Mr. Gerry Soliman... as usual

After posting this article, my intention was to ignore Mr. Soliman’s any future post because it’s not worth my attention [having no Sound Argument]; but one FB friend send a message and asking me to refute Mr. Soliman's Oct.10 post. (I explained to him my cause of no reply, then he agreed to me). Today, to my surprise, when I open my FB account I receive five messages from different friends asking me to respond. So, I will grant their request for now. [Hello Sir Mar, sorry for cutting our conversation this morning because of weak signalJ]

[Mr. Soliman’s words are in RED... as usual]

… he is trying to regain his integrity and his FOCUS as usual;

… he tried to maneuver as usual;

… his best allies – the FALLACIES as usual.

Do you see an answer in C. Pio's post?

They do. A comment coming from FB friend: Frankly, C.Pio spanked Gerry’s joke like a silly child.

I don't see any competent response whatsoever.  Thirty percent of his post is just highlighting that I made a mistake in the post that I should respond to

Any Mathematical formula on how he came up with thirty percent?

and allegations of not responding to his counterargument of Kecharitomene. 

As usual… Mr. Soliman loss his focus again. I’m not accusing him of not responding to my counterargument of kecharitomene; here’s what Mr. Soliman missed: he quickly moves on to the other claim (without giving an outright answer raised by his opponent). Responding and outright answer are two different meaning [an outright answer is a response but not all response is an outright answer].

That is intentionally done by him so that you wouldn't notice how he barely responded to my argument against his belief that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.

Petitio Principii? Begging the question Fallacy in which his proposition relies on an implicit premise within itself to establish the truth of that same proposition. In other words, it is a statement that refers to its own assertion to prove the assertion.^[1] (LOL).

x = He barely responded to my argument

"x is true because x is true" the premise 'x' is only one of many premises that go into proving that 'x' is true as a conclusion.

He first takes Athanasius "hostage":

Taking St. Athanasius hostage? What a preconceived idea is this? Let me remind him of what he says and I quote: Basically, C. Pio (and other Roman Catholic apologists like him) draws a parallel between the events that had happened to the Ark of the Covenant in 2nd Samuel 6:2 to 14 and the events that had happened to Mary during Christ's conception in Luke 1:39-45, 56.  Their conclusion therefore, having what is seemingly similar between the two, is that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.

So my response to his statement (- statement not ARGUMENT) is this:

Who’s who in other Roman Catholic Apologist who typifies Mary as a New Ark of the Covenant? One famous Roman Catholic Apologist who draws parallel between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant is no other that Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373). He is considered to be a renowned Christian theologian, a Church Father, the chief defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism in the First Council of Nicaea.

          

There you go; I introduced Athanasius a Roman Catholic Apologist who sees Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant.

C. Pio's "hostage" taking is simply this: If Athanasius is wrong about Mary being the Ark of the New Covenant then we are going against the man whom we share other beliefs with such as the 27 New Testament books and the deity of Christ. Is that how it works? 

Obviously, Not. Mr. Soliman is performing a fallacy of presumption once again, he is Poisoning the well. I’m not saying that once you see Athanasius is wrong in some point, you were considered yourself already AGAINST HIM; that you will find yourself against with other beliefs such as the belief in 27 New Testament books and the deity of Christ. Non Sequitur! Let me re-post here what was my response:

If I am wrong and Mr. Soliman is right in accusing me of being subjective misapplications in showing Mary parallel with the Ark of the Covenant, so MUST with Athananius, the great first defender of Christ’s divinity against the second-century heretics, the "Father of The Canon" for being the first person to identify the same 27 books of the New Testament that are in use today against all Gnostic Gospel (eg. Gospel of Judas etc) that deceived Early Christians. But anyways, to whom shall we believe, to Mr. Soliman or to Athananius the man guided by the Holy Spirit and was proven to be in him?

Where was that, that once you say Athanasius is wrong it follows that you are AGAINST HIM? And where is that, that because he (Athanasius) is correct in defending the 27 books of the New Testament and Christ’s divinity, it makes him Infallible?

This is what I said, If I am wrong so must with Athanasius.

Another thing, it is also apparent that Mr. Soliman missed my secondary point; I introduced Athanasius to prove that the teaching on Mary’s sinlessness is as ancient as the development of Christology [Christ is divine: the formal definition at the council of Nicea] and as old as the first attempt to produce the official list of books for possible compilation (bible). In short, Early Christians believed Mary is sinless and this teaching is not newly invented.

Speaking of the canon of Scripture, while Athanasius identified the 27 New Testament books, does C. Pio know that Athanasius denies the canonical status of the Apocrypha:

But for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity; that there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd.  

