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“Do you think I could come to the ancient Jews in the same way I came to the seventh century Chinese? to Americans today?”

March 26, 2026

How God Comes To Different People:

I had been told that culture is a factor in divine revelations.

“Lord, why is culture so important?”

That’s like saying, why language? If I am going to communicate with people, they need a language. For the same reason, they need a culture.

“They need a culture, but why such a variety of cultures?”

There are many ways of realizing (actualizing) the human story. Culture enables lives of different (types of) significance (meaning).

“But why, in terms of Your story?”

I need to come to people in all their particularity, not to mankind-as-such. The Chinese is one way of being. The primitive is one way of being. I come to each in its own terms. Each enables Me to show a different side of Myself.

Do you think I could come to the ancient Jews in the same way I came to the seventh century Chinese? to Americans today? to you?

Learn more about how God comes to different people.

This is Not Weird

March 19, 2026

Some of the people I knew in Washington were men and women of great probity and spiritual depth.

One by one, I told each about hearing the voice, and what I had been told. One, a distinguished biologist, responded, “First of all, this is not weird.” Nothing he could have said would have been a greater relief to me. Another, a prominent author, said, first, “That’s great. Now you know there is a God.” And then added, “You have had a Kierkegaard moment,” recalling that philosopher’s question. “If you encountered Jesus on the streets of Copenhagen, would you follow him?”

While there were also cautionary responses, no one seemed to think I was crazy or a fool to take the voice seriously.

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God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher – is the true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin, a lifelong agnostic. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department, is the founding chairman of the Theology Without Walls group at AAR, and editor of Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative. Dr. Martin’s work has prepared him to become a serious reporter of God’s narrative, experiences, evolution, autobiography and sparks of wisdom. In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Martin has testified before Congress on educational policy, appeared on “World News Tonight,” and other television news programs

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an 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.

Just take in what comes to you.

March 12, 2026

Just take in what comes to you.

“Lord, how should I approach the ancient scriptures?”

Get into the frame of mind for reading the (particular) work. That frame of mind is reverential, quiet, respectful, open-hearted. It does not consist of analyzing metaphors and stories of gods. Just take in what comes to you.

That guidance cut against my own scholarly training, but from then on I tried to read not only with an open mind but with an open heart.

“I am boundless.”

March 5, 2026

Boundless God:

“Lord, are You infinite?”

I am boundless.

“Are You omniscient?”

I know everything that is important.

“Are You omnipotent?”

I can do everything I want (care) to do.

God had just contradicted every key attribute in the traditional definition of God. He is not exactly infinite, not exactly omniscient, and not exactly omnipotent. All this was so new, I just didn’t know what to think, but I was beginning to sense that one reason God spoke to me was to clear up some misunderstandings.

God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher – is the true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin, a lifelong agnostic. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department, is the founding chairman of the Theology Without Walls group at AAR, and editor of Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative. Dr. Martin’s work has prepared him to become a serious reporter of God’s narrative, experiences, evolution, and autobiography. In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Martin has testified before Congress on educational policy. He has appeared on “World News Tonight,” and other television news programs.

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an 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.

“Lord, what is my role?”

February 19, 2026

Role:

I did not feel like a prophet or seer and, as I started reading about different religions, I found an endless cast of characters—apostles, evangelists, saints, mystics, gurus, shamans, founders of religions. None seemed to fit me. “Lord, what is my role supposed to be?”

Just to be a serious reporter of what you are told when you pray.

Okay, that I could do.

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

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.

There is gain here as well.

February 12, 2026

There Is Gain-

There is gain here as well.

The old revelations were limited. They fit the understanding of people at the time. The messages were sometimes garbled or misunderstood or distorted over time.

Also, I have evolved since then. There is new information to impart.

There it is again: God evolves.

A long history, has not been chronicled, of My development.

I would like to tell you that story and perhaps have you publish it.

________

Listen to this and other new series at God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

One day, Jerry had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. As a philosopher, Jery had a lot of questions. God had a lot to tell him.

Being facing Being

January 29, 2026

I wondered what it could mean for “Being as such” to be a Person, a Thou, as surely, from my own experience, God is. Then it struck me that this rushing Stuff, this force of Being, is also the being of me. And I am a person. So why shouldn’t the rushing Stuff, the Being of—of what?—the World, of Being itself, be a Person writ large? I don’t mean the World merely in a physical sense, since my own being is not merely that of my body. Similarly, the Being that animates everything could be a Person.

Looking out the window at the passing trees, it struck me that their very leaves are full of Being as such, the Being that is also a Person, and that it made sense for them to be a Thou for me. And, more remarkably, for me to be a Thou for them. I felt that Being facing Being, not necessarily speaking but simply facing, is what personhood is.

A Mission Given By You

January 22, 2026

“Lord, what do You mean—to look at ‘religious lives’?”

Joan of Arc—do what you did (with her) with other individuals.

I was told to study “religious failures.” “Lord, failure is defined by a goal not reached. What is the goal of religion?”

Good (question).

“For an individual, it is some kind of relationship to God. As a society, it is a mission for the society.”

Not quite on target.

“Well, each individual has his or her own religious quest—ideally, a mission given by You.”

Exactly.

“And that reveals Your side of the conversation.”

Yes.

Mind is Like a Fluid …

January 15, 2026

There is a parallel question about language. How is it that a word relates to or refers to a particular object? The word is itself an object, a vocalized sound or a mark on a page. What connects the word “bell” to the bell? Sometimes it is said that one “points” to the other, but that is a figure of speech. As the twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein observes, the same question arises with pointing. When you stretch out your finger, why does it direct attention to an object across the room, rather than to itself?

Follow along, and open your mind. Mind is like a fluid in which human beings and the natural world exist. By participating in the fluid, minds can understand. Think of the problem of intentionality. How is reference possible? How can essences be grasped? How can objects be seen? There must be an interaction, and it is not only causal-physical. How could it be? Mind, understanding, is not just physical. It is a conscious, fluid medium.

“Is it somewhat physical?”

Those categories are not helpful here, but it exerts physical force, has physical consequences.

A Purified Theology Tended to Empty Out the Concept of God

January 8, 2026

My experiences with God were personal and intimate. Philosophers drain the life out of Him. God the Person becomes God the Abstraction—the Unmoved Mover, the One, the Absolute, infinite substance, the perfect being, the being whose essence is to exist. The poet William Butler Yeats describes the result: “High on some mountain shelf/ Huddle the pitiless abstractions bald about the neck.”

The great Jewish scholar, Gershom Scholem, explains the phenomenon.

“The philosophers and theologians were concerned first and foremost with the purity of the concept of God and determined to divest it of all mythical and anthropomorphic elements. But this determination to … reinterpret the recklessly anthropomorphic statements of the biblical text and the popular forms of religious expression in terms of a purified theology tended to empty out the concept of God …. The price of God’s purity is the loss of his living reality. What makes Him a living God … is precisely what makes it possible for man to see Him face to face.”