God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life – An Extraordinary Theological Work Recovering Early Roots of Doctrine

by Catherine Mowry Lacugna

An extraordinary work that revitalizes theology and Christian life by recovering the early roots of Trinitarian doctrine and exploring the enduringly practical dimensions of faith in God as a community of persons.

Genres: Theology, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Christianity, Religion

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[M Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly the clearest, most helpful book I've read on the subject of the Trinity; well worth a careful read during a busy time (which is why it took me so long to finish).

Gone from this life at far too young an age, Ms. LaCugna did an excellent job of tracing the development of trinitarian theology from the time of the early Church through the scholastic movements in Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Her book shows how the successful defense of Trinitarianism against Arianism and other heresies actually painted orthodox theologians of both the East and the West into a corner that eventually caused their understanding of the Trinity to become sterile and sidelined in the beliefs and practice of the Church at large.

"God For Us" delineates the difference between the theological Trinity (the understanding of how God's "three-in-oneness" is understood in the internal life of God) and the economic Tinity (the understanding of how God's "three-in-oneness" is understood via God's plan of salvation for the world through Christ). LaCugna insisted that a focus on the economic Trinity was the only way to make the doctrine meaningful. Taking off from the work of Karl Rahner, she makes an excellent case for the importance of the Trinity to soteriology and subsequently for Christology and pneumatology as well. Finally, she shows how a proper understanding of the Trinity impacts Christian Ethics -- the abandonment of a functional unitarianism and monarchism releases the Christian to truly live out life in the Way of Jesus, in equality and love.

This book might be difficult for those without previous experience in reading and studying theology but the concepts are crucial. I recommend this highly to all pastors who can incorporate the concepts into their teaching and preaching so that layfolk who are scared off by the rigor of LaCugna's theological thought may benefit from her conclusions.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catherine Mowry LaCugna - a Catholic theologian who passed from this life - it seems to me and many - much too soon. it is however somewhat poetic that prior to her death, she passed on to us a remarkable historical and synthetic work on the core issues of the doctrine of the Trinity for contemporary believers.



In "God For Us," LaCugna deftly argues for a re-claiming of the doctrine of the Trinity from the desutude into which it had fallen as the result of historical circumstances that gave it its unique shape but which, in her view, no longer allow it to speak adequately to broader Christian theology or to the wider world.



The basic thrust of LaCugna's argument is that traditional Catholic Protestant and Orthodox theologies of the Trinity, although begun in a real and effective effort to safeguard the content of revelation in the Scriptures, eventually took some turns which divorced it from that content through the appropriation of a metaphysical vocabulary that had more to do with strands of third and fourth century Neoplatonism than it did with the God revealed in the life, witness, death, resurrection and cause of Jesus Christ. LaCugna holds that a combination of efforts among theologians of the Western (Latin) Church from the 4th century on, while not intending to do so, produced a trajectory that essentially divided perspectives on God into (a) God as God is in God's own inner life (the "immanent" Trinity) and (b) God as God is in God's relation to us (the "economic" Trinity). LaCugna argues in the first part of her book from an historical analysis of Augustine and Aquinas in the West and Gregory Palmas in the East that the original insight of theologizing about God from the revealed activity of God in the economy of salvation was lost, producing a "breach" in the doctrine of the Trinity that led to a fixation on the life of God in Godself. This breach has subsequently produced a marginalization of the doctrine of the Trinity, to the point of near total irrelevance.



In making the claim about the irrelevance of the doctrine of the Trinity in the second millennium, LaCugna echoes the insight of Karl Rahner and several other contemporary theologians. In the second part of her book, she engages with a few select figures and their efforts to respond to that issue. Among these are Rahner himself, Karl Barth, John Zizioulas, Boff, and key feminist theologians. Her analysis leads her to argue for a return to the insight of the personal and relational aspect of the Trintiy as revealed in the life of Jesus Christ as a foundation for understanding both the Trinity and its relevance to Christian theology and life. She draws from a relational ontology that seeks to overcome not only the theological deficiencies noted above, but the inadequate notion of the individual which emerged from the eighteenth century European Enlightenment. Recognizing the person as a fundamentally communion-oriented relational entity, LaCugna uses this as a cipher to re-articulate an understanding of the Trinity and, in turn, applies this Trinitarian model of communion in a heuristic way when applying it to Christian prayer, belief, and life - which she views as integrally related to the doctrine of the Trinity and to each other.



