In an attempt to defend their Church against the scriptures, the Catholic Church claims theirs is the one and only organisation with the authority and ability to correctly interpret the scriptures, and this is proven by the fact theirs is the Church that produced the New Testament canon. According to the argument, the Councils of Hippo (393 A.D.) and Carthage (397 A.D.) were necessary for the Church to know which books belong in the New Testament, and which don't.
There are a number of major flaws with this argument, but in this article, I want to highlight the more obvious one. Namely, the Apostles themselves recognised at least some of the New Testament as scripture on equal footing with the Old Testament, as is shown in the scriptures themselves.
It is true that the Councils of Hippo and Carthage did address the canon. This is mainly because by this time, a number of false books (some of which are still extant) had been written, which claimed to also be scripture. The purpose of these Councils was more to blot out these false books than canonise the real ones. And indeed, one of the criteria they used is that the Church at large already accepted it. Furthermore, the Muratorian Fragment (dated to around 180 A.D.) is a fragment that contained a list of 22 of the 27 New Testament books, further showing that efforts to produce such a list (as well as acceptance of the traditional canon) predate the Councils of Hippo and Carthage by a considerable amount. It is not unfathomable that other canonical lists may have existed around the time, but have since dissipated, or are still hidden waiting to be rediscovered (like the famous Dead Sea Scrolls).
But we don't even need all that. Instead, it is possible to show from the scriptures themselves that they were accepted organically, almost as soon as they were written, and that the Apostles themselves placed their "seal of approval" on it. Furthermore, because this is revealed in scripture, this "seal of approval" is not their own. Rather, God Himself revealed that yes, these works are scripture, and therefore no Church will ever have the authority to add to, or remove from them. To even claim that their canonical status is dependent on the Church is pure blasphemy.
First, let us consider 1 Timothy 5:18. In this verse, Paul appeals to scripture to prove his point. The first scripture he appeals to is Deuteronomy 25:4. No Catholic will deny that Deuteronomy was scripture long before Carthage. After all, Christ Himself appeals to it to prove His own authority. But you will search in vain for "the worker is worthy of his wages". This comes not from any Old Testament work, but from Luke 10:7, proving that Paul:
1. Was aware of Luke's Gospel
2. Believed it was scripture
3. Believed it was equal to Deuteronomy.
It does not appear Paul waited for the Council of Carthage to form this opinion.
In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter talks about the letters "our beloved brother Paul" (v15) wrote, "according to the wisdom given to him". These epistles, according to Peter, contain some things that are hard to understand. The untaught and unstable twist them, to their own destruction, as they do with the rest of the scriptures. Note that Peter doesn't say "as they do with the scriptures", making a distinction. Rather, he says "as they do with the rest of the scriptures". Now, if I hold an object, and say "this is like the rest of the pie", what am I holding? A piece of the pie! So when Peter says people twist Paul's epistles like "the rest of the scriptures", what are Paul's epistles? Scriptures! "The rest" implies that they are to be taken together. These epistles, by Peter's own reckoning, are scriptures. By that same token, to twist them is self destructive.
So, Peter recognised Paul's epistles as scripture, and Paul recognised Luke's Gospel, but take a look at what Paul said in a subsequent letter to Timothy: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Let's examine that again: "All Scripture (including Paul's Epistles and Luke's Gospel) is given by inspiration of God (i.e. pure, infallible and very much not optional for the Church), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, (i.e. lacking nothing) thoroughly equipped for every (i.e. no exceptions) good work."
Well that doesn't sound like Catholicism, does it? Aside from showing that the scriptures, some of which are internally recognised, are inspired (literally "breathed out") by God, and therefore were canonical before the ink dried, Paul continues to tell us that they give a man of God everything he needs for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness (not to mention making us wise to salvation, as verse 15 says). But Catholicism says we need a whole lot more than that. We also need the ever-evolving Catholic tradition. Traditions which are not only completely absent from the Bible, but which often flat out contradict it. This is not the Church Christ founded. This is a Satanic counterfeit no better than the Pharisees, who also placed their traditions higher than the scriptures. Christians should avoid the Catholic Church to the best of our abilities, and Catholics need to repent immediately.