Welcome to an exploration of the physical and spiritual sense of hearing. As we travel through this sense, let’s keep the words of the Apostle Paul ringing in our ears, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17). In this well-known quotation, Paul emphasises the close connection between hearing, faith and understanding; the main themes of this article.

For the majority of our history, the physiology of hearing has been a complete mystery revealed relatively recently through scientific discoveries. We can now successfully treat hearing disorders and protect our ears through evidence-informed care plans. Hearing, together with speech, our signature ability, we communicate, form relationships, engage socially and share experiences. What we perceive through hearing is radically affected by numerous brain processes such as emotion, memory, attention and language development. For Christians, the scientific exploration of hearing opens up another aspect of God’s creation, hidden from our forebears but available to us now. As such, our physical sense of hearing is a precious gift from God and one that He uses extensively both as a metaphor in Scripture and to inform our spiritual sense of hearing.

Knowing God

One way that we gather knowledge is through sensory experiences using hearing, vision, touch, taste, smell and other physical senses. All these individual sensations are processed by the brain to generate ideas and perceptions about the world. As Christians we know God through His works and words as in, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” (Psalm 19) and Paul’s wonderful paradox that God’s invisible nature has “been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” (Romans 1:20) We use sight when reading Scripture, hearing when listening to the Word spoken, and touch, taste and smell to engage with the sacraments. God uses all sensory channels to communicate with us.

The ultimate physical sensory experience is the incarnation; Jesus as a visible, tangible revelation. As 1 John says, “What we have heard…seen with our eyes…looked at and have touched…we proclaim.” So, just as our physical sensory signals are gathered together and processed by the brain, our spiritual senses are interpreted by faith.

While God is revealed through nature, Christians believe that we are born with innate divine awareness and purpose. This is spiritual intuition, an inner grace able to perceive God’s reality beyond our physical senses. As Paul said, “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18) and John talks of the Spirit of Truth guiding believers (John 16:13) beyond mere sensory input.

Learning through our senses or through intuition is highly individual. A major part of knowing is testimony from trusted reliable witnesses and communities. When I read a research paper in neuroscience, I can’t repeat the study to prove its validity. Instead, I look at the authors’ names, their institutions, the research question, data and findings. The paper is peer-reviewed and critiqued by specialists. Everyone involved is part of a trusted reliable community. Even so, I still contextualise the findings with my own knowledge gained from reading other papers and my own research.

Likewise, faith is informed by reliable direct witnesses such as the Apostles, “we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard.” (1 John 1). In addition are the Church’s creeds, liturgy and teaching, the lives of Saints and those holy and good people in our everyday lives who inspire and feed our faith, as well as our own lived experience of discipleship, prayer and service.

An excellent example of hearing being only the first step to understanding is Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–40). The eunuch reads Isaiah aloud; Philip asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replies, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?”  The text is read and heard but needs to be explained.

Just as the brain must process sound through memory, emotion, reasoning and language centres to yield understanding and meaning, active spiritual listening to the heard Word through teaching, exegesis, meditation, and catechism guides us to understanding and obedience. I can personally attest to generations of students at my lectures who thought they could gain knowledge merely by listening passively and absorbing content through osmosis!

Now we know about the physiological processes involved in hearing, let’s use this to inspire and strengthen our spiritual senses. Here are some examples.

Hearing – simplicity hides complexity

Hearing appears to be such a simple sensation. Someone speaks; we listen and can understand them while they’re talking. This apparent simplicity conceals a highly complex process that requires numerous moving parts to work precisely, in sequence and extremely rapidly. The immediacy of this sense has been vital for our very survival.

Of all the senses mentioned in the Bible, sight is referenced most often with hearing coming a very close second. Whenever Scripture wants to emphasise a response or obedience, hearing is the sense of choice; “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

From pre-Biblical times to the mid-19^th century, how hearing worked remained a mystery, a spiritual attribute. Even if anyone wanted to investigate hearing, they didn’t have the know-how or tools required. As scientific thought and anatomical techniques advanced, a more accurate and deeper understanding of hearing emerged, helped by the introduction of the microscope to visualise the tiny components of the middle and inner ear. Later, the electron microscope revealed the even smaller subcellular components involved in hearing including the hair cells, the sensory receptors for hearing. The introduction of electrophysiological techniques demonstrated how the ear converted sound waves into electrical impulses and disorders involving hearing and speech led to the discovery of specialised brain areas involved in producing and understanding speech and other noises.

