Christopher C. H. Cook, Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine: Scientific and Theological Perspectives (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2019), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31021586/
Christopher C. H. Cook is a medical doctor (psychiatrist) and an Anglican priest. His training makes him well-qualified to discuss this topic. This book is free to download (open access).
This book first discusses voice hearing in a general religious context and then focuses on Christianity. He discusses cases of hearing voices in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and then moves on to such phenomena in Christian tradition and contemporary claims. He ends the book by summing up his perspectives in science and theology.
Different from other “hearing God’s voice” books, this book also addresses voices from other sources, originating from the self, satanic, angelic, etc. The author does not view hearing voices purely as religious experiences or symptoms of mental illness. It can be either, or it can be both.
To be honest, his discussion from a psychiatrist’s perspective is not easy to follow (e.g., hallucinations, auditory verbal hallucinations, multimodal hallucinations, etc.).
His accounts of hearing voice cases in the Bible are more familiar to me. But his account of voices in Christian tradition is even more interesting to me, including the Desert Fathers, medieval religious figures such as Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius, Teresa of Ávila, and John of the Cross, and in more recent times the Quakers and the Charismatics.
The author’s position on hearing voices is that hearing God is a normal part of Christian experience and did not stop after the apostolic age. However, he also warns that discernment is needed, as there are counterfeits, and sincerity does not guarantee truthfulness. Though he summarizes criteria proposed by different traditions, he does not think they are conclusive. The gold standard he proposes is the fruit test: whether the voice reflects and reveals the presence of God in Christ and transforms the life of the hearer, which should be tested by the church community and scripture. However, he does not think hearing voices is a necessity. He cites Thomas Merton as an example, a contemplative who practiced contemplative prayer but did not say much on hearing voices. He also points out that Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross were both very cautious about hearing voices.
As for me, I haven’t heard God’s voice except through His words in the Bible. Some are eager to seek the still, small voice and boast about having heard such voices. I am not in a position to judge their authenticity, though many are sincere. To me, possibility doesn’t imply credibility. And if the voices lead to pride and deviation from the written word, I would be even more suspicious.
I read this book, again, because of her.