented – as
qualifying categories – not even a single one is used. There was never a flat
statement that all books of the New Testament had to meet X criterion. To be
fair, Eusebius does use the term antilegoumena
– but he does not use it in the sense of a value judgment, he simply uses
the term to report that some books are disputed. In fact, the actual discussion
of which books were accepted and which were not was merely reported on by usage. Those books that were universally
used were the same ones which made it into the New Testament. Consider Eusebius
famous discussion of the books of the New Testament:
At this point it seems reasonable
to summarize the writings of the New Testament which have been quoted. In the
first place should be put the holy tetrad of the Gospels. To them follows the
writing of the Acts of the Apostles. After this should be reckoned the Epistles
of Paul. Following them the Epistle of John called the first, and in the same
way should be recognized the Epistle of Peter. In addition to these should be
put, if it seems desirable, the Revelation of John. These belong to the recognized (homolegoumena) books. Of the
disputed (antilegoumena) books which
are nevertheless known to most are the Epistle called of James, that of Jude,
the second Epistle to Peter, and the so-called second and third Epistles of
John which may be the work of the evangelist or of some other with the same
name. Among the books which are not
accepted must be reckoned the Acts of Paul, the work entitled the Shepherd,
the Apocalypse of Peter, and in addition to them the letter called of Barnabas
and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles. And in addition, as I said, the
Revelation of John, if this view is right.[4]
Note that Eusebius’s language hinges around usage. These are the ones that are
accepted by all (homolegoumena)
because there is unanimity of practice. Further, there are some that are
rejected by most all – again a measure of practice rather than hypothetical
principles.
There certainly were some people who were opposed to using
certain texts due to their character. Marcion, most famously, used only the
works of Paul and sections of the Gospel of Luke. It is unclear how much of the
New Testament Marcion had available, but it is certainly clear he did have the
Old Testament available and deliberately chose to exclude it. However, he did
not do that based upon a logical principle – even though he is frequently
accused as such – he did that based upon what worked for him in praxis. He
could not proclaim Paul’s letters and the Old Testament – he found them too
different to be presenting a consistent message. Therefore, we are in the same
position – things were included or excluded based upon their practical use.
This process was absolutely practical and this is where
Pragmaticism might be helpful in explaining what happened and why it occurred
in this manner. Pragmaticism is distinct from Cartesianism in that Cartesian
thought asks for truth claims about a particular issue that can be directly
stated. These truths are universal and therefore apply to all situations. The
problem with this is not so much that such a thing could exist – it surely
could – it simply is unclear how a human could ever know this. Peter Ochs
explains this problem:
This is, in other words, a
self-referring and self-legitimating cognition. Within the theory of
perception, this would mean that among our perceptions are those that indicate
to us, at once, at that there is something there
and that it is this (or has this
quality). The brunt of Peirce’s critique is that such cognitions would be
immune from any criticism or reevaluation (since any criticism would belong to
a separate cognition), that if non-falsifiable they could not at the same time
count as truth claims, and that the general belief that warrants them (that there are such cognitions) would
have to presuppose them; that, since, self-referring cognitions could be
warranted only be self-referring cognitions, the claims of intuitionism are
circular and thus not truth-claims but mere assertions.[5]
Ochs points out that any propositional claim here assumes
that humans have the ability to make and know them. Ochs calls this kind of
thinking “foundationalist” and Yakimow summarizes this very quotation to challenge
it in regard to the variance among people and situations:
If this [foundationalism] were
true, then one could know something “as it is” or the “thing-in-itself” as it
exists objectively without regard for any given context or the interpretive lens
of the individual knower. The knower would then attain knowledge that is
independent of any inherited tradition of practice, knowing as God alone knows.[6]
Here, we see the challenge of Cartesian knowledge. It
assumes that people can know what is completely “true” or “false” outside of
their own circumstances. This is certainly possible for God, but it is far less
sure that those of us in a sinful world can attain this same confidence.