There are significant points in her book that merit specialized study. For example, it is unclear if the "breach" between the economic and immanent Trinity should be laid at the feet of Augustine, Aquinas, and Palmas or their less capable interpreters. Additionally, there may be significant difficulties in simply saying God as God is "for us" and God as God is "for God" are totally equivalent. However, the issues raised and the contribution made to resolving those issues are a masterful contribution to contemporary Christian discourse about God.



One can only hope that from where she is now, LaCugna can know the fullness of love and mercy and joy of the Triune God she so emphatically claimed was "for us."

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Argues that developing theological reflection slowly separated economy from theology, which made the Trinity appear more and more irrelevant. I am not sure about her thesis in the specifics, but I think she is on to something: positing an ontological God apart from God’s decision to redeem the world in Christ does create a metaphysical gap in God. Like others before her, she seeks to correlate the pattern of God’s salvation in history with the being of God (Lacugna 4).

Introduction and Chapter 1

Contrary to what might appear, she is not arguing a “fall” in the early church from Nicene onwards. Rather, the early church necessarily (and rightly) used the philosophical and theological categories available to confront heresies. The downside is that these categories made correct speech about God increasingly difficult.

Lacunga correctly downplays the so-called differences between East and West on the Trinity. That there are differences is evident, but neither side has the clear advantage. Both ended up separating the being of God from his Acts in history.

“Economy” is the pattern of God’s saving actions in history. It is “the order that expresses the mystery of God’s eternal being” (25; cf. Ephesians 1:3-14). Few early theologians would deny this, but more and more were led, outside of a strong Nicene philosophy, to a subordinationist Christology: God sends Christ who sends the apostles (and/or the Spirit). Lacugna sees Irenaeus as evidencing this subordinationism, but I don’t think he is. She says he is influenced by the Logos Christology of the Apologists, but the text she quotes from Irenaeus evidences nothing of the strict separation of Logos endiathetos/Logos prophorikos. Of course, it would be equally mistaken to read a sophisticated Nicene understanding of “being” back into Irenaeus.

After Irenaeus oikonomios took on a new connotation: (For Tertullian) “the economy of the divine being expresses the unity of the Father” (28). This in itself is not problematic, but it moves the emphasis from what God has done to speculations about the metaphysical oneness of God.

The Problem of Arius

Arius’s challenge was not so much that he had good arguments against the Son’s deity, but that the way he phrased the arguments seem to account for a lot of biblical passages. He did highlight key areas where talk of God’s economy had been eclipsed. The response to Arius was mostly successful: Christ is the economy of God come into the world. The metaphysical oneness of Father and Son, however, made it difficult to talk of God suffering for us.

The Cappadocians

In this section Lacugna gives some helpful clarifications of the philosophical jargon that the Cappadocians used. She sets forth the fundamental thesis of the Cappadocians as God’s ousia exists as three hypostases (54).

Stoic categories: a category is a predicate, a way of talking about being. There are four of these:
substance ←> matter
quality: that which differentiates matter
Disposition: being in a certain state of matter
relation: that which an object is defined by

Aristotelian categories:
Primary substance: a particular entity (this oak tree)
secondary substance: a generalized entity (oak-ness)
relation: a term is relative to another if it implies another (a Father is constituted by Son). Relation is the weakest (thinnest) of categories because it only says what a thing is with reference to another and nothing about the entity itself.

Relational categories work quite nicely when talking about Father or Son. Problem, though: “Spirit” is not a relational term. As Lacugna notes, “The distinction of hypostases is grounded in the relation of origins” (67).

