The Lord Who Listens: A Dogmatic Inquiry into God As Hearer (Studies in Systematic Theology, 26)

A theological examination of God's hearing of human creatures, and a constuctive proposal of the ways in which God's nature conditions that hearing in relation to the doctrines of creation, anthropology, and christology. Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1 An Interpretation of God’s Hearing Chapter 1 Scripture: An Auscultation of Hearing 1.1 Abraham and the Covenant: An Interpretive Framework 1.2 Hearing in the Psalms 1.3 New Testament Continuities and Transformations 1.4 Conclusion Chapter 2 Karl Barth and the Promise of God’s Hearing 2.1 Creation and Covenant: The Place of God’s Hearing 2.2 The Priority of Divine Agency in Human Speaking and Divine Hearing 2.3 Confidence in the God Who Hears 2.4 Hearing and God’s Constancy 2.5 Conclusion Part 2 A Constructive Proposal for God’s Hearing Chapter 3 Creation: A Theological Grammar 3.1 God’s Radical Ontological Alterity and Infinite Proximity 3.2 God as Hearer in Being and Act 3.3 God’s Hearing—an Utterly Gratuitous and Perfect Gift of Love 3.4 Conclusion Chapter 4 Anthropology: Being Heard into Hearing Beings 4.1 Human Social Formation 4.2 Formed by the Hearing of Others 4.2.1 Deep Hearing: Empathy, Joint Attention, and Human Becoming 4.2.2 Deep Hearing: Attunement and Interpersonal Neurobiology 4.2.3 Hearing as Gift 4.2.4 Transposition of Anthropological Lenses: Deep Hearing as Divine Presence 4.3 Malformed by Silence 4.4 God’s Hearing and Human Becoming 4.5 Conclusion Chapter 5 Christology: The Triumph of the Always-Heard Word 5.1 Incarnation 5.2 Death 5.3 Resurrection 5.4 Ascension 5.5 Conclusion Conclusion: “O That I Had One to Hear Me!” Bibliography Index In The LORD Who Listens, Charles C. Helmer IV draws on Holy Scripture and the theology of Karl Barth to offer a theological intepretation of God's hearing. Prioritizing this neglected biblical theme, Helmer develops a theological grammar for speaking of God's hearing that maintains a strong creator-creature distinction and then proceeds to demonstrate the profound implications God's hearing has for the doctrines of anthropology, Christology and, thus, for understandings of the gospel. In contrast to passibilist-liberationist strategies, God's hearing is argued to furnish existentially and theologically superior resources for those who cry out to be heard by God.