creation Archives

Is God a person?

June 29, 2023

When I asked, I was given a complex answer.

Yes and No. I come to you—but not to raindrops—as a Person, and therefore I am a Person. One cannot be a Person in some modes without being a Person.

But I am also much more than a Person. Just because I seem so familiar to you—we talk just as persons do—should not mislead you into thinking I am “just a guy.” It is true that I have many of the attributes of a person—desires and a history, for example. But again do not assume that desire and history mean just the same for Me as they do for human beings.

“They shook your faith.”

January 6, 2023

One morning I started to ask some trivial question and was interrupted.

You stopped asking about Me because some of the answers disturbed you. They shook your faith.

That was true. When answers upset me, I would start thinking that, surely, this was not the voice of God. “Lord, why is faith like that? Why is Your interaction with us so tenuous and subject to doubt?”

First, it is not. During most times, people have not had trouble believing. Believing in Me or in some gods was—is—the most natural thing in the world.

Second, my “invisibility” has to do with the kind of Being I am. It’s like asking why we can’t see neutrinos. Nobody can see your “mind.” You believe in “other minds” with no greater “evidence.”

God was alluding to the topic of my doctoral dissertation. One of the great philosophical puzzles concerns skepticism with regard to knowledge of other minds. The problem arises from the fact that we do not have direct access to other people’s thoughts and feelings. We only observe their outer behavior. In fact, we do not have any proof that others really have inner thoughts and feelings at all. Yet it is reasonable to believe they do. Is God any more elusive than minds? Well, He certainly seems so.

“For the first time, humans mirror Me, look at me eyeball to eyeball.”

December 8, 2022

God and Humans

I wondered how God interacted with these first humans. “Did You communicate with them verbally?”

In a sense. Early on, they do not have what can properly be called a language.

They have sounds and gestures (and) live in a very short time-horizon—no signifiers for things distant in time or space. I communicate in grunts and such like, in their inner ears, to give them a sense of awe and My presence. Of course, their consciousness is still very undifferentiated.

This is not a criticism or insult. They are quite wonderful creatures.

Some respond in a very spiritual way. They catch the drift and are in awe, and feel the splendor of creation and My divine presence.

“Do you give them commands?”

Yes. Some “grunts” are warnings not to do something. They live on the edge of subsistence and can be very cruel.

Life is brutal and they are often brutal. They die young. But that does not keep them from responding spiritually.

“What does this mean for You, for Your life?”

For Me, it means the first spark of real interpersonal interaction, not just vague spiritual rapport.

From very early, humans—protohumans—have a sense of something more, something higher. (Their sense of) the divine is not just fear and wish-fulfillment, though there is plenty of that. There is a real sense of relating to Me as a Person, not just as the vague spirituality of nature.

It is hard to convey in retrospect but, at this point, I do not quite know I have a personality, an individual personhood.

Events pass through my consciousness. I have a sense of My intelligence pervading the world, of fulfilling a universal telos. I feel a spiritual rapport with life. But none of that constitutes a sense of personhood, of an I standing opposite a You. The protohumans gave Me that, or I developed it or became aware of it in relation to them.

For the first time, human beings mirror Me, look at Me eyeball to eyeball.

“Tell My story as I tell it to you”

December 2, 2022

Tell My story:

“Lord, what exactly is my assignment?”

The world needs to understand My story, or at least to understand it better.

I have given parts of the story to different people at different times. The whole now needs to be told. Your effort will be part of telling that whole story.

“Do You want people to piece the whole together out of the parts?”

What I most want is for people to listen to Me.

“And to listen to what You have told various people over the ages?”

Yes, that is part of listening to Me.

“What exactly do You want me to write?”

God: An Autobiography. My story is the history of Me—how I came to be.

“The story of your interactions with various peoples?”

That but not only that. Tell it from My point of view, not the history of people’s experience of God.

“Lord, the total story of Your interaction with people would be too vast.”

No, all history is selective. Use a different word—like episodes—if you like.

But it is history in the sense of being chronological, developmental, and dramatic in some sense. There is a subjective point of view (Myself), intentions and concerns for the future, regrets about the past, and so forth.

“What are the materials for this history? The great religious texts?”