Pros and cons of Cappadocian Theology

Saying that the three hypostases manifest the divine ousia lessens the gap between ontology and economy. However, this seems to cut against their likewise assertion that God’s ousia is so unknowable. One agrees that it is, but what is the point of saying that if the hypostases manifest the ousia? If they do, then in some sense the ousia is knowable.

Further, to the degree that hypostasis still connotes a concrete existent of the divine ousia, there is the spectre of tritheism. To speak of hypostases concretizing the ousia almost implies that the ousia is divisible (Sergius Bulgakov makes this point with much force, The Comforter, Eerdmans).

Aquinas:

After Feurbach and the Enlightenment, the idea of an “in-itself” is viewed as an impossibility.

Palamas:

The main problem with Palamas is that he posited an essence-beyond-essence, or God in itself. Indeed, one can see the Palamite structure accordingly:

God-essence

Persons

----------------- (line of hyperousia)

Energies

the heart of the criticism: ousias do not have “interiorities.” In other words, there is not a subsection of ousia apart from the life of that ousia. As Heidegger reminds us, “ousia” is always “par-ousia,” being present. If Palamas wants to say that the energies make the ousia present, fine. But if he says that, then one really doesn’t have warrant to speak of a superessential, ineffable ousia by itself, for the very point of the energies and of ousia in general is that it is not by itself.
Perhaps the most damaging criticism of Palamas is the divorcing of economy and ontology. Related to this is that the energies seem to replace the role of the Persons in the divine economy. For example, the energies are not unique to a single person but common to all three who act together. This is not so different from the standard Western opera ad intra indivisible sunt. Lacugna, quoting Wendebourg, notes, “the proprium of each person...fades into the background” (Lacugna, 195). By contrast, the Cappadocians would say we distinguish the Persons by their propria--by their hypostatic idiomata. In Palamas, though, this role has been moved to the energies. This is further confirmed by the fact that Palamas has the persons as hyperousia. If we can no longer distinguish the persons by their propria, then Palamas is guilty of the same modalism that the East accuses the West of.


Part 2

Lacugna begins with an interesting observation. Pre-Nicene liturgy consisted of a lot of mediatorial prayers to the Father through Christ. While this was not denied by later Trinitarianism, neither was it affirmed as much. From a later vantage point it didn’t seem to make much sense to see Christ as a mediator when he was primarily thought of as sharing the same being as the father. Of course, one does not deny Christ’s consubsantiality, but the emphasis on theologia soon eclipsed the biblical witness to economia. Lacugna draws the conclusion: the saints were soon seen as mediators (210).

Conclusion and Critique

My critique will also include a lot of the later material in her book. While I think her initial thesis is sound (a hard divorce between economy and theology posits an irrelevant Trinity), I think she is rather haphazard in applying it. She correctly notes that on the Cappadocians’ model, God exists as Father, Son, and Spirit, yet she downplays problems for the Cappadocians (they came very close to concretizing the essence; their mysticism made much of their Trinitarianism irrelevant, and so they are prey to Lacugna’s critique). Further, while her take on Zizioulas is appreciated, and though she offers a brilliant and brutal critique of Palamas, she doesn’t really take into account Palamas’s virtual dogmatic status in the Orthodox world. This makes it rather problematic for her to say we should look to the East on the Trinity.

Further, regarding the word “Person.” In her discussion on Barth she does note that that the definition of “person” shifted from the ancient world to the modern.. She accuses Barth of modalism because Barth defined “person” as tropos huparxos and that God is one divine subject who exists in three modes of simultanaeity. There is a certain irony in Lacugna’s rejection of Barth: Barth used the exact same definition, literally word-for-word, as Gregory of Nyssa, to whom Lacugna says we ought to return! The problem, as Bruce McCormack has noted, is that the word person in the post-Enlightenment world simply doesn’t mean the same thing as it did in the ancient world. He notes,

