62. Revelation | Series: Two Philosophers Wrestle With God | Dialogue 2 [Part 2]

Analytical and energetic dialogues of philosophical and spiritual discussion between Dr. Jerry L. Martin and Dr. Richard Oxenberg about God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher. A profound conversation of philosophy, sciences, and religion daring to consider God's perspective in the series Two Philosophers Wrestle With God. The second dialogue covers revelations and delves into why God chose to reveal God’s self in what appears to be piecemeal ways.

Richard Oxenberg received his PH.D. in Philosophy from Emory University in 2002, with a concentration in Ethics and Philosophy of Religion. He has written and published numerous articles on these subjects, many of which are available online. His book: On the Meaning of Human Being: Heidegger and the Bible in Dialogue, was published by Political Animal Press in 2018. Richard currently teaches at Endicott College in Beverly, MA.

Read God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher.

Begin the dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher

Related Episodes: [Two Philosophers Wrestle With God] The Big Picture [Part 1] [Part 2]; The Nature Of Divine Reality [Part 1] [Part 2]; Purpose [Part 1] [Part 2]; Revelation [Part 1] [Part 2]; Jerry's Story [Part 1]

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Transcript

Scott Langdon [00:00:17] This is God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. A 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. Episode 62. 

Scott Langdon Hello and welcome to Episode 62 of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm your host, Scott Langdon. With Episode 62, we bring you part two of the second dialogue between two philosophers, Dr. Richard Oxenberg and Dr. Jerry L Martin. In the last episode, we presented part one of this conversation in which Richard and Jerry talk about the nature not only of Jerry's revelation, but revelation in general. In this episode, Richard and Jerry continue their discussion on revelation and delve into why God chose to reveal God's self in what appears to be piecemeal ways by way of illustrating and giving further context, as was the case in Episode 61. I will from time to time interject with a clip from the dramatic audio adaptation of the book, which you can find in episodes one through 44 of this podcast. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at questions at godanautobiography.com. I hope you enjoy the episode. We begin with Richard speaking first. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:02:27] You know, one of the reason. I'm asking these questions from a theoretical point of view. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:02:32] Yeah. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:02:33] But also just in a much more focused sense that there are passages in the book we haven't discussed them yet and maybe we'll get into them, I find myself unable to follow, in the sense that not that I don't understand them, but that I don't believe them. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:02:51] This can't be God. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:02:52] I find them, and I can give you my various reasons for it. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:02:57] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:02:58] Not it just doesn't ring true to me or doesn't seem to me what God would say. . 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:03:08] Right. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:03:09] here's much in my experience of reading the book in general. You know, often is, there's . . . it's absolutely fascinating. And then I'll run into these rough patches. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:03:21] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:03:23] Where it just, I'm saying this doesn't seem right. And I guess I'm trying to account for that. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:03:30] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:03:31] Trying to find a way of accounting for that Involves my going to that original dichotomy that I talked about right at the beginning. Do we have to accept everything that Mohammed says or do we have to reject everything that Mohammed says? Is there a middle ground where you can say to yourself that Mohammed was inspired? But the nature of inspiration itself is that the connection can get contaminated, as to hear the word from the book itself. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:04:05] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:04:06] Well, let me just leave it at that and see what your response would be and how . . . 