Knartfocker

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You're conflating categories here. The Scriptures are not uncreated, as they are not God. They are God's revelation. God's revelation reflects and is consistent with God's character and being, but they are not identical to God, as we do not worship the Bible, we only worship God.

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You kinda brought it on yourself when you said there is no higher authority than the Bible then proceeded to say "God's word is his revelation to man" and "Jesus incarnate was God's revelation to man". You can see how that could cause conflation.

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I'll also comment that when I say "Scripture interprets Scripture", I'm using that as shorthand for what the WCF states, which you quoted: "the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself". I've underlined the key word. It's a rule of interpretation, not a statement that the Scripture has a mind of itself. Humans interpret Scripture according to the standard of Scripture itself. Another way of putting it is that we are to use Scripture to help us interpret other Scripture. If there is a verse that is unclear or confusing, we are to go elsewhere in the Scriptures to help us understand it more clearly.

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You're actually doing the meme

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If scripture is its own and only infallible authority, it is the only thing that can bind someone to an interpretation, ergo it must interpret itself.The person is just a middleman in this paradigm because only scripture has the authority to interpret scripture.

And once again, interpretation requires a mind. So now, we have a created person of equal authority to God. You're right back to Arianism.

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Not quite. First, the Gnostics used the Bible as a basis for some of their teachings but had their own secret teachings that went beyond the Bible. Their "knowledge" was not public, but secret and selective. That matters in this discussion. The secret teachings of the Gnostics went beyond Scripture and even contradicted it. The message of Christianity is in full view in the Bible, and everyone can have access to it.

Secondly, the "in the dark" speaks to spiritual understanding only. That isn't to say the Bible is some codex that is absolutely unintelligible unless you have the special cypher of the Spirit. It just means the best you can hope for is an intellectual understanding of the factual things that the Bible says, rather than having a "heart knowledge" that the Spirit provides, applying the truths of Scripture to the individual. The Spirit gives that "aha moment" to Christians to see the truth for what it is and changes the heart to receive it as truth that is trustworthy for everlasting life as the true word of God

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You can try to paint it however you like, but the similarities are undeniable.

The gnostics had the enlightened and the unenlightend. The enlightened were able to understand fuller "truth" after individual enlightenment. They believed in a saving knowledge.

Your theology has the elect and the unelect. Only the elect are able to understand the thing of God. And you have to be elect before you can understand the things of God. Further, only your elect can claim an inward working of the Holy Spirit (because your unelect have a sin nature and are totally depraved and are incapable if accepting God).

If an elect and unelect person were sitting next to each other, reading the exact same passage, based on their inward illumination of the Spirit of God (or lack thereof), they would reach different conclusions about its meaning. This is clearly a type of saving knowledge.

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The Spirit is the confirmation to the individual that it is what it claims to be, but the argument is not that the authority of Scripture is derived from the individual's belief in it. 

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Yes. We've already discussed this. The authority from Scripture comes from Scripture itself. You did the meme again.

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God determines it, the Church (or the Christian) receives it, and the Spirit confirms it.

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Cool. Who exactly were the people that received the Bible? What did they do? Could anybody have received it?

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So yes, it is God’s word that has His divine authority, but no, the Bible as a document is not eternal, but came into being at some point through the creation of the paper and ink and the writing down of God’s revealed word by men in time and space. I’m not saying that God had a beginning.

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Is the Bible God's spoken word? Is God's spoken word created or uncreated?

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The WCF is saying that the elect have the same message as everyone else from the Scriptures. The point being made is not that there is a hidden or secret message that only the elect have, but that the public message of the Bible is available to everyone, but requires the Spirit’s illuminating work in the elect person for them to rightly understand and receive it by faith.

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According to the WCF, in order to understand the truth, you have to first be elect. The elect gets a personal illumination (the inward work) from the Holy Spirit that gives him "full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth". Furthermore, it acknowledges "the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word ". Only the elect have a correct understanding. You're describing a saving knowledge, a core tenet of gnostic teaching.

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I never said that Jesus is the Bible, or that the Bible is Jesus. I said that both the Bible--God's inscripturated revelation--and Jesus are called by Scripture the "word". While I believe the Bible had a beginning (it had to be written down in time and space), Jesus Christ had no beginning as God. His humanity had a beginning, but His divine nature did not. I think you are confusing my statements. I hope this has clarified my position for you.

