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Catherine Mowry LaCugna's 1991 book, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, has been described as "a landmark work in the ongoing revitalization of trintarian theology."^[1] Stanley J. Grenz has described it as "the culmination of an array of essays on trinitarian theology, published in various scholarly journals and books between 1984 and 1989," and as earning LaCugna a "place in the theological hall of fame."^[2]

In her introduction to the book, LaCugna describes the doctrine of the Trinity as "a practical doctrine with radical consequences for Christian life" and a "theology of relationship, which explores the mysteries of love, relationship, personhood and communion within the framework of God's self-revelation in the person of Christ and the activity of the Spirit."(p. 1)^[3] She insists on what she describes as a "simple methodological principle: Theology (the doctrine of God) is inseparable from soteriology (the doctrine of salvation)." (p 8.). She breaks the argument of her book into two parts. In the six chapters of Part I, "The Emergence and Defeat of the Doctrine of the Trinity," she reviews the "reasons for and the immediate consequences of the rupture between theologia and oikonomia" (p.9), i.e., between "the mystery of God and the mystery of salvation"(p4).

Part II, "Re-Conceiving the Doctrine of the Trinity in Light of the Mystery of Salvation," consists of ten chapters in which she develops the argument that theologia and oikonomia can be reunited.

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LaCugna, a Western theologian, sought common ground with Eastern Christians through re-examining early Christian scholars or Church Fathers. She rejected modern individualist notions of personhood and emphasised the self-communication of God.

Dennis Toohey contends that "LaCugna also approaches the doctrine of the Trinity from the economy of salvation." Building on the work of Karl Rahner,^{[citation needed]} LaCugna argued that the "demise of the doctrine of the Trinity" started when early church theologians had to respond to the teachings of Arius, arch-heretic of the Christian Church.^{[citation needed]} Arius' doctrine required a response, and the Church Fathers' response began the theological trek into speculation on the inner, hidden life of God, commonly referred to as the Immanent Trinity. Whereas before, theologians had concentrated on the nature of God as revealed in God's actions in history (commonly called the Economic Trinity).^{[citation needed]}

According to LaCugna, the Church Father Augustine furthered this divide between economic and immanent Trinity with his psychological model of the Trinity, which described the inner life of God as being like a human's memory, intellect, and will.^{[citation needed]} Thomas Aquinas's scholastic theology significantly expanded the scope of theological inquiry.

Against Rahner and Karl Barth (in Church Dogmatics I/1, §9), LaCugna wished to retain the use of the word persons in relation to the three persons of the Trinity (cf. God for us, p. 252). LaCugna saw Rahner's manners of subsisting and Barth's modes (or ways) of being as too easily adopting the modern notion of individualistic personhood, instead of a relational and interdependent model.

LaCugna says that God is known ontologically only through God's self-revelation in the economy of salvation, and that "[t]heories about what God is apart from God's self-communication in salvation history remain unverifiable and ultimately untheological." She says faithful Trinitarian theology must be practical and include an understanding of our own personhood in relationship with God and each other, which she calls "living God's life with one another". LaCugna wrote that “God is essentially relational” and argued that, through grace, humans are invited to participate in divine love.

LaCugna's doctrine of the Trinity has been challenged by theologians such as Nicholas Lash and James William McClendon, Jr.^{[citation needed]}

[1]
Groppe, Elizabeth T. (2002). "Catherine Mowry LaCugna's contribution to trinitarian theology". Theological Studies. 63 (4): 730–763.
[2]
Grenz, Stanley J. (2004). Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. pp. 147–162, 219–220. ISBN 0-8006-3654-6.
[3]
LaCugna, Catherine Mowry (1993). God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (First HarperCollins paperback ed.). HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-064913-5.

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