Theology is “a task that not only begins with prayer and is accompanied by it, but one that is to be carried out appropriately and characteristically in the act of prayer” (K. Barth, 1962, pp. 180f.). Only in our encounter with the Psalms are we brought to the basic recognition that anything said of God in the third person is inauthentic; explicitly or implicitly, God can be thought of and spoken of truly and authentically only in the second person of direct address. The wisdom of the Psalms teaches