Athanasius once wrote:

There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number; for, as I have heard, it is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews; their respective order and names being as follows. The first is Genesis, then Exodus, next Leviticus, after that Numbers, and then Deuteronomy. Following these there is Joshua, the son of Nun, then Judges, then Ruth. And again, after these four books of Kings, the first and second being reckoned as one book, and so likewise the third and fourth as one book. And again, the first and second of the Chronicles are reckoned as one book. Again Ezra, the first and second are similarly one book. After these there is the book of Psalms, then the Proverbs, next Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. Job follows, then the Prophets, the twelve being reckoned as one book. Then Isaiah, one book, then Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the epistle, one book; afterwards, Ezekiel and Daniel, each one book. Thus far constitutes the Old Testament.

And he went a little further:

But for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity; that there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. But the former, my brethren, are included in the Canon, the latter being [merely] read; nor is there in any place a mention of apocryphal writings. But they are an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose, bestowing upon them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead astray the simple.

Now the moment of truth: Mr. Soliman was trying to put words to Athanasius’ mouth; He argued that according to St. Athanasius, there were only TWO CLASSES OF ANCIENT WRITING: It's either "Canonical Scripture" or "Apocrypha":[…]does C. Pio know that Athanasius denies the canonical status of the Apocrypha

BUT this is not what Athanasius said, Athanasius used THREE CLASSIFICATIONS NOT TWO:

(a)   Canonical

(b)   Deuterocanonical: which is according to him [W]riting of necessity […] appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness.

(c)   Apocryphal

Apocryphal Scriptures are distinct from Deuterocanonical.

                                                                      

Look at how he uses the Deuterocanical books and references them:

But of these and such like inventions of idolatrous madness, Scripture taught us beforehand long ago, when it said, The devising of idols was the beginning of fornication, and the invention of them, the corruption of life. [Athanasius, Against the Heathen, #11]

This quote is from Wisdom 14:12. And remember above how he had that book classified as "non-canonical." Yet he plainly refers to it as "Scripture." He had a different understanding of terms than what Mr. Soliman do. This is largely where Mr. Soliman has erred. LOL

Again, here are some verses from Deuterocanical books quoted by Athanasius himself in his writings against heretics as listed by one Catholic Apologist:

"But if this too fails to persuade them, let them tell us themselves, whether there is any wisdom in the creatures or not? If not how is it that the Apostle complains, 'For after that in the Wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God?’ [1 Cor 1:21] or how is it if there is no wisdom, that a 'multitude of wise men' [Wisdom 6:24] are found in Scripture? for 'a wise man feareth and departeth from evil;’ [Prov 14:16] and 'through wisdom is a house builded;’ [Prov 24] and the Preacher says, 'A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine;' and he blames those who are headstrong thus, 'Say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire in wisdom concerning this.’ [Eccl 8:1,7:10] But if, as the Son of Sirach says, 'He poured her out upon all His works; she is with all flesh according to His gift, and He hath given her to them that love Him,'[Sirach 1:8,9]" [7] Athanasius the Great: Discourses Against the Arians, 2:79 (A.D. 362), in NPNF2, IV:391

Here he quotes Wisdom and Sirach along with other Scriptural books. The reference to Wisdom is termed ‘Scripture’. In the same breath that he quotes from Ecclesiastes that the Preacher ‘says’, He says that the Son of Sirach ‘says’. He can refer to them in one breath as 'non-canonical' while still quoting them as Scripture.

Since, however, after all his severe sufferings, after his retirement into Gaul, after his sojourn in a foreign and far distant country in the place of his own, after his narrow escape from death through their calumnies, but thanks to the clemency of the Emperor,- -distress which would have satisfied even the most cruel enemy,-- they are still insensible to shame, are again acting insolently against the Church and Athanasius; and from indignation at his deliverance venture on still more atrocious schemes against him, and are ready with an accusation, fearless of the words in holy Scripture, 'A false witness shall not be unpunished;’ [Proverbs 19:5] and, 'The mouth that belieth slayeth the soul;' (Wisdom 1:11) we therefore are unable longer to hold our peace, being amazed at their wickedness and at the insatiable love of contention displayed in their intrigues. [Athanasius the Great: Defence Against the Arians, 3 (A.D. 362), in NPNF2, IV:101

Here St. Athanasius speaks of the fearless words of Holy Scripture. First he quotes Proverbs and then he quotes the Book of Wisdom. He thus terms Wisdom as ‘the fearless words of Holy Scripture.’ He uses it against his enemies. Obvious, even his enemies recognized the Book of Wisdom as the 'fearless words of Holy Scripture'. It is almost amazing to think that some people will use St. Athanasius as an important benchmark of rejecting the Deuteros, but either are ignorant of or conveniently ignore the fact that the Saint himself uses the term ‘fearless words of Holy Scripture’ in reference to the Book of Wisdom.

