When Does God Listen to Us | Nicholas Wolterstorff

2013 Kantzer Lecture #4 - God as Listener

Wolterstorff breaks new theological ground by considering the reality that God is a listener. Employing the concepts of speech-act theory and an analogy of social structure, he distills what making such a predicate of God entails. Often people are in alienated relationships, which in some way prevent them from speaking and listening to one another. This raises the question: why would God listen to us? God is high and mighty; we are tiny creatures of the earth. However, the unsurpassably excellent God who created and sustains the astonishingly complex world in which we live humbles himself and simultaneously raises us that we might be linked in a speech-act relationship. This mutual dignity is not unconditional nor without need for particular stipulations. Yet God still invites us to address him as a result of our desire to praise him. When our address to God is an expression of a humble heart, then God listens. This is the beginning of what Wolterstorff believes is entailed by understanding God as a listener. Nicholas Wolterstorff (PhD Harvard University) is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. He is author of many books, including Reason Within the Bounds of Religion (Eerdmans, 1988), Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008), and United in Love: Reflections on Justice, Art, and Liturgy (Wipf and Stock, 2021).

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