Second comment: as Bruce indicated, the problem repeatedly in the nineteenth century was the assumption that the patristic hypostasis and prosopon could be translated into the English ‘person’, with all the connotations of those words in a post-Romantic age. Strauss, for instance (a quotation Bruce used): ‘to speak of two natures in one person is to speak of a single self-consciousness, for what else could a single person mean?’ However, it is clear that in the patristic construction of Trinity and Christology such ‘personal’ characteristics as ‘self-consciousness’, if considered at all, were attached to natures not persons—this was, for instance, the whole point of the orthodox solutions to the monoenergist and monothelite controversies. (This is why Barth preferred ‘mode of being’ to ‘person’ for the three hypostases of the Trinity; in post-Romantic terms, all that is ‘personal’ in God is one.)

Translation: Person in modern-speak means a situated self-consciousness, implying, among other things, a mind. This is most certainly not what the Patristics meant, to the degree they had a coherent definition of person, anyway. “Self-consciousness” and “mind” for the Fathers was located in the nature, not the person (otherwise we would have three or four minds in the Trinity). Lacugna simply hasn’t reflected enough on what person can mean. To say we should go back to “personalism” is not helpful at all. You can’t say you want to go back to the robust personalism of the Cappadocians if you mean person = self-consciousness, for that’s precisely what the Cappadocians rejected! I have my own reservations about Barth’s project, but he knew exactly what both he and the Cappadocians were saying and avoided all the problems that Lacugna’s project succumbs.

A Trinitarian Ethic

This is where he project comes close to self-destruction. Despite being a Roman Catholic and teaching at Notre Dame, Lacugna is a feminist. To be fair, though, she blunts a lot of her feminist critique and actually raises good points. My problem in this section is her use of vague language that will likely provide fodder for later mischief.

Conclusion:

Despite being published by Harper San Francisco, this is a surprisingly good read. The historical analyses on the Cappadocians and Augustine are superb. She corrected a lot of my own misreadings of Augustine. I don’t think she has fully reflected either on how the modern world forced Trinitarian dialogue to mutate nor does she really understand what the Cappadocians were saying.

[Steve Irby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished "God For Us: The Trinity & Christian Life," by Catherine Mowry LaCugna.

I've been wanting to read this for quite some time. Starting out LaCugna defines her terms well; she doesn't assume we all took Latin together back in the day from Fr. Mulcahy (yes, she was a Roman scholar). Not just the languages but also things like the "historical Jesus" get a quick blurb if there's more there than meets the eye. And for the heavy lifting this book is she reads well.

Her methodological principal is that the doctrine of God can't be separated from the doctrine of salvation. And early on she affirms that Jesus can't be different than God (the transcendent looks like the immanent).

LaCugna deals with the patristics and their Trinitarian history starting with the east and then the west. The west quickly lands heavily on Augustine and how he was grounding his thought in neo-Platonism/Plotinism. This is the most in depth history I've read that didn't really get into early Christology.

In liturgical development LaCugna actually deals with Mt 28:19 and how this has to be a later modification or the writers reflection of early church practice, though oddly she doesn't sink the nail by pointing out Acts 2:38. Though understandably because it wasn't an apologetic for baptism in the name of Jesus.

This first half of the book is some Aristotllian heavy lifting.

Part two begins by looking at Rahner's rules that the immanent trinity and the economic trinity are the same in a A=A way. She lands on the trinity is the economic trinity. My guess is that this is all we can really speak about intelligently. Her handicap is being stuck inside a classical theistic framework and having to check every box like simplicity and immutability. (Edit from P 300: yes and no. She modifies her stance on immutability but is still sunk in classical theism.) W

LaCugna works with Barth's "mode of being" better than some I have read, while saying "...whether this modalism is Sabellian could be debated," p 252. Barth went back to "Person" per the patristic Latin church rather than a post Descartes/post enlightenment definition. While Rahner refused "person" because it's not scriptural and opts for "distinct modes of subsisting" which is found in 2 Hebrew. 4: 20.