Applying this to the development of canon, what one is
expecting in a Cartesian sense is that the early Church could have had this
type of knowledge. They could have known by divine fiat which books should be included and which should not be
included. They would have seemingly known which authors were “inspired” and
which were not. This is a practical impossibility for a variety of reasons.
First, the earliest groups had no writings at all (it is possible they had a
Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible – but they did not have
any Jesus movement writings) and did not seem to see a problem with that.
Second, when the books were distributed, very few chose among a variety of
books – most communities only had one or two books of the New Testament and
possibly a few that are not in the New Testament. The communities generally did
not have that many writings at all, making the idea that they could have
knowledge about which were “true” or “false” by logical analysis silly. They
could not evaluate books they did not have. Third, the concept of canon took
some time to develop. It was not until Marcion – and indeed as a reaction to
Marcion – that we see any communities attempting to create two classes of
writings – some that are our “measure” (canon) and some that are just good
reading (and perhaps some that were bad reading – but those have always existed
in every community). Irenaeus, for example presents that there should be 4
gospels, but only 4 gospels in response to what he understood about the way Valentinians
used other texts. Therefore, it really was not possible for this early Christian group to make the logical
assertions – based upon a Cartesian sense of true knowledge outside of
practical application – to make a logical declarative view of which books were
“in” and which were “out.” The early church did not know which books were
“inspired” (if they ever used such a term) and which were “human” – it only
could discover by simply trying them out. It should be noted that there was the
concept of books being special – given the scriptures of the Old Testament - but
to apply that concept to new books, while it might have been expected, was
certainly unknown as to which books deserved such an honor.
The logic of Pragmaticism is based around the idea that
knowledge is only gained locally as it is applied. Pragmaticism does not deny
that there is a truth in the world, what it does, though, is argue that rather
than foundationally believing it can be obtained, it argues that all knowledge
is obtained locally. In logical analysis, there is usually relatively little
problem with the argument that something is true for a particular community.
The problem arises when then that one community is universalized to the larger
communities. That is an issue that Pragmaticism avoids by simply focusing upon
the local character of knowledge. Here Yakimow explains Peirce’s interest in
such a thing:
Given that a corollary of this
observation is that the inherited habits of thought and action of the
pragmatist herself are also situated historically, pragmatic claims need to be situationed
in the milieu out of which they arose, and that milieu is explicitly described
by Pierce as Cartesian modernism.[7]
Pragmaticism uses the language of Cartesian propositions
because as humans we mostly have to, but does so by dividing it into A and B
reasonings (described below). The point is that all knowledge is dependent upon
situations. This is explained by Yakimow that Foundationalism fails because all
knowledge is “pegged” or tied to the one interpreting it:
If this [foundationalism] were
true, then one could know something “as it is” or the “thing-in-itself” as it
exists objectively without regard for any given context or the interpretive
lens of the individual knower. The knower would then attain knowledge that is
independent of any inherited tradition of practice, knowing as God alone knows.
Instead of this, Ochs sees cognitive judgments as the basis for propositional
claims. Per Peirce’s semiotic, the meaning of the judgments only arises
relative to its interpretant. An interpretant is a habit of thought or action,
and it yields a particular trajectory of thought that serves to make a
propositional claim understandable. Moreover, it “pegs” that claim to a
particular individual’s understanding of the world, and through her, to the
understanding of the community in which she operates.[8]
A person’s habits or actions – here described as an
“interpretant” are the basis for all knowledge. This is the more common view
that one’s “worldview” (if such a term means much) defines how one understands
and “knows” things. This is hardly new – it is simply pointing out the flaw in
Cartesian thought- that such propositions outside of worldviews are impossible
because all people interpret knowledge through their habitus.
