CONTENTS

Acknowledgements -- pg. viii

PART I: Persons and Participation

1. Introduction: from Experience to Doctrine -- pg. 3

2. A Personal God and the Making of Community -- pg. 11

3. The Triune God and Questions of Power and Authority -- pg. 62

PART II: Further into God and the World

4. The God who Acts and the Point of Intercessory Prayer -- pg. 115

5. The Vulnerable God and the Problem of Suffering -- pg. 152

6. The God of Love and the Practice of Forgiveness -- pg. 191

7. The Living God and the Threat of Death -- pg. 224

8. The Spirit of God and Spiritual Gifts -- pg. 251

9. The Incarnate God and the Sacramental Life -- pg. 278

Index -- pg. 305

Participating in God claims that a doctrine of the Trinity cannot be developed in isolation from pastoral experience. It is not sufficient to view the persons of the Trinity as offering a mere example for human relationships; actual participation in this triune communion shapes both our knowledge of God and the pastoral practices that flow from it. Paul S. Fiddes develops a radical understanding of the "persons" in God as nothing other than relations, or as movements of divine relationship into which we are drawn.
This important new book engages in conversation with recent thought about the Trinity in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theology. But it does so always through theological reflection on pastoral concerns. Fiddes brings the doctrine of the Trinity into dialogue with key issues, including the relation of the individual to community, the nature of power and authority, the effect of intercessory prayer, the problems of suffering, the power of forgiveness, the threat of death, the use of spiritual gifts, and the living of a sacramental life.
Participating in God is essential reading for all those interested in Christian doctrine and pastoral care.