My response to Stephen... a healthy debate

Your blog was well written. For the sake of this argument, I am only going to address the canonization of the NT.

 In my point about canonization as affirmed by the church I, in no way, am saying that the church is infallible. The Word of God is, however, infallible. Again, the church did not choose (and had no say in) what books were Scripture. Scripture, by it's very nature, reveals itself to be Scripture, they merely recognized it to be so. Were they right? I believe they were absolutely correct. Though the canon was not officially confirmed until the 4th century, most scholars believe that it was widely accepted in the late 2nd century. Assuming that timeframe, there was a 100 year period in which the 27 books of the NT were compiled and distributed and a 200 year period in which they were put to practice. To be sure, during that timeframe other books were considered for canonization, but ultimately revealed themselves to not be Scripture and were rejected as such. The 27 books that we have as the NT canon were widely received to Scripture and affirmed officially by the church in the 4th century. We must remember that there is wisdom in numbers.

With regard to authorship, I do not believe that any letter could be 100% verified as authentic, so the argument is moot. For the sake of debate let's assume it can be verified. If I understand your argument correctly, the summary of your point is that the "lost letters" should be included because Paul, as an apostle, was the author. I do believe in apostolic authority, but I do not feel it applies to everything that they write/say. Most scholars believe that Paul, himself, compiled his letters that were circulated as scripture. The fact that he did not include those letters (or more details about them than we already have) in his compilation should weigh heavily on the decision to include the lost letters as Scripture or not. Other factors of canonization aside, let's assume we find a letter of Paul addressed to Barnabas on the subject of items needed for their missionary journey. Should it be included as Scripture just because Paul was the author? I think the obvious answer is no.

In conclusion, let me restate part of my original post. I do feel that the "lost letters" would be beneficial and should be highly regarded if ever found. Bit they should not be considered on the same level as Scripture.