The way Cartesian ideas can still be applied is by dividing
up “reasonings” as those that are explicitly expressed by a community – what
Peirce calls “B-reasonings” and those views that are unexpressed and simply
held by the community without ever having expressed them – what Peirce calls
“A-reasonings.” These A-reasonings are what Peter Berger calls the nomos of a society – the norms that a
society holds as true and not questionable. They are so far from being
questioned that they do not even need to be expressed. Berger explains that
this is a necessary feature of human life that people internalize and do not
know they produce and reproduce until challenged:
The objective nomos is internalized
in the course of socialization. It is thus appropriated by the individual to
become his own subjective ordering of experience. It is by virtue of this
appropriation that the individual can come to “make sense” of his own
biography. The discrepant elements of his past life are ordered in terms of
what he “knows objectively” about his own and others’ condition. His ongoing
experience is integrated into the same order, though the latter may have to be
modified to allow for this integration.[9]
This “nomos” is expressed by Peirce as “A-reasonings” and
are the very reason that knowledge must be, and always will be, local. Yakimow
summarizes these reasonings well:
To summarize, any given claim that
might be encountered is by definition a B-reasoning. B-reasonings arise from an
(or set of) A-reasonings and are tokens of that reasoning. A-reasonings,
because they are habits, are not amenable to being encompassed or fully
comprehended by a propositional definition. If they are, they lose their status
as A-reasonings and become B-reasonings. They may, however, be glimpsed in
their ‘Fruit” by hypothesizing backwards form any particular B-reasoning to the
A-reasoning that gave rise to it.[10]
A-reasonings are therefore habits or actions that a
community does and perpetuates without considering it.[11]
B-reasonings, by contrast, are the deliberately stated
propositions that Cartesianism depends upon. B-reasonings are the stated
expressions that develop from the core A-reasonings. This is what Peter Berger
calls “legitimated truths” for a community – “By legitimation is meant socially
objectivated “knowledge” that serves to explain and justify the social order.
Put differently, legitimations are answers to any question about the “why” of
institutional arrangements.”[12]
This is a nice way of explaining Peirce’s dynamic of B-reasonings – the
propositions that come from the A-reasoning that is operative in action.
Yakimow explains this in Peirce’s terms (borrowing from Ochs):
A-reasonings are beliefs that have
the character of habits that a community holds as “free from doubt so long as
they continue to ground the critic’s capacity to doubt and to propose
alternative responses to doubt.’ These are what I have termed the “backbone” of
the community’s “common-sense” habits of thought and action. The latter,
B-reasonings, are particular articulations of propositions or instances of
adopted practices or responses to a dilemma that arise form the exercise of
A-reasonings in a given situation.[13]
B-reasonings, then are the propositions that are dependent
upon the “local” A-reasonings.
To understand more clearly the value of Peirce’s pragmatic
logic, it is important to understand that knowledge is not something that is
speculated on, but acted out.
A-reasonings are not speculated on – if they were, they would no longer be
A-reasonings. Instead, A-reasonings are how a community acts and persists.
Yakimow summarizes Och’s view on this topic:
For Ochs, one apprehends the
generality of pragmatic claims only indirectly; they cannot be “read off” the
surface of any particular claim. This indirect apprehension of generality takes
place by examining the various propositions as acted by a community and their
particular practices. These are themselves tokens of the habits of thought and
action that for the basis or the “backbone” of a community’s discourse.[14]
This then leads to the larger pragmatic point – if all
B-reasonings are dependent upon A-reasonings, and all A-reasonings are more
action than they are propositions, then it logically follows that all knowledge
is based upon praxis – how a
community acts is how it knows something. The B-reasonings are simply a
secondary means to communicate.
To remind ourselves of the application toward canon
formation, this is very helpful. It shows how early Christians focused on
scripture for its proper use rather
than its propositional analysis. Recall Eusebius’s categorization based upon
communities that used the texts rather than any propositional analysis.