Dealing with the Filioque against liberation and feminists frameworks LaCugna has all proceeding from all, not just the Spirit from the Father and (or through the) Son so as to avoid subordination.

As the final thrust LaCugna says all theology should be Pneumo-Christological because that (the economy) is what we know of God, not God in se. Therefore the Trinity should begin at the same place and not in se.


#CatherineMowryLacugna #CatherineLacugna #GodForUs #Trinity #TrinitarianTheology

[Jeffrey N. Hora · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good, very challenging book. I didn't quite realize when I started that the depth of the theology and history of the doctrine of the Trinity would be quite so large a piece of this. However, taking the time to work through that facilitates the arrival of the last third or so of the book which I found to my much more helpful to my reasons for taking this on and really appreciated the working through of the author of how this impacts every day life. One quibble is that the physical book was missing the very last page....so no literal finish to the book, although that could be seen as a note that the working out of the Trinitarian life for me is something that doesn't end!

I recommend this book for those who wish to really dig into the mystery of the Trinity, but be ready to take the time for it to sink in. I'm n theologian or seminarian, so it was more of a challenge for me, but one I'm happy to have taken.

[Jamey Yadon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to give this book four stars, but I think it could have been much shorter. That being said, LaCugna's case is compelling and illuminating. The doctrine of the Trinity is important for Christian teaching and living, and LaCugna traces the history that made it seem so remote and speculative. She also sets us up to put trinitarian language and thinking back where they belong: in our prayers, sermons, and meditation.

[Jon Håversen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ikke lest hele, men store deler ifm skole. Nokså interessant bok fra katolsk-feministisk perspektiv. Klart nærmere 4 enn 2. Jeg mener nok LaCugna overdriver situasjonen i stor grad og tegner opp ytterpunkter for å gjøre seg selv mer legitim. Du kommer til å klare å leve lykkelig uten å ha lest denne :)

[Cappy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"[Iranaeus] uses the image that Christ and the Spirit are the two 'hands' of God the Father who do God's work in creation (pg. 26)."

"Tertullian was the first to use the Latin word 'trinitas' (pg. 29)."

"If Christian theology had let go the insistence on God's impassibility and affirmed God suffers in Christ, it could have kept together, against Arianism, the essential unity and identity between the being of God and the being of Christ (pg. 43)."

"But knowledge of the [plan of salvation] is still only a reflection of what God is. The economy discloses that and how God is, but not what God is (pg. 56-57)."

"Nor does the title of Father present 'ousia' [or 'substance'] but only relation to the Son. Even the word 'God' falls short of indicating the 'ousia' since it, too, is a noun of relation (pg. 63)."

"The difficulty remains that the distinction between Son and Father is now no longer the difference between God and creature but between God and God. The creaturely Jesus of Nazareth is entirely absent from this picture, having been replaced by the eternal divine Son. This would create a void in piety as well that would have to be filled by the saints (pg. 73)."

"The quest for knowledge of God or of God's 'ousia' 'in itself' or 'by itself' is doomed to failure. It is based on the mistake of thinking that God exists 'by Godself' or as an 'in itself'. The point of the doctrine of the Trinity is that God's 'ousia' exists only as persons who are toward another, with another, through another (pg. 193)."

"We ourselves should abandon the self-defeating fixation on 'God in se' and become content with contemplating the mystery of God's activity in creation, in human personality and human history, since it is there in the economy and nowhere else that the 'essence' of God is revealed (pg. 225)."

"The doctrine of the Trinity is not ultimately a teaching about 'God' but a teaching about God's life with us and our life with each other (pg. 228)."

"True persons are motivated positively toward all other persons (pg. 258)."

"The church is supposed to make it possible for human beings to transcend individualism and exclusivism (pg. 263-264)."

"Not through its own merit but through God's election from all eternity, humanity has been made a partner in the divine dance (pg. 274)."

"In the reign of God human beings are judged on how they love others, not on whether they are male or female, white or black, bright or mediocre (pg. 282)."

