How Does God Listen to Us | Nicholas Wolterstorff

2013 Kantzer Lecture #5 - What Are We Saying When We Say that God Listens? Wolterstorff responds to questions raised by portraying God as the God who listens and speaks. After responding to potential objections that “listening” and “speaking” are anthropomorphisms not properly predicted upon God, he proposes an alternative reading of Thomas Aquinas on the issue. Though normally understood to be affirming the view that if a predicate applied literally to creatures it could not be applied literally to God, Wolterstorff argues that Thomas clearly held that some of his claims were literally true of both God and creatures. He goes on to argue, based in part on Aquinas participatory ontology, that Aquinas’ account of the doctrine of analogy pertains to the act of predicating, not to what is predicated – it pertains to the copula (the is of a statement such as God is wise), not to the predicated (wisdom). Wolterstorff concludes that the Maimonides style critique fails, and therefore we should not shrink from affirming that God is one who listens and speaks. 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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