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:04:11] All scriptures have those characteristics, I think they're Jesus's hard sayings. They often talk and where the Christian has trouble giving an account of them that makes them acceptable to the rest of the Christian readers beliefs. Of course, the Old Testament has these horrible moments like the Amalekites kill every man, woman, child and I think animal. You know what? How could that be? You know, a kind of godly thing to instruct people to do. And again, the questions of literalists come up here and so on. But, and you mentioned somewhere when were talking that there's a sort of double you know, I'm the instrument of God's revelation. You Richard, your instrument in reading this version of this revelation from God. So we're. . . But I was thinking about that, and I think the way to to read God an Autobiography is actually accepting that okay there's another revelation going on, and that's the revelation to Richard. And I advise readers to find out what parts of the book speak to them. It's perfectly possible that God is also leading the great redactor. And in part, God is leading the great reactor to include contradictory elements. We have two, I don't think I knew this growing up, we had two accounts of, you know, Adam and Eve, one and two that really do not match. And it's well known that in the New Testament, the chronologies of Jesus vary from one gospel to another. So, well, you keep all the gospels in and that may not even matter. That discrepancy may not be so trivial. No one was paying attention to it. And so anyway. . 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:07:33] And I think that the way that you expressed that makes, yeah, makes a lot of sense to me as as the practical approach to any kind of revelatory reading. You know, what resonates with you, what makes sense with you. I guess the question for me, being a philosopher, being someone who is trying to work out in some sense a theology of this. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:07:55] Sure. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:07:56] Is what justifies me in saying that particular passage that is professed to be words from God, or not? I mean, on the grounds, can I claim that other than that, well, it just doesn't happen to ring my bell. Yes. You know what I want to end up saying, and I guess what I ultimately, I perhaps actually have come to believe. And I think I see it here in many of the ways in which God talks about the revelatory experience. And that is that they divide. I mean, if there are two people, right, two separate people. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:08:41] Mm hmm. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:08:42] Upset and they're having a communication.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:08:44] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:08:45] There's a place where there's a divide between the two people, right, there talking to each other. They're communicating with each other. They're in some sense, communing with one another. But there is where one person ends and the other begins in some sense, right? And, what I guess I would want to say is that in my own mind, what allows me to make sense of this is for me to say that the divide happens prior to the words. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:09:17] Prior to the words. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:09:18] Prior to the actual words that are being recorded in boldfaced. That God is inspiring your mind to come up with these words that somehow God is extra linguistic, or the reality of God, the truth of God. The idea that God is trying to convey exists in some kind of supralinguistic form.  And in order to turn them into language, God needs a language machine. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:09:55] Yes, language. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:09:56] That language machine is us. We are the language machine. And somehow the supralinguistic idea is inspiring this language machine, perhaps on an unconscious level, to come up with these words that may or may not be perfect reflections of the supralinguistic idea itself. So that I mean, at one point it tried to give you a little bit of a sense of what I'm talking about. God talks about feeling lonely right at the beginning of creation. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:47] Mm hmm. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:10:48] And then he had this interesting moment where he said,  what I mean by loneliness may not be what you mean by loneliness. Other words, you can only understand what loneliness means in terms of how it feels for a human being to be lonely. And that's going to be maybe your best approximation for what I'm talking about, maybe that what I'm talking about goes way beyond anything that I can find a way of expressing in human language. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:11:08] Hmm. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:11:17] And I wonder if we can apply that idea to the whole idea that it's a supralinguistic truth. Or truths that are getting, as I keep using the term, filtered down to the actual language that we read in the book. And that might then allow me to account for the fact that there are passages in the book that seem not to ring entirely true. