Catherine LaCugna

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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."{{Cite journal |last=Toohey |first=Denis |date=2010 |title=Practical implications for trinitarian life for us |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/867268630 |journal=Compass |volume=44 |issue=4 |id={{ProQuest|867268630}} }} Building on the work of Karl Rahner,{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} 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|date=August 2023}} 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|date=August 2023}}

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|date=August 2023}} Thomas Aquinas's scholastic theology took theological speculation to a whole new level.{{editorializing|date=August 2023}}

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."{{cite book |last=Mowry LaCugna |first=Catherine |date=1991 |title= God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life |location= New York, NY|publisher= HarperCollins Publishers|page= 231|isbn=0-06-064913-5}} 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".{{cite book |last=Mowry LaCugna |first=Catherine |date=1991 |title= God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life |location= New York, NY|publisher= HarperCollins Publishers|page=411|isbn=0-06-064913-5}} "God is essentially relational," she wrote, and humans are called by God's grace to enter into that mode of loving relationship.{{Cite web |last=Gaillardetz |first=Richard |title=Trinity: Loving relationship defines God's very being |url=https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/trinity-loving-relationship-defines-gods-very-being |access-date=2025-03-12 |website=National Catholic Reporter |language=en}}

LaCugna's doctrine of the Trinity has been challenged by theologians such as Nicholas Lash and James William McClendon, Jr.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}

Professor LaCugna received two significant teaching awards from Notre Dame University. In 1993, she received the Frank O'Malley undergraduate teaching award, and she received the Charles E. Sheedy Teaching Award in 1996.{{cite web |last1=Garvey |first1=Michael |title=LaCugna dies of cancer |url=https://news.nd.edu/news/lacugna-dies-of-cancer/ |website=Notre Dame News |accessdate=21 August 2019 |date=May 4, 1997}}{{cite web |last1=Henry |first1=Patrick |title=Collegeville Institute Greats: Catherine Mowry LaCugna |url=https://collegevilleinstitute.org/bearings/ci-greats-catherine-lacugna/ |website=Collegeville Institute |accessdate=21 August 2019 |date=October 6, 2017}}{{cite web |url=http://al.nd.edu/about/the-faculty/sheedy-award/award-recipients/ |title=Award Recipients // College of Arts and Letters // University of Notre Dame |accessdate=2013-11-12 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131112130042/http://al.nd.edu/about/the-faculty/sheedy-award/award-recipients/ |archivedate=2013-11-12 }} In 1991, her book God fo Us wone a first place award from the Catholic Press Association.

In 2005, the Catholic Theological Society of America created the Catherine Mowry LaCugna Award. It is given annually "to new scholars for the best academic essay in the field of theology within the Roman Catholic tradition."{{Cite web |title=Catholic Theological Society of America – Awards |url=https://ctsa-online.org/Awards |access-date=2025-03-12 |website=ctsa-online.org}}

• The Theological Methodology of Hans Kung {{ISBN|0891305467}}{{Cite book |last=LaCugna |first=Catherine Mowry |url=https://archive.org/details/theologicalmetho0000lacu |title=The theological methodology of Hans Küng |date=1982 |publisher=Chico, CA : Scholars Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-89130-546-0}}
• God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life {{ISBN|0-06-064913-5}}
• Freeing Theology : The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective {{ISBN|0-06-064935-6}} (editor)

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Category:1952 births

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