Faith in the Mediator

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Not sure if this should go under philosophy of scripture, but anyways:

Does Faith in the Mediator as a concept imply an understanding that the Mediator is a Person of the Godhead? If so does that imply a natural knowledge that the Godhead has multiple Persons? Or would the knowledge have been infused by a special action of grace?

Many thanks in advance
 
I looked up the Oxford English Dictionary and saw:

b. gen. A person who intervenes between two parties, esp. for the purpose of effecting reconciliation; an intercessor; a person who brings about an agreement, treaty, etc., or settles a dispute by mediation.​

Thus it seems that a mediator is a person. But I would suggest there is no a priori need for the mediator to be ‘a person of the Godhead’. The Gospel only notes the one Mediator is human. It says nothing about the Mediator being God.

For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human, (1 Ti 2:5).
 
Modern Catholic Dictionary:

MEDIATOR. A title of Christ as the one who reconciled God and the human race. It is based on the teaching of St. Paul, that “there is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and mankind, Himself a man, Christ Jesus, who sacrificed Himself as a ransom for them all” (I Timothy 2:5-6). Christ is best qualified to be the mediator, i.e., one who brings estranged parties to agreement. As God, he was the one with whom the human race was to be reconciled; as a human being, he represented the ones who needed reconciliation. Christ continues his work of mediation, no longer to merit the grace of human forgiveness, but to communicate the grace already won on the Cross. Moreover, others than Christ may also be called mediators in a totally secondary sense, “in that they co-operate in our reconciliation; disposing and ministering to men’s union with God” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica , III, 48, 1). In fact every person, insofar as he or she co-operates with divine grace, is a kind of mediator between himself or herself and God. (Etym. Latin mediator , from mediare , to stand or divide in the middle.)
 
Metatron1 said:
Not sure if this should go under philosophy of scripture, but anyways:

Does Faith in the Mediator as a concept imply an understanding that the Mediator is a Person of the Godhead?
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No - because Scripture includes instances of “mediation” between God and a human mediator. (eg. Abraham Gen. 18:16 et seq.; Moses Ex.32:7 et seq. )
If so does that imply a natural knowledge that the Godhead has multiple Persons? Or would the knowledge have been infused by a special action of grace?
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These chapters from the Catechism would apply regarding the Trinity:

CCC 50 By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation. Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

CCC 237 The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the “mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God”.To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel’s faith before the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
 
Montrose said:
Please do not try to badger me. There are forum rules about that!!
The mediator is Christ.
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Sincerest apologies. I regret very much if I upset you. I really had no intention of badgering you.
I appreciate very much being a participant in CAF, and I benefit from our discussions. So please do not be perturbed with my post and I assure you of my best regards and intention to be constructuve and to help built us all up in the faith.
 
Thanks for the helpful answers. The Trinity is of course a mystery of faith, but perhaps I reasoned poorly when I implied that faith in the Mediator might extend further than the unity of essence of the Godhead to the knowledge of an actual distinction of persons.

It seems possible, however, that the manifest imperfection of justification effected by man would lead to the inference that if man is ordered to salvation, this could only be effected by some sort of Divine expiation.

This is actually what sold me on Christianity in my early 20s. And the Catholic Church seems to be inseparable from Christ as his body. And so I was baptised and confirmed at 26 and in two years it seems like I’ve been Catholic my whole life.
 
Welcome home!
God is so amazing – He knows exactly which of His truths will have a powerful effect in guiding someone into the fullness of His truth. He led/graced you to an understanding of the need for a Divine savior - for Divine expiation -and the recognition of the Catholic Church as the fullest manifestation of His Mystical Body.
 
NoelFitz said:
Sincerest apologies. I regret very much if I upset you. I really had no intention of badgering you.
I appreciate very much being a participant in CAF, and I benefit from our discussions. So please do not be perturbed with my post and I assure you of my best regards and intention to be constructuve and to help built us all up in the faith.
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Thanks. No problem.
 
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