The anatomy and physiology of hearing is known to relatively few in the population and God of Our Senses aims to make this knowledge more accessible, available and relevant to the Christian faith. But what added value has the scientific perspective to offer Christians?

One answer lies in depth of understanding. As a young child, I remember asking my father why Bible stories are constantly re-told in Mass, complaining that we heard a particular story many times before. He patiently explained that we might have heard it before but our understanding gets deeper each time we hear it. We are not the exact same person we were even yesterday.  Time and experience shape us physically and spiritually. These changes may be imperceptibly small day-to-day but they are changes nonetheless. So, each time we come across the same reading, the words have not changed but we have. It’s an opportunity to grow and peel away more layers to access a deeper understanding. Indeed, the Bible instructs us to continually deepen our faith. Peter instructs that “Believers must grow in grace.” (2 Peter 3:18), that we must “move past basic spiritual teachings.” (Hebrews 6:1), and “Actively build up your faith.” (Jude 1:20). Knowing about the amazing way hearing works only adds wonder and awe to faith.

Hearing – an introduction to the world

Science has shown that hearing is one of our first senses to develop in the womb. Indeed, it’s through hearing that the unborn baby is introduced to its future home. The baby hears the voices of its mother, father and others, hears music and a variety of environmental sounds long before it makes its entrance into the world.

The sounds heard inside the womb are of course heavily muffled by the mother’s body and amniotic fluid so words and music are not heard clearly, yet the developing baby can detect rhythm, pitch, tone and cadence. Later in pregnancy, the baby’s hearing has developed sufficiently to detect voices especially the repeated voice of the mother and to pick up melody and emotional tones of speech. Although the unborn baby has no idea about the outside world and the meaning of speech, there is no better way to herald the child for entry to its new home than saying prayers aloud to the new life, reading aloud from the Bible, singing and reciting the rosary out loud. As the prophet Isaiah declared, “Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb He has spoken my name.” (Isaiah 49:1)

Although precise foetal development was not understood at the time of the Bible, the Scriptures focus on spiritual preparation and the child’s future purpose in the outside world. When a pregnant Mary visits her pregnant cousin Elizabeth, the future John the Baptist “leaped in her womb” with joy at hearing Mary’s voice. John experienced a spiritual and physical reaction to an external event preparing him for his future role as a herald of Christ.

A chain reaction

Physiologically, hearing activates a chain of events which starts with someone speaking out loud. Speech produces sound waves which enter the outer ear, vibrate the eardrum, are amplified by the tiny middle-ear bones, travel as fluid waves in the cochlea, bend sensitive hair cells on the basilar membrane, generate electrical signals which travel to the brain where they are interpreted as meaningful sounds.

This multi-step journey offers a rich analogy of spiritual hearing in Scripture. Paul describes a sequence: Christ’s message is spoken, it’s initially heard by His followers, they are sent to spread the message, the Word is preached, more people hear, and faith arises and spreads. After the Word is heard, it still needs processing through proclamation, attentiveness, reflection, and obedience before it bears fruit. Hearing appears simple only because it is highly processed. Likewise, Christ’s message appears simple but is deep and challenging inviting us to explore its depths and grow in faith.

Adaptation

A feature of hearing, and indeed all our senses, is adaptation. The senses developed to react to events– or stimuli – in our environment. If stimuli remain unchanged and are non-threatening, we soon ignore them. People who, say, live near a busy road or near water can’t hear the sound of cars or splashing water after a while. As a child, I’m sure my parents adapted to my constant hassling and became desensitised.

