GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
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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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Questions? Comments? Text Us! Scott Langdon and Dr. Jerry L. Martin explore what it means to trust your spiritual senses and practice discernment in everyday life. How do we recognize genuine spiritual guidance—and how do we test it? Drawing on God: An Autobiography and Radically Personal, this conversation examines intuition, experience, and reflection in navigating calling, purpose, and trust. Jerry introduces an “epistemics of trust,” where experience becomes the starting point of knowledg...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! In this episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, Jerry L. Martin speaks with philosopher and world religions scholar Jonathan Weidenbaum in the series “What’s Your Spiritual Story.” Jonathan shares how his early fascination with Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, and Eastern philosophy led to a lifelong exploration of world religions. Through study, travel, and teaching, he immersed himself in diverse spiritual traditions across Asia while engaging deeply with thinker...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! What if spiritual experiences are real — but deeply personal? In this episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, philosopher Jerry L. Martin explores one of the most difficult questions in religion: how do we discern whether a spiritual experience is genuine? Drawing on William James and the long philosophical tradition of spiritual discernment, Jerry examines why religious experience varies from person to person. Different temperaments, histories, and cultur...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! How do you know when an inner prompting is truly guidance — and when it is illusion? In this intimate dialogue, Jerry L. Martin and Abigail L. Rosenthal explore the challenge of spiritual discernment: learning to trust your spiritual senses without abandoning realism, reason, or common sense. What does it mean to follow an inner call responsibly? How do you test intuition against experience, wisdom, and the counsel of others? Drawing from lived experi...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! The newest From God to Jerry to You is a reflection on divine guidance, spiritual discernment, and the discovery of your calling. Jerry L. Martin shares prayer encounters from the podcast's early days and from more recent experiences. These moments reveal what it means to trust your spiritual senses, and how to recognize when guidance may be coming from beyond yourself. What does it mean to discern God’s voice? How do we know when an inner prompting is trul...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! In Episode 272 of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, Jerry Martin and Scott Langdon ask a deceptively simple question: What is experience? Is it just a stream of sensations passing through us — or is it the unfolding of meaning across a lifetime? When we look back at our lives, do we merely remember events, or do we discover layers of significance we couldn’t see before? Drawing from Scott’s recent What’s Your Spiritual Story episode and Jerry’s Radically Person...
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 ...
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 refle...
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 th...
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...
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-followi...
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 withsta...
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 ...
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, incomplet...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! In Episode 263 of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, philosopher Jerry L. Martin reflects on one of the most enduring and difficult questions in philosophy and theology: the problem of evil. In this From God to Jerry to You episode, Jerry describes a pivotal moment near the end of his spiritual journey, when what he calls the “impossible puzzle” finally came together. Drawing on John D. Levinson’s Creation and the Persistence of Evil, Jerry explains how God affi...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! In this episode of What’s On Our Mind, Scott Langdon and Jerry L. Martin explore truth-seeking beyond reductionism. Drawing on Radically Personal, lived experience, acting, spiritual stories, and prayer, they ask how we know what’s real—and why meaning cannot be reduced to just chemistry. The conversation ranges from new atheism and scientific exclusivism to Stoicism, human fulfillment, empathy, and a developing God who suffers with us. An invitation and re...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! What’s Your Spiritual Story? is a continuing series from God: An Autobiography, The Podcast that invites real people to share the journeys that shaped their spiritual lives. Each episode explores how the search for meaning, identity, and connection unfolds through personal experience—and how God meets us in surprising ways. In this week’s conversation, Amanda joins Dr. Jerry L. Martin to reflect on the path that brought her from a childhood marked by instability ...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! What if theology is not a set of inherited doctrines, but life seeking understanding? Learn more in Jerry’s latest book, Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age, and subscribe for weekly episodes that explore God, spiritual experience, and the ongoing journey of the soul. In this second installment of Radically Personal, philosopher Dr. Jerry L. Martin explores what he calls Theology Without Walls — a seeker-centered approach that begins ...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! In this week’s episode of Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue, Jerry L. Martin and Abigail L. Rosenthal explore how God communicates through intuition, dreams, insights, and the quiet promptings that redirect a life. Their conversation speaks directly to listeners who wonder why God can feel hidden and how to recognize a true divine nudge. Jerry reflects on the moment he heard the message “Your work here is over,” a turning point that led him away fro...
Questions? Comments? Text Us! In this week’s episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, Jerry L. Martin explores one of the most practical and urgent spiritual questions we face: How do we know what we’re meant to do with our lives—and how do we tell when God is guiding us? Drawing on the Hindu concepts of dharma and swadharma, Jerry explains the difference between our role-based responsibilities and our deeply personal calling; the tasks that “have your name on them.” From there, he turn...
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