format_quote Originally Posted by
AntiKarateKid
Jon, one of my Christian friends said this:
"There are Christians and then there are Catholics" in response to me asking if they believed Jesus was a mediator between man and God. She asserted that Jesus was not a mediator but God himself and Catholics were the only ones to hold this view.
Your thoughts?
Hello there, AntiKarate. I shall provide you with an answer as best I can :).
Before I can answer your question, I must explain the Holy Trinity. To make this nice and simple—the Trinity is complex, ever for us Catholics :P!—I shall use a 12th century visual symbol called the
Scutum Fidei or the Shield of the Holy Trinity.
The Father is God.
The Son is God.
The Holy Ghost is God.
God is the Father.
God is the Son.
God is the Holy Ghost.
The Father is not the Son.
The Son is not the Father.
The Father is not the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost is not the Father.
The Son is not the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost is not the Son.
Now, this is not meant to be a schematic diagram of the structure of God but is merely a compact visual divice for which the above statments of the Athanasian Creed can be read off.
You must also bare in mind that the Holy Trinity is a mystery. We cannot fully understand it until perhaps we share in the Beatific Vision.
Now, with this basis in mind, I can expan. I have recently posted a new thread asking for the Islamic view on Adam, Eve and Original Sin. It is still waiting for moderation as I type this up. So I may speak of over-lapping themes.
After the fall from Original Justice. Man needed a savior and redeemer to restablish his relationship with God the Father. He has insulted the dignity of God, yet the dignity of God is infinite because He is perfect. This is where Jesus Christ, the Son of God comes in. He acts as the mediator between man and the Father. We believe Christ is God, the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Being God, Christ could assume our fallen human nature, and suffer the temporal punishments—those common to all humanity—that man incurred for disobeying God.
Doing so, when he suffered and died for us, he satisifed for Divine Justice and Atoned the sins of man. He re-established our connection with God the Father. This is how Jesus Christ is our mediator. He is our mediator precisely
because He is God.
In Catholicism there is also a branch of theology called Mariology. This is the theological study of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven. The Church maintains it is an acceptable belief that Mary acts as the mediatrix between ourselves and Christ. It was through Mary that Christ came to us, and it is through Mary that we can come to be with Christ, and in so come to be with the Father.
This is a belief held through the fact of the personal connection Christ has with His mother. Also, the Blessed Virgin is of us, she is a woman, she is human. St Louis de Montfort speaks of the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary as so; the heart of a True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin is Jesus Christ, to Christ through Mary.
I hope this helps. I realise Mary may have confused this issue. But I believe it is only a matter of time before her own role is brought up. So I prefer to get it in their right now. However you don't need the Marist part of my reply to understand the rest.
Regards,
JP.