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Fair enough. Thank you for the clarification. However, you did state that the word of God is created and that that created word holds equal authority to God. That is still a type of Arianism, which is why I said almost textbook.

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Gnosticism centers around hidden and secret knowledge that is accessed by the few and the special. Biblical Christianity is a public religion with public revelation shared publicly with the Church and preached publicly with the world.

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I agree with this statement on its face. However, as you have previously claimed, you are a 5 point Calvinist that adheres to classical reformation theology. Again, let's go to the Westminster confession and see what it says about the elect:

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X. Of Effectual Calling

I. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds, spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.

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According to your own confession, only a select few will have their minds enlightened "to understand the things of God". This fits exactly with the definition of gnosticism you provided.

If you claim to adhere to the Westminster confession, then this statement

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The Spirit's work at convincing someone of truth is not the same thing as providing new and secret revelation to individuals

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Rings hollow.

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I am thankful that the Lord has bought me with the blood of Christ and adopted me as His son by His grace,

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Thank God! If you ever want to experience a Divine Liturgy, you're always welcome. Come to coffee hour. We don't bite. Though sometimes conversations can get wild like the rant on gamedays (minus the smut, of course)

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The Bible is the revelation from God. The message is from God, and therefore it is perfect and trustworthy. It is also perfectly authoritative. If God audibly spoke to you right now, the words would be authoritative because they are breathed out by God. The Bible is that authoritative "breath".

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I must be misunderstanding something. So when the Bible mentions the Word of God, in your view, what is it talking about?

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Yes, there is an individual component to that testimony.

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Just so I'm clear, you're saying the knowledge of the Bible comes from an individual's confirmation from the Holy Spirit?

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The Bible is God’s word, so it has His ultimate authority. There is no higher authority, even the Church.

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You're saying a creature has equal authority to God?

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Yes, the church’s recognition isn’t infallible, but it is a witness to the Scriptures. The Scriptures, themselves, are self-authenticating and affirmed by the testimony of the Spirit.

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To the individual?

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All ultimates are just that, and there is no higher authority to appeal to. It is why God swears by His own name, after all.

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Do you maybe want to reword this?

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God determines it. The Church receives it. The Holy Spirit confirms it.

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Finally! The Holy Spirit confirms the canon. Does He confirm it to each individual or to the Church as a whole?

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I’m saying that the Bible’s promise that it will be preserved is the authoritative basis for its preservation, and tradition of the Church preserving the text is the mechanism for its transmission and preservation. We can then look at the texts that were preserved to judge what of them are Scripture vs non-Scripture.

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This is a circular argument, Foo. "The authoritative basis for the Bible is that the Bible says it will be preserved."

And you're begging the question. Who gets to determine what is and isn't scripture and by what authority do they have to do so?

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God’s word is the authority. It says that that God’s word will be preserved.

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Foo, I'm asking how you know the canon is the protestant canon you have in your Bible and your answer is "I believe it because it says so." You can't appeal to the thing in question. That's a logical fallacy.

So I'll ask again. By what means do you know that your canon is correct?

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The church is the mechanism for that preservation.

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The same church that you already admitted got all sorts of things wrong and fell away since before the death of the apostles until the reformation?

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I believe God's promise is true that He will preserve His word (and has), and the historical evidence of the transmission of the text shows that it has been reliably preserved.

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I should have clarified. The transmission of the various texts is a completely different and fascinating topic, but many non biblical books have been transmitted as well. My question should have been if the church was already in error, how do you know you have the right Bible?

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Again, it's about ultimate authority. The disciples of the Apostles taught as they did, and would have been (or should have been) held up to the same Scriptures that were available to the listeners.

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What about the disciples of the disciples? When did the Church start to err? Specifically in the first millennium. We're on the same page wtt Rome post schism, so no need to waste your breath there.

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You and others keep calling out Calvin. You do realize that the Reformation included many different people, right?

And yes and no; there better and worse shepherds (keepers) throughout history.

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Simply because you're a Calvinist and hold to a classical reformed theology.