God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life [Paperback]

Catherine M. LaCugna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 11, 1993

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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

A brilliant theologian revitalizes theology and Christian life by recovering the early Christian roots of God as Trinity. She shows how understanding God as a community of persons is vital to the living of Christian faith.

About the Author

Catherine Mowry LaCugna is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and is the author of God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (June 11, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060649135
• ISBN-13: 978-0060649135
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Challenging, but rewarding, November 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (Paperback)

This book is quite challenging, intellectually, but worth the effort. Be aware of her bias: her position is that the devlopment of Trinitarian theology lost its way after the 4th century Cappadocians! As a result, she asserts, the doctrine lost its relevance. It has become only a source for academic speculation, detached from "real life." LaCugna wants to "rescue" the Trinity from that irrelevance. In the book, she effectively reformulates the doctrine as a source of theological nourishment for the church today. The doctrine only has value, according to LaCugna, if it describes our experience of how God comes to us, offering salvation. In that context, LaCugna does an excellent job of summarizing the historical background to the doctrine of the Trinity, and of connecting the doctrine to the Christian life.

37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on Trinity, August 5, 2000

By 

H. David Peirce "Zossima" (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (Paperback)

The Trinity is one of the most challenging and most neglected doctrines in the Church. Lacugna makes learning about the doctrine A VERY REWARDING EXPERIENCE.

She summarizes the development of the doctrine from the first century to today. Her intent, however, is to argue that the doctrine of the Trinity is not an explanation of a God who is somewhere "out there" in eternity, but rather an explanation of the community of a God who is present and inviting us into community. She supports her position well, drawing from the ancients and contemporary Orthodox and Catholic theologians.

The subject matter of the book is very challenging. It will take most people awhile to get through the material. But each page is a pearl and the reward for reading it is great.

I encourage anybody with an interest in the doctrine of the Trinity to prioritize reading this book.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars LaCugna knows best, just ask her, April 3, 2010

By 

Michael Cashman "readabit" (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (Paperback)

Before I say unfortunate things about this book, I would like to note that LaCugna writes well and appears to have read at least some of her sources (early theologians) carefully. Part one is called "The Emergence and Defeat of the Doctrine of the Trinity". She examines the thinking of early Greek and Latin theologians and Church Councils. In some cases she shows considerable sympathy for their approaches; they have some correct ideas, but they are never quite right, and eventually Thomas Aquinas' unacceptable approach "defeats" the doctrine. And it has remained defeated ever since, waiting for modern theologians to "reconceive" it, which she does in Part Two.

I may not have fully understood the reconceiving, but I am amazed at LaCugna's views of the impact of the [allegedly defective] theology of the trinity. LaCugna states that this defect has had disastrous political consequences. Apparently it has lead to monarchism, racism, sexism, patriarchy, unjust hierarchy, and a view of God as remote from us. LaCugna thinks that most of Christianity has been working with a non-trinitarian theology of God, at least since Thomas Aquinas. My view is that if the textbooks had taught LaCugna's synthesis instead of Aquinas', history, even Church history, would have been much the same. But we'll never know.

I would recommend that anybody who is interested in reading over 400 pages of scholarship aimed at a massive revision of a Church teaching should first familiarise themselves with an equally rigorous and scholarly explanation of what it is, written by somebody who doesn't think it has been a disaster.