Between God and Man: Augustine, Bede, Catherine, and Calvin on Christ the Mediator

Abstract

This dissertation uses the work of four historical theologians—Augustine of Hippo, the Venerable Bede, Catherine of Siena, and John Calvin—to analyze Christ’s identity as “the mediator between God and humanity, the man Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 2:5). Specifically, I explore the problem of whether a unitive or single-subject Christology, in which all of Christ’s incarnate actions and attributes are predicated of the incarnate Word of God rather than of one or the other of His natures, can be reconciled with the idea that Christ is the Mediator between God and humanity and therefore in some sense lower than God the Father. Analysis of these four theologians reveals that this tension is as much a question about kinds of theological language as it is a problem of what language is correct.Augustine sets up this central tension with his argument that Christ is the Mediator only in humanity and his consequent sense of Christ’s humanity as an epistemological stair-step to his divinity. Bede, Catherine, and Calvin each represent different ways of dealing with or avoiding this tension while identifying Christ as the Mediator in both divinity and humanity. In analyzing the writings of each of these theologians, I show that their overall sense of Christ’s mediation takes a similar path, beginning with the way that creation and fall creates division between humanity and God that requires a Mediator, then explaining how the nature of the Incarnation and Christ’s passion enable humanity to be reunited to God and how the Church is united with Christ to enact that mediation, and ending with the eschaton as the completion of Christ’s mediating work. This project represents a significant step forward in the study of Bede’s and Catherine’s Christology, as well as bringing out unique aspects of each theologian’s thought by comparison with the others. I conclude by arguing that the way Christ’s mediation is framed, and the level to which mediation is a threat to Trinitarian equality, is at its heart a question about the relative priority of metaphysical and narrative theological language, and that the difference between those types of language can help resolve the tension. The Trinitarian economy of salvation is patient of many descriptions, some of which can be taken more literally than others; but the Scriptural narrative rightfully takes precedence.