Thursday, February 23, 2017

An Open Canon

A closed scriptural canon tends to come with an attached belief that God no longer speaks.  Now, society is organic and a changing thing, and all religions will naturally be organic and changing because of that.  Hence even religions with a closed canon such as Judaism still have the Talmud and the oral Torah.  Its impossible to have one solid set of unchanging beliefs in a changing world.  The challenge is to make sure that as beliefs change, they stay in line with God's will.

A change to a religion must come through God, man, or the devil.  Without a God who speaks, without a belief in an open canon, the door to divine guidance is closed.  Man can do good things, of his own agency, and a worldly change to a religion may very well be a good thing; many worldly churches do much good.  But without active divine guidance, the church will suffer moral entropy.  It takes an outstanding leader/congregation to fight against that decay, indeed, such is a nearly futile endeavor against a powerfully manipulative devil.  Those who keep their churches pure against such deserve our respect. 

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