Thanks for the post on Trent. I didn’t know that, and I’m guilty of unintentionally spreading the misconception.
However, there is also this:
““That’s right. The decision to adopt the Florentine canon as an article of faith was agreed to by only 44% of the council members.
I guess my questions is, why did 56% of the council members believe that the biblical canon that was supposedly taught throughout church history, accepted by Hippo/Carthage and later confirmed by the Council of Florence, perhaps shouldn’t be an article of faith? In other words, if the historical witness of the canon was so clear that Luther (and Protestants in general) could be accused of “throwing out 7 books of the Bible” (a common RC apologist claim), why were 56% of the council members not in favor of making the canon an article of faith?”
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2008/01/underwhelming-trent-vote-part-4.html
All agreed on which books, but over half didn’t agree to make it an article of faith, even during the Reformation.
You wrote:
“I guess my questions is, why did 56% of the council members believe that the biblical canon that was supposedly taught throughout church history, accepted by Hippo/Carthage and later confirmed by the Council of Florence, perhaps shouldn’t be an article of faith?”
Where are you getting your 56% from? 1) To vote against something in a procedure is not the same thing as voting against the content of the point. In other words, we know there were men who said no decrees or canons concerning papal infallibility should have been enacted by Vatican I and yet they themselves SUPPORTED THE DOCTRINE of papal infallibility. Many of them simply didn’t think it was a good time to make a formal decree on the matter. Also, when someone abstains from voting you cannot count that as a vote against the measure in any case. That’s exactly why the idea of abstaining from voting exists.