"Jesus experienced all the drives and ambiguities of bodily existence: from thirst, sex, hunger and need for sleep, to doubt, fear, and longing, suffering, and finally death itself (pg. 294)."

"The criterion for the presence and activity of the Spirit is whether or not there is genuine communion among persons - which is not the same thing as uniformity in custom, opinion, rite, or dogma. If there is not communion, the Spirit is not present (pg. 299)."

"It is one thing to say that God is incomprehensible mystery because we do not know the essence of God as it is in itself. It is another thing to say that God is incomprehensible because God is personal (pg. 302)."

"The living God is the God who is alive in relationship, alive in communion with the creature, alive with desire for union with every creature. God is so thoroughly involved in every last detail of creation that if we could truly grasp this is would altogether change how we approach each moment of our lives (pg. 304)."

"It would be a mistake to conclude that everything has been said about God that can be said (pg. 321)."

"Mystery is not the same thing as mysteriousness, a phenomenon that will be cleared up by a forthcoming explanation, nor is mystery the same as an enigma or a puzzle...Like all love relationships, the involvement between God and humanity cannot easily be described and can only inadequately be explained (pg. 323)."

"Only a fool would be so bold as to presume to speak authoritatively about God's ineffable mystery (pg. 324)."

"Complaint and protestation against God are not the same as hatred of God (pg. 341)."

"Everything that promotes fullness of humanity, that builds up relationships based on charity and compassion, glorifies God (pg. 343)."

"Life is not our possession, but a means of being for others, being in communion with others. We were created for the purpose of glorifying God by means of the whole network of our relationships (pg. 347)."

"We do not fully know what God is up to in human history and human personality, but we do not doubt that what God is doing is nothing other than what serves the communion of all in all, even if we cannot always perceive it (pg. 361)."

"God speaks through all who love, even or especially through those without ecclesiastical or theological credentials (pg. 366)."

"There is a heavy price for entering the kingdom; those who follow Jesus will be beaten, put on trial, persecuted, betrayed, reviled, lied about, and hated. And we are to rejoice in all this! (pg. 386)"

"The reign of God cannot be definitively established until every creature is incorporated into the new order of things, the new heaven, the new earth (pg. 399)."

[Jan Petrozzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book challenging to read. However, LaCugna appears to be a popular authority on the Trinity. She has written a book that brings the Trinity to the forefront where it belongs.

[Franny Hess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nerdy and very good

[Brooklynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catherine really slayed with this one🫶🏼

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know why it took me so long to pick up this book, published more than two decades ago, but it has proven to be revelatory. Catherine Mowry LaCugna provides us with a thoughtful and provocative exposition of the Trinitarian faith, showing that the immanent Trinity (God in God's self) cannot be known except through God's economy of salvation. She demonstrates with great coherence that we know God's being (ousia) in God's persons as Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Because we know God in terms of persons, who are in relationship, our faith should be relational -- and egalitarian.

This provides historical and theological accounting, but ends with an important chapter on living in the Trinity, for we know God as Trinity in God's work of salvation in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Take and read!

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy read. Essentially, the first half tells the history of the Christian Trinity and how it became essentially irrelevant to living a Christian Life. Lacugna cites one author (whom I don't remember) as saying "If the concept of the trinity were eliminated, most Christian writing of the 20th century would not be affected." As I understand it, Lacugna's thesis is that the Trinity shows how God is relational and active in the world and, since humanity is created in the image of God, Humanity is relational with all creation...human or non-human. That is, Care and Love are the foundations of a Christian life. This is a book written for believers and not meant to convince people who are not believers in the Christianity. However, for those who are, the injunction to "Love others...human, animals, plants, all creation..as yourself" is exemplified by the Christian Trinity.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

One needs time to carefully read this, especially as a relative novitiate to formal theological study. It is worth every moment and is staying on my shelves for later study and devotional reading.

[Luke Mohnasky · Rating 3 out of 5]

LaCugna had a dry communication of an amazing concept. She, while being faithful to the confession of the church, did not deliver in literary engagement.