Further, this also makes logical sense in the way that texts were actually used
in communities. Communities used a variety of things in their proper worship praxis that aided them in their
relationship with God they already knew (A-reasoning). The documents that
continued to aid them started to be used (or even were developed) normatively
in that community because they so expressed in a propositional narrative claim
(B-reasonings) the habits and actions of the community (A-reasoning). Thereby,
texts were developed locally for local knowledge of how to relate with God.
This is explained very well with Peirce’s argument for the necessity of local
knowledge.
The situation becomes complicated when one attempts to understand
how one text – developed in community X – could be understood and accepted by
community Y which did not develop the text. This was an issue in early
Christianity that is explained very well by Peirce’s pragmatic logic. Peirce
points out that while A-reasonings may be the engine that drives all knowledge,
for practical purposes they are not very helpful. As soon as a question arises,
a B-reasoning is necessary. Yakimow explains this phenomenon:
On the other hand, A-reasonings per se have little immediate relevance
to any given situation. They cannot be made fully concrete, and any attempt to
do so will result in the production of a B-reasoning. That is, if a particular
proposition is clear-and-distinct and practically useful, it is not an A-reasoning.
The virtue of A-reasonings, however, is that they are, by definition, free from
doubt….They are those implicit rules by which a community is organized and
serve to frame the entire world-view of that community.[15]
A-reasonings are very good for the individual in the
community – so long as it is never questioned. However, as soon as it is, then
a B-reasoning needs to be developed.
The primary way a B-reasoning needs to be developed is if
one compares one community with another. In that comparison, the B-reasonings
that community X expresses become cognizant to community Y that had never asked
those questions. Those questions then seek answers, but because they do not
share the same A-reasonings (given that A-reasonings are by definition local),
new explanations have to be understood – and what is not transferred are the
actual A-reasonings that gave birth to these propositions in the first place.
The community X is forced to imagine by
working backward community Y’s A-reasonings via their stated B-reasonings. Consider Yakimow’s summary of this
problem:
An implication of this interplay
between A-reasonings and B-reasonings comes to light when communities with
different reasonings are compared. It should be clear that A-reasonings cannot
be compared directly between communities the way propositions can be compared.
Being communally dependent and resistant to clear-and-distinct formulation,
they cannot be precisely displayed. Rather they are displayed indirectly, via
the tokens that they produce. These tokens (B-reasonings) come in the form of
distinct claims or particular actions. These B-reasonings can then be compared
by the community itself to be judged by that community to conform more or less
to the set of A-reasonings operative with that community. They can also be
compared with other communities to begin to allow a sense within the other
community of the A-reasonings that are operative within the first community.
The form of this comparative judgment takes is that of recognition, where on
recognizes certain claims or actions as conforming to what an exemplar of the
community’s values (or A-reasonings) would
do or would say given a similar
set of circumstances or concerns.[16]
The propositions (B-reasonings) can be compared; however,
the habits that formed those propositions nearly cannot – except by analogy.
This explains well the challenge of canon formation in the
early church. One community developed a particular text and used it for
identity formation in worship. That knowledge fit very well with their
A-reasonings. However, when trying to become a religion: “Christianity” –
something that is larger than any one congregation – it became important to
attempt to regularize the movement. One of the ways of doing so was by
attempting to use common scriptures – here considered as B-reasonings. These
scriptures, however, were secondary. What were primary were the A-reasonings of
the community’s relationship with their God. This could not be understood via
texts – as Ochs points out, habit change only can occur with illustration of
habit change.[17] Instead,
texts were used, possibly misunderstood, and any conversation about their
normative content would have been talking past one another. It is for this
reason we simply do not see that conversation occurring.
A further value to this theory is through Peirce’s logic of
vagueness that allows mutually contradictory propositions to hold – something
that the process of canonization depended upon with the eventual result of 27
different books with contradictory information in them. Peirce explains that
there is an allowance of contradiction through a concept of vagueness.
