Theological Attention

What is attention? How do we use it? And why does it matter? In an age of distraction-in which we feel overrun by attention-diverting devices-these questions are as important as ever. While scientists and philosophers have explored these questions in part, theologians have largely ignored them. Despite this, the Christian theological tradition contains many rich resources for pursuing answers to these questions. Theological Attention attempts to mine resources from this tradition-and psychology and philosophy-to answer them.

In the first part of the book, Theological Attention explores what attention is. Though the aim is to develop a fresh way of thinking about our attention called ‘theological attention,’ it considers ‘basic attention’-defined in conversation with psychology and philosophy-and ‘virtuous attention’-defined in conversation with moral philosophy. The focus remains, however, on theological attention, which foregrounds God and his relationship to us in how we conceive of attention.

In the second part, the book considers the role of theological attention and spiritual formation. When we reorient our thinking about attention around God and how God relates to us, we see, too, that attention is crucial for our spiritual formation. How we attend determines how we are formed.

Derek S. King, Scholar-in-Residence, Lewis House

Derek King (Ph.D., University of St Andrews) is the scholar-in-residence at Lewis House. In addition to several articles on theology and philosophy of religion, he has published two books on Christian theology, The Church and the Problem of Divine Hiddenness and Faith Without Belief.

IntroductionPart I. Ways of Attending1. Basic Attention2. Virtuous Attention3. How Jesus Attends4. Attention with the Spirit5. Theological AttentionPart II. Attention and Spiritual Formation6. Attention and Spiritual Formation7. Love and Attention8. An Attention Account of Spiritual FormationConclusion