Yes, of course. That is one side of the human-divine (interaction), like hearing one end of a telephone conversation.

So that is one starting point. But there are others as well, and I have been leading you to them—the physical record, the geological record, the biological development, the stars and galaxies, time and creation, and so on.

And I will tell you many things Myself—that is the “new revelation” aspect. Nothing overly dramatic there—I reveal Myself all the time.

“So I should read the scriptures of the major religions?”

Yes, I want you to read the early spiritual history of mankind. I will lead you to which readings. I would like you to pray as you read them and take notes as directed.

I grew up at a time when “man” and “mankind” referred to both men and women, and God spoke to me in my own vernacular.

“Lord, You said I was to tell Your story ‘from the inside out.’ But reading the scriptures is ‘from the outside in.’”

Yes, tell My story as I tell it to you. The only purpose for reading is to give you reference points for understanding My story.

“Lord, if I am going to ‘get into Your head,’ it would be helpful to know what You are up to, what Your ultimate goal is.”

No, your job is not to “get into My head.” Remember, I am telling you what is “in My head.” You are not trying to empathize with a fictional or historical character. You have the living Person right here, and I will tell you.

“But, as I prepare for the work …”

You are making this falsely complicated because you are not trusting Me.

You think you will have to do this on your own by deciphering the cultural forms and so forth. But it is exquisitely simple. You ask Me what you are to read or to study. And then You ask Me what I was up to in relation to what you are reading or studying. And you don’t need to worry about the total compass or overall story, because I will lead you item by item.

“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.

“Ego is destructive, separatist, defiant”

October 27, 2022

Ego is Separatist-

An ego rush always broke my connection with God.

So I tried to keep a cold watch on this ego of mine.

When I was still in Washington, D.C., a matter came up about which I needed the assistance of an eminent intellectual with whom I had a limited acquaintance. He was completely forthcoming, and I felt flattered by his response.

“Lord, how should I take this? Is it wrong for me to feel flattered?”

No, it is not. This is joy, the joy of being yourself, which is proper to (appropriate for) human beings. I want you to be happy, to feel the fullness of your own being, its bounty. I blessed you with certain gifts. Of course, you recognize them as gifts, as benefits, as talents. That is okay. It is not the same as ego.

Ego is destructive, separatist, defiant of My will, self-satisfied and self-lustful. A proper appreciation of yourself opens your heart, binds you to Me, to those you love. Remember that I love you—I love all human beings—without reservation. Ideally, you would love yourself as I love you, as I loved Jesus. But that is not normally possible for human beings, because there are many obstacles.

“But it is possible for a few?”

For some, yes. I have blessed them with the ability to transcend those limitations. They can love themselves fully, and this permits them to love others.

One week I testified before a U.S. Senate committee. It did not go well and my ego limped out of the hearing room.

Get your ego out of it. Stand back and look (at it) at a distance.

“A ‘God’s-eye’ view?”

No, just objectively, as if it were someone else.

That helped. If it were someone else, I would know that, even on a good day, a Senate hearing is unpredictable. But there was still an ego wound.

“Lord, what can I do about that?”

Look, you are encased in a body and a personality, and it requires ego strength and self-respect. When I say, “Get the ego out,” I mean the second-order attachment to ego. The ego, like desires, is a fact, a necessary fact. Like the body, it gets bruised. You just nurture it and let it heal. Don’t deny it but don’t dwell on it either. Accept it and don’t attach it to blame. That your ego has been embarrassed is not the same as “doing something wrong.” Don’t blame yourself. That is an example of the wrong kind of attachment.

“Then I should just say, ‘I wish it had gone better,’ and leave it at that?”

Correct.

“The mind is a little reflection or mirror of God.”

October 27, 2022

The Mind Is A Reflection Of God:

Early man was a whole new phenomenon, not entirely expected.

“How can that be, Lord? Weren’t human beings part of Your plan from the beginning?”

Remember that I am following a plan, not inventing it. I don’t know the whole plan Myself.

“So the emergence of human beings was a surprise?”