B-reasonings are developed to be
consistent with A-reasonings. B-reasonings will always represent the nomos of a community. However,
B-reasonings in so expressing A-reasonings, might
well not be consistent with one another. The goal of B-reasonings is to
express the unexpressable vertically (from A-reasonings to B-reasonings). They
are not expressed in order to be consistent horizontally (B-reasonings with
B-reasonings). They frequently will be consistent, but they certainly do not
have to be so. This is Peirce’s logic of vagueness that allows for such a
situation that would be impossible in a Cartesian framework. This is a very
helpful framework for understanding canon formation. Unlike the Latourette’s
four qualifying categories for canonization that had as their goal the idea
that all books in the canon were of the same
quality, Peirce’s framework empowers difference. The books are not of the
same quality – that would be frankly impossible, so long as they were actually
developed from A-reasonings.
Given this dynamic between A-reasonings and B-reasonings, it
then should be logically consistent that Pragmaticism is interested in how
knowledge is applied in communities over space in order to test their veracity
(to verify them as true knowledge). Given this, thought experiments ought to be
created to see how certain propositions can be applied. Yakimow explains this
at the very beginning of his dissertation:
While this initial chapter will
begin to clarify the relation between philosophy and theological inquiry, a
more complete picture will not be possible until after the work of chapter
three is complete as the tenets of scriptural pragmatism itself provide warrants
for the claim that understanding the practical outworking of any given
reasonings is necessary to apprehend that reasoning. This is the case for
pragmatists because reasoning and praxis are
inextricably interrelated such that one is best able to apprehend a given
reasoning by observing its practical ramifications. These practical
ramifications, in turn, provide fodder for reflection that might yield
hypothetical, yet conceivable, outcomes in new contexts that can be observed to
test the validity of a line of reasoning.[18]
Here, the power of Peirce’s pragmatism takes shape. One can
still use the Cartesian propositions, but uses them as they apply rather than
standing on their own. This is what Peter Ochs calls a “reparative rationality”
that uses both objectivist and internalist ideas in contrast with one another
to balance their positions in the practical world. Yakimow explains this
interest:
In sum, objectivist and internalist
tendencies describe discrete claims (B-reasonings) and obscure the habits of
thought and action that gave rise to them (A-reasonings); a reparative
rationality seeks to not only describe particular but insatiate by way of
performance of a particular set of habits (A-reasonings). It is this
performance of habits that help to refigure the discrete claims of objectivism
and internalism into something that is fruitful and life-giving rather than
being merely an explication of purely binary thought.[19]
Here, one can see the power of pragmatism – it uses the
propositions, recognizes that behind
them are A-reasonings that cannot be seen, and considers many examples to
continue to push their application to a logical end that will show the meaning
that is possible from a particular
proposition, rather than narrowing meaning to a restrictive dictum that
confines knowledge rather than enlarging it.
This aspect of Pragmaticism is what is of particular value for understanding the process of canonization. Texts in the early Jesus movement were never understood to be restrictive. They were developed to show communities what kind of possibilities were present in Christianity. There were general avenues of discourse that were restricted as an end.[20] The best example is the regula fidei – rule of faith. In proper devotion, nearly any possibility were open, so long as they ended with a statement of faith that looked much like the Apostles Creed. Further it should be noted that these creeds were developed once again due to practice rather than by proposition. The only way for this to occur was to test the veracity of particular texts through varied use in varied communities – precisely what Pragmaticism seeks to do.
Applying this to the development of canon, it should be
noted that the way books were used in
antiquity were as B-reasonings that could encourage
the community to consider new A-reasonings. They were texts to explore the
possibilities of being as members of the Jesus movement. The only way to
practically do this, is to apply it to communities and see which function and
which do not. The “truth” or “falsehood” of them was therefore by definition
local – but that of course does not mean they could not have been universal as
well, we just would not know.