Let us not fulfill these days like those that mourn but, by enjoying spiritual food, let us seek to silence our fleshly lusts(Ex. 15:1). For by these means we shall have strength to overcome our adversaries, like blessed Judith (Judith 13:8), when having first exercised herself in fasting and prayers, she overcame the enemies, and killed Olophernes. And blessed Esther, when destruction was about to come on all her race, and the nation of Israel was ready to perish, defeated the fury of the tyrant by no other means than by fasting and prayer to God, and changed the ruin of her people into safety (Esther 4:16) [Athanasius the Great: Letter 4, 2 (A.D. 333), in NPNF2, IV:516.

St. Athanasius refers to the need to go to spiritual food to overcome fleshly lusts. He calls Judith 'Blessed', and shows how her example shows how to overcome fleshly lusts through prayers. He also terms Esther 'Blessed'. Thus, he keeps the books and persons of Esther and Judith at the same level of inspiration. Again, no distinction.

The Spirit also, who is in him, commands, saying, 'Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay to the Lord thy vows. Offer the sacrifice of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord (Sir. 18:17).') [Athanasius the Great: Letter 19, 5 (A.D. 333), in NPNF2, IV:546

The Holy Spirit inspires the book of Sirach. St. Athanasius sees the Scripture of Sirach where the Spirit 'commands', through the book of Sirach. If Sirach was unscriptural, how could it 'command'? Obviously St. Athanasius sees Sirach as Scripture.

But this wearied them, for they were not anxious to understand, 'for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory(1 Cor. 2:8).' And what their end is, the prophet foretold, crying, 'Woe unto their soul, for they have devised an evil thought, saying, let us bind the just man, because he is not pleasing to us’(Wis. 2:12). The end of such abandonment as this can be nothing but error, as the Lord, when reproving them, saith, 'Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures(Mt. 22:29).’ [Athanasius the Great: Letter 19:5 (A.D. 347), in NPNF2, IV:546

St. Athanasius terms the Book of Wisdom as written by a prophet. He terms Wisdom 2 as speaking of Jesus, as he was crucified. This is right in the midst of his quotations of 1 Corinthians and the book of Matthew. He quotes his opponents, just as Jesus alludes to his opponents in Matthew, of not knowing the Scriptures. Just as Jesus reproves the Sadduccees for not ‘knowing’ Scripture, Athanasius reproves them for not knowing Wisdom, which is obviously Scripture.

According as the wisdom of God testifies beforehand when it says, "The devising of idols was the beginning of fornication." (Wis. 14:12)Against the Heathen, 9 (A.D. 347), in NPNF2, IV:9.

Here we see St. Athanasius arguing against idolatry, using the book of Wisdom. He calls it 'the wisdom of God'. He uses the passage to teach against idolatry. Again, he sees this as authoritative in reproving idolatry.

          

We have seen citations from Baruch, Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, and the Deuterocanonical books. He calls the books Scriptures, calls the books as written by prophets, fearless words of Holy Scripture and uses it in proving doctrine against heretics.

Contrary to what Mr. Soliman said, Athanasius saw it as Deuterocanonical Books not as an Apocryphal [an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose, bestowing upon them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead astray the simple]. 

Who is C. Pio going to believe now?

                       

Comparing weed to wheat? Obviously, to Athanasius (not to Mr. Soliman)

In addition, what about the other church fathers who does not say Mary is the ark of the New Covenant, such as Hyppolytus:

ON PSALM XXII/XXIII
From the Commentary by the holy bishop and martyr Hippolytus on The Lord is my Shepherd. And, moreover, the ark made of imperishable wood was the Saviour Himself. For by this was signified the imperishable and incorruptible tabernacle (of the Lord) Himself, which gendered no corruption of sin. For the sinner, indeed, makes this confession: "My wounds stank and were corrupt because of my foolishness." But the Lord was without sin, made of imperishable wood, as regards His humanity; that is, of the virgin and the Holy Ghost inwardly, and outwardly of the word of God, like an ark overlaid with purest gold.

Let me quote other translation/version of St. Hippolytus statement [170-c. 236]:

“At that time, the Savior coming from the Virgin, the Ark, brought forth His own Body into the world from that Ark, which was gilded with pure gold within by the Word, and without by the Holy Ghost; so that the truth was shown forth, and the Ark was manifested....And the Savior came into the world bearing the incorruptible Ark, that is to say His own body” (S. Hippolytus, In Dan.vi., Patr. Gr., Tom. 10, p. 648) (Blessed Virgin, p. 77).

