To put it another way: the Bible reveals God's perfect truth even though it is expressed imperfectly.
This is a difficult teaching for me because I can't reconcile imperfect expression with "God-breathed". I can't imagine why God wouldn't love us enough to give us perfect expression, since the imperfect always leads to error. I suppose you would say that's what the Church is for, but I still have trouble with the idea that God would build in error, just to let men be glorified by correcting it.
I think you will recognize my consistent approach towards the Scriptures in that statement.
I do.
Acceptance of the Bible by the original Church was not 'regulated' by dogma. It was simply accepted on tradition.
Actually, if I'm reading you correctly, that sounds closer to my view than to that of the Latins. How would you describe the value of Canonization? I think it was useful to formalize, but I don't think they were really breaking any new ground.
When our minds become perfect, and our language evolves to perfection, and we become spiritually perfect in order to receive perfect Spirit perfectly, then God's perfect truth will be expressed perfectly.
In the meantime, we discern perfect truth through imperfection, and that in itself is a divine paradox.
God would build in error, just to let men be glorified by correcting it
But you already believe that God created Adam to fail!
How would you describe the value of Canonization? I think it was useful to formalize, but I don't think they were really breaking any new ground,/I>
By the time the Christian Bible was formally canonized at the end of the 4th century, most churches were using the unofficial canon which was more or less similar but no identical. Thus, the oldest known complete Christian Bible (Codex Sinaiticus) contains two non-canonical books, The Epistle of Barnabus, and the Shepherd of Hermes. Canonization standardized all Christian bibles and removed vestigial non-canonical books that were part of many if not most individual church bibles. It was absolutely necessary to remove those because until then any book that was read in a church was considered "scripture."