This book is the first of Jürgen Moltmann's contributions to systematic theology. Through it he poses and develops a coherent Trinitarian doctrine of who God is and how we can think of Him* in relation to his "kingdom" - with the specific holistic methodological aim of starting to heal the schisms in the Church (across Protestant and Catholic thinking, as well as older disagreements between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and even pointing at ways in which all Christian denominations have their roots in Judaic tradition and should acknowledge this).
His arguments are complex and I will not attempt to summarise them here, but for a couple of overview-type considerations from his conclusions. This is proper academic dense theology and has a megaton of thought-provoking meat on its bones; while its translation from the German renders the syntax difficult to penetrate in places the prose is more accessible than it could be** given the subject-matter in all its mystical complexity and the high-mindedness with which the book's pursuit is laid out. Moltmann discusses the character and nature of God as Trinity, the inner life of the Trinitarian God and the distinct personalities of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the concept of perichoresis as the inter-relationship between these persons, the ways in which God can be said to suffer along with Creation as revealed in the passion of Christ, the distinctions between monarchical views of monotheism and the unique concepts of the Trinity, the supremacy and goodness of God in this sense, the essential mystery that underlies our knowledge of any of this, and the Kingdom of God as the historical/eschatological liberation of Creation into fulness in freedom. I'm not well-schooled enough in theology to be able to pick apart all his points, but they are clearly rooted in an incredible depth of biblical familiarity, philosophical dialectic and indebtedness to the diverse myriad Christian thinkers across history who have taken up their pens to attempt speculation and logical inquiry as to the realities that lay behind the issues discussed in this book.
In short, this is by far the most challenging and thus rewarding book on the theology of the Trinity that I've read. God is wholly transcendent and ineffable, yes, but has also made Himself known through the testament of the Scriptures and the life of Jesus Christ - and thus we can know something essential of who He is; and in reading this book I feel closer than I ever have to a cohesively satisfying understanding of Trinitarian doctrine. Even given the difficulty of this book - you don't need a theology degree to understand it, but you will need an immense degree of receptivity and willingness to think complexly - I would heartily recommend this as a text to any Christian reader who wants a deeper intellectual grasp of the nature of our God, and would even tentatively recommend it to non-Christian readers who see the Trinitarian doctrine as logically incoherent as Moltmann's work in explication renders it just about fathomable. I plan on reading this again with my dad so we can discuss together what it says, means, and implies.
* Or "Them", as I have recently starting thinking of God - for the dual reasons that it A. acknowledges the plurality of personhood in the Trinity without recourse to "tritheism" by legitimising both the plural and singular uses of "they" and B. draws attention to the transcendence of gender by the Trinitarian God, which is something largely unacknowledged by the traditional usage of "He" for a being that was arguably only ever 1/3*** male during His incarnation.
** That said, Moltmann does have that same nasty habit that I detest in philosophical/theological writings where he will on occasion just dump a phrase at you in Latin or Greek without translating it. Even in the endnotes, which are mostly just references but still have a fair bit to contribute on certain secondary points within the text.
*** Moltmann would have had a go at me for referring to Christ the Son as only a third of the Godhead as His state of being is fully God - I'm not dallying with modalism, but you know what I meant.
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