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:11:53] Well, I've got nothing against your using whatever conceptual apparatus helps you, but all feels completely unnatural to me. You go back to I'm like the paint that Leonardo used. I'm God's paint, God's . . . one point the quill was the image God used, I'm the quill. I don't . . . it seems to me that certainly reflects my experience more and that here's this instrumentality, this English speaking person available to God and God just uses that person. The way the foreigner, you know, all these Europeans seem to speak English. It's marvelous. Anyway, the European comes here and starts speaking English, and he's not having a supra, you know, language, that he's somehow using he's entering into English. Why can't God do that? That seems to me that certainly fits the experience and it seems to fit the analogies offered. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:13:19] And that's what fits the great diversity of religions that we have however. I think if that were the case, that's what revelation were, they wouldn't be, and this is itself a point emphasized in the very nature of the revelation that you receive, God, Zoroaster received a revelation from God, but somehow managed to interpret that as they're being two Gods one good and one evil. Pagans received revelations and somehow managed to turn that into a multitude of nature gods. They now . . . either we have to say to ourselves, well, God is just being coy with all these people he saying, well, I'm going to tell these people this thing and tell these people something else, these things something else and it's like a big puzzle that maybe, you know, thousands of years from now, they will all piece together, I'm sure that God could have told them the same thing, but just chooses not to and at the same time, not telling them that he's not telling them. The whole story, right? Because the story that you've received is not the whole story, is not actually part of anybody's revelation. So either we have to envision God kind of being crafty in this sort of way, or we have to say that the very nature of revelation is such that it is never. . .  it is imperfect and incomplete and subject to distortion and error. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:14:53] Well, Richard, all of these points you're raising now open are all answered in the book. Why there is a diversity of revelations, why they're different, is answered in the book. And it's not because I thought I wanted to be tricky or it was it was a combination of what people are, have the capacity to hear and receive, and of the different sides of God that emerge in part historically as a lot of different aspects of God, the different aspects of God. The different aspects of God. So it's a lot like the blind men and the elephant, each of whom thinks that one's got the leg thing. So it's like a tree trunk and the one's got the tail thinks it's like a rope. And the problem is and well, those are all true of the elephants that have the divine reality has multiple aspects, aspects that are recorded in multiple scriptures. That doesn't mean every line of every scripture is right, but that these are the Zoroaster that is a, you might say, a true revelation that shows something about the divine reality that I only subsequently by reading scholar Jon Levenson, Hebrews, Old Testament. Those same themes are in the Old Testament that are in Zoroaster, but in a different form, I'm told. In a way, the Old Testament is the answer to Zoroaster because it develops beyond Zoroaster. But so part of it is that developmental nature of God and our relation to God. Part of it's God's very complexity, which would be overwhelming. But, you know, we can look at some point at the passage about that, why that would be overwhelming. See if you find that convincing, why you couldn't have given the people of Israel the task of the covenant and at the same time have them doing Oohm so forth, or vice versa. That would be overwhelming. And so there is a kind of almost like a specialization that fits the culture and fits the side of God that's becoming manifest through interacting with that culture. Because God is, as always, emerging. So and anyway, that seems like a very different view, and I don't find the diversity of religions to be itself a problem for revelation. It helps you interpret what revelation is. It occurs historically as God manifest himself, herself, itself, in different ways to different people, different cultures and so on, according to their historical moments, their capacity. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:18:00] But because of that, we have to qualify our attribution of truth to the individual revelation.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:18:11] It's just like the blind men and the elephant. In this respect, the elephant is like a tree trunk. Its legs are like tree trunks. And so it's not that that was untrue in any way at all. It's that the blind man didn't think that. No, it didn't seem to occur at anybody that we should put these together. It occurred, you know, each one assumed the piece I've got is the whole elephant, the rash assumption. But a natural one of you know, I've got I've only got the legs. So, of course, I think the elephant is entirely like the leg of the elephant. Someone else has the tail. So they think the elephant must be an entirely like this tail. But um, well, anyway, think of other analogies. One often gives different students different kinds of instructions. A clinical therapist won't do the same thing with one patient as with another because the cases are different. And so on. There's much of life where the fact that you're doing such things differentially different in one case than for one person to another doesn't mean there's some fakery or falsehood or lying or deception going on. