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

Questions? Comments? Text Us!
Why does God seem hidden if God wants to be known?
In the ninth and final episode of Radically Personal, philosopher Jerry L. Martin concludes his exploration of what it means for God to know each person individually and invite us into a relationship that can transform how we understand ourselves, our lives, and the world.
Jerry examines the many ways God may communicate—not only through prayer, but through dreams, intuition, conscience, beauty, love, mystical experience, and quiet promptings that can feel like our own thoughts. He asks what kind of response God seeks and considers what it means to live in alignment with the divine rather than simply follow commands.
The episode then turns to the meaning of human life. Each life may be a unique test, exploration, and sacred improvisation in which our choices, failures, suffering, love, and growth genuinely matter. God is not presented as a distant observer, but as a partner who shares in every individual triumph and setback.
The series ends with its most extraordinary idea: our transformation may be God’s very reason for being.
Explore the full Radically Personal Series and Book
Get the books: Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age | God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher
*********
We continue these spiritual and philosophical conversations through Ultimate Questions, a public discussion project of Theology Without Walls on Substack.
Join the conversation and share your perspective on life’s deepest questions:
 https://ultimatequestions.substack.com
*********
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: questions@godanautobiography.com
Ultimate Questions Substack
Get the books: God: An Autobiography, Radically Personal
Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

Questions? Comments? Text Us!
What makes romantic love feel more powerful than reason, safer choices, or even self-preservation? And what does it mean to experience God’s love through the person who loves you?
In this intimate dialogue, Jerry and Abigail return to God’s striking instruction: “Let Abigail love you. You will feel My love through her.” Jerry reflects on why God’s love might need to become tangible through another person, while Abigail considers what it means to embody that love through presence, touch, sacrifice, and a shared life.
Abigail reflects on falling in love as an overwhelming force that resisted every attempt to explain or contain it. Not psychology. Not philosophy. Not even Husserl’s phenomenology could give her enough distance from the pull of erotic and romantic love.
Their conversation moves through desire, sacrifice, feminism, sexuality, and the difference between casual sex and a love that asks something deeper of us. Abigail recalls leaving behind an ideal life in New York, not in search of comfort or happiness, but because love itself carried an authority she could not ignore.
From the Garden of Eden to Dante, Jane Austen, the Brontës, D. H. Lawrence, Hemingway, and Dickens, Jerry and Abigail ask what modern culture may have lost when sex became detached from romance, courtship, nobility, and risk.
Can erotic love still awaken courage, devotion, and sacrifice? And can the love between two people reveal something of God that cannot be felt any other way?

Get the books:
Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age
God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher
Confessions of a Young Philosopher
A Good Look at Evil

***Ultimate Questions***
Listen to the full episode and explore the question with a community of philosophers and seekers.
Join the Ultimate Questions conversation on calling and divine guidance: https://substack.com/@ultimatequestions

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@godanautobiography.com
Get the books: God: An Autobiography, Radically Personal, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, A Good Look at Evil

Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

Questions? Comments? Text Us!
What does it mean to feel God’s love through another person?
In this episode of From God to Jerry to You, Jerry L. Martin reflects on an early moment in his relationship with God, when he was asked to “enter My heart.” 
The request frightened him, and when he asked for help, God answered: “Let Abigail love you. Feel My love through her.”
That experience leads Jerry to explore how divine love becomes real through romantic love, family love, friendship, intimacy, tenderness, and human connection. Jerry considers the transcendent quality of love, the presence of God within our closest relationships, and the possibility that loving others is one of the deepest ways we become partners with God.
Listen for a thoughtful reflection on God’s love, spiritual intimacy, and the sacred power of loving and being loved.

Get the books:
Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age
God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher

***
Continue the conversation with Ultimate Questions on calling, divine guidance, and how we recognize what is ours to do:
https://substack.com/@ultimatequestions
***

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@godanautobiography.com
Ultimate Questions Substack
Get the books: God: An Autobiography, Radically Personal
Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

Questions? Comments? Text Us!
Is God a person, and what does it mean to experience God through relationships, grief, and everyday life? 
In this episode of What's On Our Mind, Jerry L. Martin and Scott Langdon explore the personal and interpersonal nature of God and consider how divine presence may appear through the people who love, guide, challenge, and remember us.
Scott reflects on the death of his close friend Vince and shares how he encountered God not by escaping grief, but by remaining present to love, memory, work, and the life directly in front of him.
Together, Jerry and Scott discuss finding God during suffering, recognizing meaning in difficult experiences, and learning to “play the scene you are in” rather than becoming trapped in what should have happened.
This moving conversation explores grief and spirituality, living in the present moment, personal calling, and the ways ordinary encounters can become expressions of divine love.
What changes when we begin treating every person not as a role or function, but as a person whose story is also being shaped by God?

Related Episodes:
291. What's Your Spiritual Story? John Thatamanil on Faith, Preaching, and Spiritual Formation
290. The Right Track: Finding God Beyond Sin and Suffering- Radically Personal
289. The Difference Between Coincidence and God | Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue
288. You’re Not Alone: How God Speaks Through Other People- From God to Jerry to You

Get the books:
Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age
God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher

***Ultimate Questions***
Listen to the full episode and explore the question with a community of philosophers and seekers.
Join the Ultimate Questions conversation on calling and divine guidance: https://substack.com/@ultimatequestions

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@godanautobiography.com
Get the books: God: An Autobiography, Radically Personal
Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

Questions? Comments? Text Us!
What shapes a person's spiritual story? Can childhood experiences, faith, and the practice of preaching become the foundation for a lifetime of spiritual transformation?
In this episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, philosopher Jerry L. Martin welcomes theologian and Episcopal priest John Thatamanil for a deeply personal conversation about the experiences that shaped his faith and vocation. From his childhood in India's ancient Mar Thoma Christian tradition to immigrating to the United States, John reflects on the moments that led him toward theology, ordination, and a life devoted to preaching.
Together, Jerry and John explore the surprising ways our earliest experiences influence our understanding of God. Their conversation moves through prayer, trauma, memory, spiritual formation, religious experience, and the search for truth, revealing how a life of faith is formed not only by belief, but by the people, traditions, and encounters that transform us over time.
Drawing from Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, John shares how multiple religious traditions have deepened rather than diminished his understanding of the divine. Along the way, he discusses nonduality, contemplative practice, and the role of preaching as a path of both personal and communal transformation.
Whether you are exploring your own spiritual journey, interested in comparative theology, or simply asking deeper questions about faith, this conversation offers a thoughtful and deeply human reflection on what it means to seek God across a lifetime.

Join the conversation on the Ultimate Questions Substack: Does each of us have a personal calling that responds to something beyond ourselves?

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. 
Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube