GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast

Jerry L. Martin
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GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast is a true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin was a lifelong agnostic. But one day he had occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered - in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions. And God had a lot to tell him. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department. Find out more at www.GodAnAutobiography.com

  1. 2D AGO

    271. What’s Your Spiritual Story: Scott’s Journey from Certainty to Love

    Questions? Comments? Text Us! In Episode 271 of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, host Scott Langdon shares his personal spiritual journey — from Lutheran liturgy and evangelical certainty to faith deconstruction, mental health challenges, and a renewed understanding of God as love. Raised in the church and later immersed in evangelical Christianity, Scott’s faith was shaped by music, scripture, and sacred ritual. But a pivotal moment — being baptized again and feeling nothing — marked the beginning of a profound spiritual transformation. Through theater, bipolar diagnosis, marriage, loss, and deep questioning, Scott’s understanding of God shifted from external authority to lived experience. What happens when you “give up God” and begin praying to love instead? Can faith survive doubt, silence, and reinvention? God: An Autobiography, The Podcast explores spiritual experience through personal stories, philosophical reflection, and dramatic readings from the book God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher. Each episode invites listeners to consider their own spiritual story and the possibility that divine encounter is rooted in lived experience. If you’ve wrestled with belief, deconstruction, or the meaning of love and faith — this episode is for you. Other Series: The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series: The Life Wisdom Project – Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life. From God to Jerry to You – Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers. Two Philosophers Wrestle With God – A dialogue on God, truth, and reason. Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue – Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership. What’s Your Spiritual Story – Real stories of people changed by encounters with God. What’s On Our Mind – Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes. What’s On Your Mind – Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue.  Stay Connected Share your thoughts or questions at questions@godanautobiography.comGet the books: Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age | God: An Autobiography, As Told to a PhilosopherShare Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

    1h 13m

  2. FEB 12

    270. Recovering the Depth of Experience in a Flattened World- Radically Personal

    Questions? Comments? Text Us! What do we mean when we speak of human experience? In this fourth installment of the Radically Personal series, Jerry Martin takes up that question and follows it carefully. Modern philosophy and science often frame experience in terms of sensations, data, or brain activity. Yet the way we actually live and perceive suggests something more expansive. Drawing on William James, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hilary Putnam, Martin Buber, Edith Stein, and others, Jerry reflects on how we encounter the world in practice. He considers perception and embodiment, the depth present in persons and things, the pull of beauty and awe, and the way empathy makes another’s inner life accessible. The discussion gradually turns toward love and value, tracing how worth emerges within experience itself. As the episode moves from perception to relationship to meaning, a picture comes into view: depth is not added from outside but belongs to experience as lived. Join Jerry in taking experience seriously; it may open new ways of thinking about meaning, reality, and the possibility of the divine. Get the books: Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age | God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher Other Series: The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series: Radically Personal: Reflections on lived experience, divine encounter, and personal vocation, drawing on a seeker-centered approach to spirituality in a new Axial Age.From God to Jerry to You: Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers.Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue: Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership.What’s Your Spiritual Story: Real stories of people changed by encounters with God.What’s On Our Mind: Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes.Two Philosophers Wrestle With God: A dialogue on God, truth, and reason.The Life Wisdom Project: Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life.What’s On Your Mind: Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue. Stay Connected: questions@godanautobiography.com Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

    28 min

  3. FEB 5

    269. Are All Religions True? Theology Without Walls & the New Axial Age | Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue

    Questions? Comments? Text Us! Can multiple religions be true at the same time? Married philosophers, Jerry L. Martin and Abigail L. Rosenthal, explore one of the most challenging questions about God and ultimate reality. They reflect on the idea that different cultures are given different spiritual tasks. The Hebrew focus on history and covenant stands alongside India’s inward contemplative traditions, showing that divine truth unfolds in different ways across civilizations. Jerry explains that Theology Without Walls must take lived spiritual experience seriously. Personal transformation, moments of divine connection, and the individual spiritual journey are essential data for understanding spiritual reality. Abigail recalls her intense yoga practice of suspended breath and reflects on what that path taught her. She also shares a vivid memory involving Thomas Altizer, the theologian associated with the “God is dead” movement and explores the difference between politeness and real engagement with ultimate questions.  We are living at the beginning of a New Axial Age, a time when the world’s religions now meet directly.  The conversation is candid, thoughtful, and deeply personal, like listening in on two married philosophers as they connect lifelong spiritual experience with some of the biggest questions of our time.  Get the books: Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age | God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher Other Series: The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series: Radically Personal: Reflections on lived experience, divine encounter, and personal vocation, drawing on a seeker-centered approach to spirituality in a new Axial Age.From God to Jerry to You: Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers.Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue: Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership.What’s Your Spiritual Story: Real stories of people changed by encounters with God.What’s On Our Mind: Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes.Two Philosophers Wrestle With God: A dialogue on God, truth, and reason.The Life Wisdom Project: Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life.What’s On Your Mind: Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue. Stay Connected: questions@godanautobiography.com Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

    1h 16m

  4. JAN 29

    268. From God to Jerry to You: How God Speaks Across Religions

    Questions? Comments? Text Us! Can God speak through more than one religion? In this episode of From God to Jerry to You, philosopher Jerry L. Martin explores a central insight from God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher: that divine wisdom may be working through many religious traditions across history, not just one. Drawing from his recorded conversations with God, Jerry reflects on the idea that different religions may carry distinct spiritual assignments for different cultures and times. Rather than competing versions of truth, these paths may represent a spiritual “division of labor,” each revealing something essential about the divine. This vision leads to what Jerry calls Theology Without Walls — an approach to faith that remains open to truth wherever it appears, including in other religions, philosophy, literature, science, and lived experience. He also introduces the idea of a “New Axial Age,” a turning point in spiritual history in which seekers begin drawing wisdom from multiple traditions while deepening their personal relationship with God. Whether you belong to a particular faith, identify as spiritual but not religious, or are simply curious about how divine guidance might move through different cultures, this episode offers an expansive and hopeful view of humanity’s shared spiritual journey. Listen, reflect, and experience the world from God’s perspective — as it was told to a philosopher. Other Series: The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series: The Life Wisdom Project – Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life. From God to Jerry to You – Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers. Two Philosophers Wrestle With God – A dialogue on God, truth, and reason. Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue – Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership. What’s Your Spiritual Story – Real stories of people changed by encounters with God. What’s On Our Mind – Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes. What’s On Your Mind – Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue.  Stay Connected Read the book: God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher at godanautobiography.com or AmazonShare your questions and reflections: questions@godanautobiography.comShare Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

    31 min

  5. JAN 22

    267. What’s On Our Mind- God, Evil, and the Meaning of “Knock and You Will Find”

    Questions? Comments? Text Us! In this episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, Jerry L. Martin and Scott Langdon reflect on what it means to live in partnership with God in a world where evil persists and meaning is still unfolding. Drawing on biblical scholar John D. Levinson, they explore order and chaos, the idea of a developing God, and how discernment shows up in lived experience. Referencing William James, the conversation turns to faith as embodied wisdom rather than rule-following, and to Jesus as an unfiltered expression of divine presence. Through reflections on ego, power, tough love, and the teaching “knock and you will find,” the episode contrasts horizontal and vertical ways of seeing reality, suggesting that seeking itself may already place us within the Kingdom of God. Related Episodes: 263. From God to Jerry to You- The Problem of Evil and the Kingdom of God 264. Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue- Evil, Love, and God 265. Radically Personal – William James on Religious Experience Other Series: The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series: The Life Wisdom Project – Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life. From God to Jerry to You – Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers. Two Philosophers Wrestle With God – A dialogue on God, truth, and reason. Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue – Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership. What’s Your Spiritual Story – Real stories of people changed by encounters with God. What’s On Our Mind – Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes. What’s On Your Mind – Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue.  Stay Connected Share: questions@godandautobiography.comGet the books: God: An Autobiography, Radically PersonalShare Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

    43 min

  6. JAN 15

    266. What’s Your Spiritual Story: Abigail's Confessions on Childhood, Time, and Spiritual Awakening

    Questions? Comments? Text Us! In this special edition of What’s Your Spiritual Story?, philosopher Abigail Rosenthal sits down with her husband, Jerry L. Martin, for the most extended and personal telling of her spiritual story to date. Drawing on her memoir, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, Abigail traces the formation of her inner life from an Edenic childhood and early encounters with loss, to adolescent philosophical crisis, homesickness, and the search for a reality that could withstand time, absence, and illusion. Along the way, she reflects on formative influences, including Thomas Mann’s Joseph novels, Homer’s Odyssey, Gandhi, existentialism, political idealism, and the dangers of moral absolutism and ideological guilt. This conversation explores themes of time and impermanence, spiritual longing, innocence and disillusionment, femininity and intellectual life, and what it means to test ideas by living them. Abigail recounts her experiences in Paris, London, and the American academy, examining how philosophy, spirituality, and personal history intersect—and sometimes collide—in a woman’s life. Rather than offering tidy conclusions, this episode presents a lived spiritual journey: one shaped by curiosity, risk, error, and hard-won clarity. It is a story about becoming—not only a philosopher, but a person capable of resisting illusion while remaining open to meaning. Other Series: The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series: The Life Wisdom Project – Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life. From God to Jerry to You – Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers. Two Philosophers Wrestle With God – A dialogue on God, truth, and reason. Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue – Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership. What’s Your Spiritual Story – Real stories of people changed by encounters with God. What’s On Our Mind – Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes. What’s On Your Mind – Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue.  Stay Connected Share your thoughts or questions at questions@godandautobiography.com📖 Get the God: Book📖 Get Confessions of a Young PhilosopherShare Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