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:19:13] Well, I'm just going to wait. We may have a little bit of a gap in our way of thinking about this, you know. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:19:18] And that's fine. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:19:19] But that's fine. But let me just get a little bit more. Let's look at the Bible. Let's consider the Bible for a moment. Right. The Old Testament, certainly. We have a bunch of injunctions that would be specific about how people should live laws, but they ought to follow. Right. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:19:40] Right. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:19:42] And there are people who will maintain that, and I know some, that those laws were in some sense spoken, revealed by God. They were never revoked. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:19:47] Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:19:48] That therefore, we have an obligation to live in accordance with those specific laws. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:20:05] Right. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:20:06]And here I am again, having to wonder whether what am I going to say about that? How were the laws not spoken by God? Were they not in any sense inspired by God? The Bible presents them as spoken by God. And so with that, just a manner of speaking, if we could have gone back to the original person who wrote that and said the Lord, God said such and such. Would he say oh, I didn't really mean that to be taken literally. It was just an idea of what I thought people should do. And I thought that God would approve of it. And I put it in God's mouth. Or were the people who wrote this having an experience similar to yours. And were they writing down what they somehow heard God say? And if we understand them to have been writing down what they heard God say, then what must our approach to those words be now? Is it possible, I get this question that I have my mind maybe I'm not going to have an answer for it, possible that they had something analogous to the experience that you had? Nevertheless, that what comes out of such an experience. Is not a perfect reflection of what God is. That's maybe an imperfect reflection of what God is. You see, I don't want to. . . It's not . . . I want to get rid of the either or here. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:21:47] Right. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:21:49] And if I,  if I say that to myself, then that opens me up to be able to, being able to read it. And say that, which speaks to me, that which inspires me, that which seems right and true and good to me. I can embrace as reflective of God that which does not, in some states, I have an obligation to not embrace, to reject until such time as it does seem right and true and good to me. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:22:24] Mm hmm. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:22:26] Um, looking at the relation in the way that I'm presenting it allows me to take that approach. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:22:32] Yeah, there are dangers in either approach. If you take everything in too wholly and literally and as if it were the one and only and the whole truth, then there dangers in that of dogmatism and even things that were part of the life of people at a certain time with whom God is interacting, that then gets built into, you know, all eternity by that kind of approach to this, to the scriptures. On the other hand, there's a danger in sifting through and picking and choosing is. . . Well, it's kind of at one point God uses the expression, the arrogance of human reason, you know, that we just start thinking we know, you know, the categorical imperative or the principle of utility or some, you know, later philosophical, rational structure. And then we go back and pick and choose the scripture that fits that. And the problem with that is not that one might miss some truths only, but it's a question of the openness of soul. And of . . You know, there's a big emphasis in the book on obedience. Described as transforming, that's one of the first things you questioned as I recall, which is described as transformation. It's a kind of yielding of the soul. A major theme in various religious literatures and different traditions. The importance of yielding. That's part of the arrogance of human reason is very much connected with ego. You know, I'm going to use my reason as the supreme judge when and I don't find you doing that because you're very open to different ways of looking at things, but that's the risk at that end. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:24:26] But you see the problem that I have, and I don't know if we want to call it the arrogance of human reason. I mean there's a human reason and then there's arrogance. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:24:34] Sure. Not all reason is . . .