Finally, this paper began by discussing the challenges
Christians have with the concept that scripture has simply been developed by
communities trying and using a variety of texts. This is troubling to some
because it appears random and putting too much trust in humans. This paper has
tried to show that while it did depend upon humans – the only alternative is to
posit that humans are indeed divine. The process while seeming to be random,
can actually be understood logically and propositionally as valuable. A long
quote by Yakimow presents the challenge of Cartesian binary thinking about
truth that can be very practically helpful here:
Rather it elucidates an important
aspect of pragmatic claims – that they are, in the first place and primarily,
context-specific in that they arise within particular communities of discourse
and must be tied to those communities in order to be meaningful. When the issue
of particularity is raised, frequently the immediate (and Cartesian) objection
is made that this is then to deny the existence of universal claims, as if
there are only two choices – particular OR universal – and that the law of the
excluded middle applies thereby declaring that either one or the other must be
true. Rather than engaging in such a binary, it is enough to point out that
just because a claim is formulated regarding a local and particular situation
does not mean that it cannot have enhanced generality or even possible
universality. There are many possibilities. It is possible that a claim may
have considerable generality once its reasoning is grasped in that many people
might consider it to be a valid conclusion; even so, no given group may
actually adopt it in any regulative sense. Another possibility is that
functional generality is achieved where the claim is adopted by another group
and when more and more communities find a claim or form of argumentation useful
for their own ends. Other possibilities exist. But the point is that the extent
of this generality cannot be measured except in the actual event of such adoption
itself.[21]
Yakimow argues that, in essence, the early church got it
right – Eusebius’s argument that the more functional a text is, in the more
cases, the more likely we can move gradually toward feeling confident in its
veracity as universally valid. This is particularly valuable for canon, because
the texts of the New Testament were not meant to be propositions to be
considered logically, they were meant to be included in habit formation and
their principles adopted as A-reasonings. Therefore, while we can never know if
a text is truly universal or not – this is, after all a matter of faith – the
process by which the early church selected the texts of the canon is not a
scandal. Rather, the logic of Pragmaticism explains the behavior to be a
rational enterprise that could well be one of the better means by which
knowledge is obtained.
[1] Wayne A.
Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The
Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1983), 1-3.
[2] Scott
Yakimow, Proclamatory Pragmatism: An
Investigation into the Lutehran Logic of Law and Gospel, PhD Dissertation,
University of Virginia 2014, 64,
quoting Charles Sanders Peirce, Essential
Peirce 2:354. I am indebted to Scott Yakimow for sharing his draft of his
dissertation before his defense for use in this paper.
[3] See for
example this description in Kenneth Scott Latourette, 133-135 for this view,
but note its persistence as it creeps into such far more recent works such as
John McManners (ed.) The Oxford
Illustrated History of Christianity (Oxford: OUP, 1990), 29.
[4] Eusebius HE 3.25.1-4.
[5] Peter Ochs,
“Reparative Reasoning: From Peirce’s Pragmatism to Augustine’s Scriptural
Semiotic” Modern Theology 25 (2),
April 2009, 189.
[6] Yakimow, 21.
[7] Yakimow, 15.
[8] Yakimow, 21.
[9] Peter
Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a
Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Anchor, 1967) 21.
[10] Yakmow, 31.
[11] For a
helpful discussion of how a community can produce tenets without deliberately
considering them, see Berger’s cycle of “World-Creation” and
“World-Maintenance” through the process of externalization, objectivation, and
internalization. See Berger, Sacred
Canopy, 3-51.
[12] Berger, Sacred Canopy, 29.
[13] Yakimow,
30.
[14] Yakimow,
29.
[15] Yakimow,
31.
[16] Yakimow,
32.
[17] Ochs
191-196.
[18] Yakimow
12-13.
[19] Yakimow,
44.
[20] For the
concept of Pragmaticism as opening primarily a mode of discourse, see Yakimow
chapter 3, pp. 129-209.
[21] Yakimow
28-29.
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