Includes bibliographical references (p. 382-396) and index.

The subject -- A new vision -- Beyond rights and justice -- Intelligible experience -- The program -- Profound disability -- One of us -- Introducing Kelly -- The hierarchy of disability -- The problem and its problems -- No moral taxonomy -- A theological inquiry -- The politics of friendship -- Terminology -- "Being human" and "being disabled" I -- A preliminary objection -- Social constructionism -- The social model of disability -- "Disability identity" -- The realist version of social constructionism -- Invention and discovery -- Freedom of the self as our final end -- Conclusion -- "Being human" and "being disabled" II -- Roman Catholic doctrine on being human -- The anthropological ambiguity of natural law -- A hierarchy of being -- Marginal cases -- Agere sequitur esse -- Potentiality and actualization -- The theological option -- The disabled person as mystery -- Profound disability and the quest for the good -- A different agenda -- The good of being human -- "Disability culture" -- The ethics of access -- Distinct motivations -- Participation in the good of being human -- Theology -- Theology and disability I -- Introduction -- A theology of liberation -- Self-representation -- Moving from outside in -- Breaking the barrier -- "The others who care" -- A theology of access -- "Beyond access" -- Theology and disability II -- Introduction -- Digging up presuppositions -- "Suffering presence" -- Writing about the disabled -- "A theology of human being" -- The contributory view of worth -- No instrumental value -- The goodness of being -- "Freely creative activity" -- Conclusion -- A trinitarian concept of divine and human being -- Introduction: intrinsic qualities -- The double portrait of man -- "Relationality" -- Trinitarian theology and "relational being" -- The contribution of John D. Zizioulas -- Ecstatic personhood as ecclesial reality -- Zizioulas's critics -- Extrinsic movement -- Conclusion -- Ethics -- The fullness of being: God's friendship -- Introduction: three responses -- Difference -- "Activities that direct us to God" -- "Poised between chaos and cosmos" -- From first to last : all is grace -- Disability as moral failure? -- Steadfast love without reciprocation -- Receiving the gift of friendship -- Introduction -- Receiving -- The story of a man born blind -- Seeing -- Three caveats -- Being with -- No hiding in strength -- Moments of wonder -- Learning to become friends -- Introduction -- My friend Ronald -- "We are friends, aren't we?" -- Aristotle's friends -- Christian friendship -- Eucharistic practice -- The face of friendship -- Friendship with the profoundly disabled.