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:24:37] Following reason is not necessarily being arrogant. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:24:39] Right. So I said that's a danger. You can veer there . . .

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:24:43] I mean, the arrogance of human reason would manifest itself as someone saying that only what I can conclude through my own reason can possibly be true. And what I have concluded through my own reason must be truth. And the arrogance of human reason in that sense is taken care of by what I call Socratic humility. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:25:07] Yes, yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:25:08] Socrates was famous for saying, "I know that I don't know." 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:25:12] Yeah. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:25:13] Not That he wasn't following reason. Right. He followed reason as far as it would take him.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:25:24] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:25:24] And and then said this is what I must conclude, given what my reason tells me. And I can't conclude anything but that. But I am open to the possibility that I may be mistaken. It's not that you abandon reason. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:25:44] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:25:45] Because if you abandon reason what are you going to rely upon? I mean, on what grounds is someone to accept a revelatory claim? 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:25:56]  Well, we're not talking about abandoning reason. Let me approach this another way. You know, in reading things, there is also a philosophy. When I was growing up, philosophy students were told this, to follow the principle of charity. So if you read a philosopher and it doesn't seem to add up, just doesn't make sense. You don't follow the arguments don't seem good. A.J. Ayres said that when he read Plato, bunch of bad arguments. Well, all the poorer A. J. Ayres, the principle of charity would say, "well, if they strike you as bad arguments, maybe you're not reading it right." You don't know. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:26:35] Maybe they're bad arguments. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:26:37] Maybe their bad arguments, but go back, read it again. And the principle of charity, the merit of it as a heuristic truth seeking device is that you. . . enable you . .  approach it in this case God an Autobiography. In your case, you approach the book of Genesis or Exodus or whatever. You approach it, trying to learn from it. Let it teach me. And you have to be careful not to hold its feet to the fire, to too much, you know, prematurely, I guess, so that you aren't able to be told more. And there is this medieval practice that I recommend for God, An Autobiography. They call it Lectio Divina. Some divine reading would be the literal translation. It's often called a praying through the Bible. And where you don't just read and you don't do a bunch of scholarly stuff. You pray and see what comes to you. You know, you let the text to speak to you, or let God speak to you through that text. And I think that's a very, it's a way to pull out the nuggets of truth that might not at first look like nuggets of truth. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:28:00] I entirely agree with what you're saying here and the way that I would, the way I've of thought that is, it's a  . . .  But I would, I call it a dialectical.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:28:10] That's fair enough. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:28:12] Reading where you enter into a dialog with the reading. You question it and then you look to it to find an answer to your question. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:28:21] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:28:22] And the idea of charitable reading is also an idea of charitable interpretation. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:28:27] Mm hmm. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:28:28]  In other words you try and find an interpretation that will make some sense of it. But it has to be for me anyway. It has to be a credible interpretation to be able to say, yeah, I'm not engaged in what I sometimes call a lawyer's trick, seeking, though, twisting the words to make them into something that they manifestly are not. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:28:51] Right. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:28:52] And so one of the ways in which I engage the Bible, let's talk about the Bible for a minute in a charitable reading, is precisely by saying to myself that I am not under any obligation to accept what is being said here as the definitive word of God. I am to the extent that I want to approach the Bible spiritually, I ought to enter into a dialog with the Bible, a dialectic with the Bible. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:29:24] Right. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:29:24] I thought something offensive about the idea that God has ordered all of the Amalekites to be slaughtered. Then I have to ask myself, which should I give more credence to, the text or my feeling of moral offense? 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:29:41] You're right. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:29:42] And you know, which should I follow? And my answer is my sense of moral offense. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:29:48] Or are there other options? 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:29:51] Well, maybe. But maybe there aren't other options. Maybe any other options would involve my reading in bad faith. Words . . . my attributing to the text what's not really there, or trying to be an apologist or a text that, you know, you can't credibly read it in any other way. I would prefer to say it's wrong. It's wrong. Somebody recorded it wrong. Somebody heard it wrong. Somebody perceived it wrong. Human beings are fallible receptors to use the words of God. And so that's how . . . here we may just . . . because of course this was your experience. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:30:36] Well, it's a difference when it's your own experience, of course. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:30:41] I think I'll say it along these lines is part of what is related to this for me. If there are places in the book where God doesn't tell you something in particular. But tells you to try to enter into God's experience of some. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:31:03] Right. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:31:04] Right. And then what you give is a description of your experience of God's experience.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:31:13] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:31:21] Here is a clip from episode eight of God, An Autobiography, The Podcast, where Jerry begins to have this kind of experience with God. 