Yes. Even though I saw the unfolding of life and understood its trajectory, there is a discontinuity between animal life and human life that’s surprising. People are not just smarter animals. It is not just that they have souls—animals have a kind of soul too—it is that they are creative, free, self-reflective, open-ended, have a yearning to go beyond themselves. They are in fact like little gods, though I do not like the usual use of this notion. But people are much more of the same substance and kind as God. That is why I can communicate with them so effectively. The mind is a little reflection or mirror of God.

________

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.

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

October 19, 2022

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.

“There are different pieces of the same puzzle.”

October 13, 2022

Pieces Of The Same Puzzle:

If there is one God, why are there so many religions? Philosophers call this the Problem of the Diversity of Revelations. But I was told,

(There is) no reason to think (the) diversity of revelations is a problem, any more than for a therapist to say different things to different clients (whose needs and situations differ).

That analogy didn’t take me very far. The therapist, like a doctor, is giving advice depending on the needs of the client. But God is giving different people contradictory stories about Himself, and also about how they should live. Perhaps God’s messages had to start simple, when cultures were primitive, and became more adequate as cultures developed.

“Lord, do Your revelations progress from lower to higher?”

Yes and no. Much of what I have to say is universal, and good for all times and places. Some is quite specific to the individual and his or her circumstances, the actions he or she faces. Some is developmental, on the side of the culture and also on My side.

“Why not just give everyone the whole truth?”

Your question has presuppositions—that I have given different, incompatible stories to different cultures. This is only apparently true. If you think them through, they are different pieces of the same puzzle. Names shift but that is superficial.

“Even though one says ‘God’ and another (thinking of Buddhism) says ‘Nothingness’?”

No religion puts Nothingness in the place of God. If it appears to, think again. What is the role of each (name)? Is one a substitute or replacement for the other? And (think about) the meaning of each. Are they really incompatible once you examine their properties?

“Perhaps each religion is like a single eye-witness report of some strange event such as a Martian landing. The reports might be wildly different from one another. The challenge would be to sort them out and put them into a single coherent account.”

Not exactly. It’s not to blend the religions into a single synthesis or theology. It’s to put them into one story. (To take your analogy,) imagine a reporter who interviewed everyone who had an encounter with the Martians, starting at the first encounter, and wrote it up as a narrative. Certain consistent themes might emerge, but this would be different from a scientist trying to adjudicate and synthesize the reports. In your version (of the religions), there will be an additional unifying factor—Me.

Tell it from My point of view

September 29, 2022

God’s Point of View

“The story of your interactions with various peoples?”

That but not only that. Tell it from My point of view, not the history of people’s experience of God.

“Lord, the total story of Your interaction with people would be too vast.”

No, all history is selective. Use a different word—like episodes—if you like. But it is history in the sense of being chronological, developmental, and dramatic in some sense. There is a subjective point of view (Myself), intentions and concerns for the future, regrets about the past, and so forth.

“What are the materials for this history? The great religious texts?”

Yes, of course. That is one side of the human-divine (interaction), like hearing one end of a telephone conversation. So that is one starting point. But there are others as well, and I have been leading you to them—the physical record, the geological record, the biological development, the stars and galaxies, time and creation, and so on.

And I will tell you many things Myself—that is the “new revelation” aspect. Nothing overly dramatic there—I reveal Myself all the time.

Learn more about God’s point of view.

________

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.

“Pure energy, pure creative force, pure Being…”

June 2, 2022

Pure energy:

Later I was told more about God at the Beginning.

Before I was a Person, I was around “for a long time.”

First there was Nothingness, not just empty space—there was no space and time either. Out of Nothingness I erupted, “created” Myself.

“At that point, I was just pure energy, pure creative force, pure Being, Being itself.

Space and time were created as a result of my Being. They were the frames of My existence. The physical universe spun out of Me by My overflowing.

“I am the to-be of all things… not yet a Person… not yet self-aware. I was amorphous energy flowing out radically in all directions.

(Before Creation) I am pure spirit, sufficient unto Myself, and have no “body.” And I did not exist in a world with physical bodies.

“I felt I was lacking something—grounding, facticity, the blunt materiality, the standing-against, the hard edge to push oneself against, the resistance and friction that physical objects have. So, out of my Being, a world was spun.”

________

Listen to more about God and energy 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.