    1h 13m

  7. JAN 8

    265. Radically Personal – William James on Religious Experience

    Questions? Comments? Text Us! In this episode of Radically Personal, Jerry L. Martin turns to the work of American philosopher and psychologist William James to explore how divine reality is encountered in lived experience. Drawing from The Varieties of Religious Experience, Jerry reflects on James’s influence on the philosophy of religion and his claim that religion begins not with doctrines or institutions, but with personal experience—with what happens in the depths of a human life. This conversation examines how experience functions as a window onto reality, why feelings and intuitions matter for discernment, and how religious and spiritual experience may reveal divine presence not as an object we perceive, but as a reality we participate in. Jerry explores prayer as relationship, the limits of abstract theory, and the importance of remaining open to fleeting, partial, and even unsystematic glimpses of meaning. Radically Personal invites listeners into a seeker-centered approach to spirituality—one that trusts experience, honors personal vocation, and explores how God may still speak within the drama of everyday life. _______________ Other Series: The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series: Radically Personal – Reflections on lived experience, divine encounter, and personal vocation, drawing on a seeker-centered approach to spirituality in a new Axial Age.From God to Jerry to You – Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers.Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue – Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership.What’s Your Spiritual Story – Real stories of people changed by encounters with God.What’s On Our Mind – Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes.Two Philosophers Wrestle With God – A dialogue on God, truth, and reason.The Life Wisdom Project – Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life.What’s On Your Mind – Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue. _______________ Stay Connected Share your thoughts or questions:  questions@godandautobiography.comGet the books:   Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age God: An Autobiography, As Told to a PhilosopherShare Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

    18 min

  8. JAN 1

    264. Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue- Evil, Love, and God

    Questions? Comments? Text Us! In this year-end intimate dialogue, philosophers Jerry L. Martin and Abigail L. Rosenthal return to one of the most enduring questions in philosophy and theology: why evil persists, and what that persistence reveals about God.  Drawing on Jerry’s prayer experiences and Jon Levenson’s Creation and the Persistence of Evil, the conversation explores the idea of an evolving God—not as a denial of divinity, but as a way of understanding divine struggle, incompleteness, and ongoing relationship with the world. Moving through Jewish thought, rabbinic midrash, and biblical interpretation, Jerry and Abigail consider divine ambivalence and the intimacy implied in speaking to God as a family member rather than a distant abstraction.  Abigail reflects on her own philosophical autobiography, "Confessions of a Young Philosopher," while Jerry situates God and Autobiography within a broader narrative of God’s interaction with cultures, histories, and individual lives. The dialogue turns to skepticism and epistemology, questioning whether modern habits of doubt genuinely reflect how human beings know and live. Against intellectual posturing, the episode argues for sincerity, trust in experience, and the moral seriousness of truth-seeking. Love, in particular, emerges not as a distraction from philosophy but as a decisive mode of knowing—one that reshapes memory, reframes the past, and opens new ways of understanding both God and the self. This conversation closes the year by inviting listeners into a deeper form of spiritual inquiry—one grounded in history, relationship, and lived truth rather than abstract certainty. Other Series: The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series: The Life Wisdom Project – Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life. From God to Jerry to You – Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers. Two Philosophers Wrestle With God – A dialogue on God, truth, and reason. Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue – Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership. What’s Your Spiritual Story – Real stories of people changed by encounters with God. What’s On Our Mind – Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes. What’s On Your Mind – Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue.  Stay Connected Read the book: God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher at godanautobiography.com or AmazonShare your questions and reflections: questions@godanautobiography.comShare Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

    1h 7m
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GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast is a true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin was a lifelong agnostic. But one day he had occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered - in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions. And God had a lot to tell him. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department. Find out more at www.GodAnAutobiography.com

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