LaCugna and Augustine both end up with a relational account of God and humanity, but they start from different places and emphasize different things: Augustine begins from divine unity and uses psychological analogies; LaCugna begins from person‑in‑relation and reads everything (including anthropology) through a Cappadocian, economic lens.[1][2][3][4]
## Where LaCugna thinks Augustine goes wrong
– She characterizes Augustine as operating with a “metaphysics of substance” that prioritizes divine essence (ousia) over person (hypostasis), so “the person of the Father is the same as the being of the Father,” making the Father “Father” prior to relation to Son and Spirit.[3][5][1]
– For her, this implies that “the divine essence in some sense precedes relation,” and thus our relation is effectively to a single, impersonal substance rather than to three persons in communion.[1]
– She also says Augustine’s principle that “the Trinity works inseparably in everything that God works” blurs the distinct missions of Father, Son, and Spirit in the economy; he then has to patch this with “appropriations,” which she sees as a compensatory, not structurally integral, move.[3][1]
– His psychological analogies (memory‑understanding‑will, etc.) drive the search for the Trinity inward into the individual soul, encouraging a “self‑contained relationality” instead of an outwardly self‑giving communion mirroring the triune God who is “poured out” in creation and redemption.[1][3]
## LaCugna’s alternative relational ontology
– She embraces a Cappadocian‑style priority of personhood: divine person = being‑in‑relation, so relation is constitutive of who God is; there is no divine essence “behind” or prior to the relations.[4][1]
– Her relational ontology therefore starts **from** “persons in communion” (Father, Son, Spirit in oikonomia) and argues that human personhood, as imago Dei, is likewise “ecstatic, toward‑another,” fulfilled in communion rather than in self‑possession.[4]
– Anthropologically, this yields a strong critique of individualism and hierarchy: if God’s being is communion, then human flourishing means mutuality, equality, and non‑dominating relationships that mirror the Trinity’s shared life.[6][4]
## Convergence and difference
– Later interpreters argue that Augustine also has a relational ontology in nuce—his “one life, one mind, one being” that exists as three who mutually indwell one another—so LaCugna may under‑read his relational side.[5][1]
– Still, the contrast is clear: Augustine’s classic Western model emphasizes one substance expressed in three (psychologically imaged) relations, while LaCugna insists that both theology and anthropology must be framed from the start as **persons‑in‑communion**, known only in and through God’s economic life with us.[2][4][1]
Sources
[1] [PDF] The Relational Ontology of Augustine’s and LaCugna’s Trinity https://digitalcommons.csbsju.
[2] Trinity – Simply: These three are one – SciELO South Africa http://www.scielo.org.za/
[3] Three What? Augustine and the Trinity (Part I) http://houseoftheinklings.
[4] [PDF] The Trinitarian Theology of Catherine Mowry LaCugna | Word & World https://wordandworld.
[5] The Relational Essence of the Triune God in Augustine’s De Trinitate https://www.academia.edu/
[6] [PDF] ON THE TRIUNE GOD AND THE CHRISTIAN MORAL LIFE https://scriptura.journals.ac.
[7] The Relational Ontology of Augustine’s and LaCugna’s Trinity https://digitalcommons.csbsju.
[8] Towards a trinitarian understanding of marriage: how might the unity … https://anglicanism.org/
[9] [PDF] God For Us – -ORCA – Cardiff University https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/
[10] The Role of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John Within Origen’s and … https://search.proquest.com/
[11] [PDF] Towards a trinitarian understanding of marriage: how might the unity … https://anglicanism.org/wp-
[12] Trinitarian Agency and the Eternal Subordination of the Son https://www.
[13] Volume 9, Issue 1 (2016) – CSB and SJU Digital Commons https://digitalcommons.csbsju.
[14] The Psychological Analogy of the Trinity: Augustine, Aquinas, and … https://journals.sagepub.com/
[15] [PDF] REAL RELATIONS AND THE DIVINE – Theological Studies https://theologicalstudies.
[16] Content Posted in 2016 | DigitalCommons@CSB/SJU https://digitalcommons.csbsju.
[17] [PDF] Harmony Unveiled: Navigating the Trinity’s Practical … – CORE https://core.ac.uk/download/