St. Hippolytus says that Christ “was sinless, because, according to His humanity, He was fashioned from indestructible wood… out of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost”

But given that his statement is ambiguous, given that he viewed Christ as the Ark not Mary. "what about the other church fathers who does not say Mary is the ark of the New Covenant, such as Hyppolytus".  The question is, Is he opposing the teaching that speaks on Mary's sinlessness? This will not hold water and cannot be used against Mary because Hippolytus attested that she is sinless.

In support, this Greek speaking scholar, bishop, and martyr and considered to be one of the most important witnesses as to how the early church worshipped, once wrote about the Blessed Mary:

But the pious confession of the believer is that, with a view to our salvation, . . . the Creator of all things incorporated with Himself a rational soul and a sensible body from the all-holy Mary, ever-virgin, by an undefiled conception, without conversion, and was made man in nature, but separate from wickedness: the same was perfect God, and the same was perfect man; the same was in nature at once perfect God and man (Against Beron and Helix, Frag VIII).

Notice that Hippolytus refers to Mary as all-holy, and ever-virgin. Since he does this in passing, we may be sure that he is introducing no new teaching about Mary, so that it was common to refer to Mary in these terms before Hippolytus wrote.

Thus, too, they preached of the advent of God in the flesh to the world, His advent by the spotless and God-bearing Mary in the way of birth and growth, and the manner of His life and conversation with men, [...] (A Discourse on the End of the World).

Hippolytus casually address to Mary as spotless and God-bearing.

Mr. Soliman’s response using St. Hippolytus can be summarized in one word: SELECTIVE.

And speaking of selective, here is what C. Pio has to say about that comment when he obviously did not question our parallelism of Joseph the Dreamer and with Joseph the husband of Mary: 

My position is this: Mary is the New Ark of the Covenant; Mr. Soliman’s response? As usual, another Fallacy: An old style Straw-Man fallacy. He simply ignores my actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated and misrepresented version and he is suggesting to draw conclusion according to his own-unheard-typology-which-is-truly-absurd: Expecting for a serious counterargument against fallacies? Oh my… I’m not losing my self yet.

Folks, where did C. Pio quote another sample of typology?  In the New Testament, obviously.  What is the characteristic of the books of the New Testament?  God inspired, of course.  And if it is God inspired, we obviously can't question it. 

When Mr. Soliman states that “the characteristic of the books of the New Testament is God inspired” he is necessarily basing his beliefs on a Tradition outside of Scripture. That is because Scripture is not self-authenticating.

            
Catholic Apologist argued before:

Scripture is not self-authenticating, which is what you are assuming. If it were, then the canon of Scripture would have been settled right away. The fact is, the Church debated it for four centuries. Why? Because it is not self-authenticating. Even after Pope Damasus determined the canon, some in the Church questioned it. The Council of Trent put this to bed by elevating the Church's teaching on the canon to a dogmatic teaching. This is a teaching that you accept, and it was rendered by the Catholic Church.

Mr. Soliman would not know the Scriptures were inspired unless someone first told him that they were. by relying on a source outside of Scripture is to demonstrate the truth that bible undermines Bible alone teaching and it proves that Mr. Soliman relies to the CATHOLIC CHURCH teaching on the canonicity of the books of the present bible today. (Yes, Mr. Soliman accepted Catholic Tradition, but don't know he does). I am sure he will appeal using Bible verse like 2 Timothy 3:16-17 but I have a limited space to discuss this thing here, so it is better for me to provide the link that deals on that argument: Sola Scriptura

          

But is there an apostle in the New Testament who made a parallel between Mary and the old testament Ark?  None, these were done by fallible people after John wrote the book of Revelations.  Don't get me wrong, we can do typology today but it isn't as reliable as those typologies made in the Bible.

Really? Well, Luke provides us information about Mary and the Ark of the Covenant in a SIMPLE AND OBVIOUS WAY, by means of PARALLELS in WORDS AND IMAGES.

Example, Luke makes an interesting word choice in [Luke 1:42]; he tells us that Elizabeth “cried out in a loud voice”. The word translated “cried out” occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. But it does occur five times in Old Testament, and every time it shows up in passages having to do with the Ark of the Covenant, describing the joyful noise God’s people made in celebration of His presence among them.

Why Luke choose this word? Obvious, so that we can’t help noticing the similarity between the Ark of the Covenant and Mary the Mother of my Lord.

As we mentioned before, Mr. Soliman’s article is either a fallacy, a joke or both.

...But expect sooner or later Mr. Soliman will post an article showing one or two of my post (or post from other catholic apologist) lifted few sentences to show of having inconsistency though it’s not if we base and read it on its proper context… as usual this is his trademark so we expect for it J