Calvin and the Self-Attestation of Scripture: How Do We Know Which Books Belong in the Bible? - a podcast by Daniel Dal Monte

Catholics and Protestants use different Bibles. Protestants omit what they call the Apocryphal books. Catholics call these books the Deuterocanoncial books: Sirach, Baruch, Wisdom, Tobit, Sussana, and Judith. John Calvin, one of the great Protestant thinkers, thought that the Church usurped the authority to determine canonicity--which books belong in the Bible--which properly belonged to the individual believer relating directly to God. The canonicity of books of the Bible is self-evident, according to Calvin, acting like a divine seal of veracity, and one does not need an institution to validate the veracity of a book. For Catholics, though, determining the veracity of a spiritual text cannot come through private revelation, since even highly trained Christians can disagree over what they think authentically comes from God. A pronouncement of the Church, built up through long stretches of struggle and debate, is needed to resolve disagreement over canonicity. The Protestant method of individual interpretation is dangerous, as it cannot provide a bulwark against cultural shifts and individual prejudices. You can find a nice article on this topic here: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2020/09/church-authority-the-canon-vs-calvin-59.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Catholic+For+All+Seasons&utm_content=45

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