Adaptation and desensitisation are useful mechanisms which allocate the brain’s valuable processing power to events that need focus. Sadly, we can become desensitised to important messages, say about world poverty or climate change when bombarded with information. The Bible warns us against desensitising to God’s word. Jesus quotes Isaiah to describe people whose spiritual senses have become unresponsive: “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed…” (Matthew 13:15). The New Testament warns that persistently ignoring truth leads to a conscience that is “seared” (1 Timothy 4:2), meaning it loses all sensitivity and feeling completely.

If your senses become dulled, try recalibrating them. When Elijah sought God in 1 Kings 19:11-12, God was not in the roaring wind, the earthquake, or the fire. Instead, He spoke in a “still small voice”. To hear a whisper, the human ear must block loud, competing background noises.

Attention

Adaptation is linked closely with another characteristic of hearing called attention. The passage, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says …” (Revelation 2:7) indicates that it’s not enough to have an ear and the ability to hear, you also attentiveness. Talking with a friend in a noisy place requires filtering out all unwanted noise to hear them. Thankfully, our hearing is attuned to the frequencies of speech, but we use other attention strategies such as facing the person or cupping our ears. But most of the filtering occurs in the brain which chooses what to hear. The brain attends to the most important signals. Spiritually, just listening to Scripture is a start but is not enough; the meaning or message must be attended to and allowed to reach the heart.

In the well-known parable of the sower (Matthew 13), the seed, i.e. the Word, falls equally on all the types of soil. Only the most receptive leads to deep rooting and fruit. Where it doesn’t take root, attention and priority are given to other, more worldly matters that choke the Word. The problem is not absence of sound but misdirected attention. Scripture describes a similar spiritual attentiveness to the word of God. When Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice.” (John 10) the sheep recognise and follow His voice and not strangers.

We must pick out Christ’s voice from the ambient noise around us created by societal distractions and internal doubt. A good illustration of distractions comes from Luke (10:38-42) where Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens, and Martha is distracted by household tasks. Both can hear Jesus’ voice but only Mary is attending.

The brain has a remarkably good ability to attend to one voice amid background noise. When listening to the readings at Mass, it is easy to lose focus because of poor reading, poor acoustics or noisy children. In these cases, follow the readings in a Missal or Mass app on your phone. Listening and reading reinforce each other.

Deafness

Hearing, being a complex system, is inherently vulnerable to failure. Hearing loss is a serious disability as it affects communication, social connection, and identity.

The ways hearing can be reduced or lost are legion. The eardrum or middle-ear bones could be damaged; the sensitive hair cells of the inner ear might have died due to excessive noise or the nerves carrying audio signals to the brain could be damaged. For hearing to work, a near flawless and instantaneous processing of sound waves must occur. Something simple, such as excessive ear wax, could attenuate eardrum function. So even if the rest of the system is intact and able to work optimally, blockage of the incoming sound waves would compromise the rest of the system. 

In the Bible, spiritual deafness is a recurring theme. Isaiah describes people who “have ears but do not hear” (Isaiah 6:9–10), a phrase echoed by Jesus when He explains why some do not grasp His parables.  God tells Ezekiel that whether the people listen or fail to listen, they will know a prophet has been among them (Ezekiel 2:5–7), highlighting stubborn resistance rather than sensory incapacity. The miracles around curing deafness have parallels with spiritual deafness; when cured they believe. As wax or infection can physically block sound waves, so distraction, sin, or cynicism can block God’s word from reaching the inner “auditory cortex” of the soul. 

As damaged hair cells can distort sound or make certain frequencies inaudible, so repeated resistance to God can blunt sensitivity to particular aspects of his call (e.g. justice, mercy).  Christians who understand the vulnerabilities of physical hearing may take more seriously the need for regular “spiritual audiology”—examining what might be blocking or distorting their ability to hear God, and seeking healing through repentance, prayer and community.

The call

Many of us have voice-activated digital devices in our homes. These devices appear dormant when not being used yet they are constantly listening out for their name to be called and to spring into action when a request made of them. An analogy could be made of our lives, where we’re busy doing what we do but constantly listening and yearning for God to call our names and spring into action to carry out His Word.

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