Dramatic Adaptation: Episode 8

Jerry Martin - voiced by Scott Langdon

The Voice of God - voiced by Jerry L. Martin, who heard the voice

Jerry Martin Then, late at night, I felt the boundary between me and the world becoming thinner and less distinct. Slowly, subject and object were blending, becoming intimately bound, not standing apart from one another. I was noting this intellectually, but it was not an intellectual experience. It was an ontological experience, an experience of my whole being. Finally, for a few moments, it approached total oneness, the complete loss of awareness of self. I pulled back. “Lord, what is the meaning of this kind of experience?”

The Voice of God [00:32:20] There are many levels and kinds of experiences with me--including music. Do not make too much of it. It is good; just let it happen. It does not mean that you are about to become a mystic or anything unworldly. It is not unlike--it is on a continuum with--a wide range of spiritual experiences, in and out of religious practice and sensibility, that people have all the time. But it is definitely good. It will give you energy and peace and insight, so let it in.  

Scott Langdon [00:33:06] That was a clip from episode eight of our podcast, where God begins to share with Jerry what it's like to be God. Let's return for the conclusion of dialogue number two between Jerry Martin and Richard Oxenberg. Richard continues. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:33:27] once again, it's almost as if you are entering into an empathic relationship with something that is coming to you from God, but your ability to have that empathic relationship is limited by what you can experience, what you can experience and understand in yourself, and maybe that's all right. But maybe what we need to say is and need to apply to that is what I call Socratic humility. Well, this is what I understand, but I'm open to the possibility that it may not be perfectly accurate. And maybe that's a lot easier for me to say at some distance from this experience for you to say, having had this experience in such a pronounced and profound way. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:34:22]Yeah, I see. My main job is to accurately report the experience, the words, the dialog, and where there are experiences I'm drawn into, guided into, drawn into,  to report those as they came to me. And but one of the . . . if you go back to the reasons for this, this particular set of revelations in God an Autobiography. One of the reasons was for people to understand what it's like to be God. And I very much puzzled over that at the beginning, because most of our theology, we don't even quite think of that as meaning anything, what's it like to be God. And that was one of those points where, you know, I always have the Socratic humility and the sense I'm always arguing with God through the course of the book. And being God answering sometimes satisfactorily, to my mind, sometimes not. And I just go on maybe come back to the same issue. But, but anyway, that's one of. . . but God says one of the problems is that we see God only from the outside. And not, not from what it's like to be God. And it makes God distance a kind of object and so on. And that blocks the relationship, you know, as it would with any person if you saw them only . . . sometimes I've known public figures, you know, my years in Washington, D.C. If you only see them as public persona, then you're not relating to them at all. That's the outer crust of a real person. And so God wants us to relate in this deeper way where we sort of empathize with God, God empathizes with us. And empathizing doesn't mean, oh, conjure up some feeling. Empathy is a kind of mode of perception. It's a mode of understanding. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:36:14] Yes. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:36:15] I think that's what empathy means. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:36:18] I think what I can get out of our whole discussion, what you said, which works for me, and that is that when we encounter any claim to revelation or any revelatory text, we ought to read it. To the extent that they were going to take it seriously at all. This is the way I would put it, with everything we've got. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:36:41] Sure with heart, mind and soul. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:36:44] With our concerns, with our reason, with our knowledge, with everything we've got. In doing that, enter into a kind of dialectic with it. And where truth seems to bubble up from that dialectic. We can hold onto that. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:37:05] Yeah. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:37:05] A truth that has come to us through this process. And that truth itself might, we still might need to hold it with what I keep calling Socratic humility. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:37:19] Yes, that's a wonderful expression. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:37:21]  They're not perfect. And there may be more to come. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:37:24] We go back to a point you made earlier, Richard, about the dialog conversation of the sort I have with God, is between one person to another person, and you've talked about a dividing line, that one's over here, the others over there. But in the overall backdrop of the book, of course, repeatedly in various contexts, I'm told we're part of God. God is in us. So we're in God. God is in us. It's as if we're a kind of differentiated part of God and God says the God as we know him is a differentiated part of the total divine reality. You might say the personal manifestation of this ultimate divine reality. And so and I'm saying this in this context. This means part of the equipment you bring to reading the book is not just reason and a kind of syllogistic sense laying out arguments, but the God in you. The divine element, the divine receptors and perceptors that are in you, the divine sensors that are in . . . 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:38:31] A quote from the book that speaks to this in some sense. And I just thought it might be interesting to read it. It's from page 91 of the book.  God is talking about how, yet precisely, how there is in sense human beings are a differentiated element of God. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:38:47] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:38:48] God goes ahead and says there is still a difference between your voice and mine. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:38:57] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:38:58]  I am, in fact, a specific manifestation of myself. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:39:04] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:39:04] Very Interesting line that there is more to come!

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:39:09] My whole self, yes . . . 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:39:12] The whole self that I guess the, I'm the way I read it, this is related to the whole discussion of revelation. That the God who speaks as an I to you.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:39:25] Yes. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:39:26] Is a specific manifestation of the whole. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:39:31] Of this larger whole. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:39:33] And the God we're hearing in the book is one specific manifestation of that larger whole as it can speak through Jerry Martin. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:39:47] As it's speaking to this other manifestation. And the reader is a third manifestation. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:39:53] Yes, yes, yes, yes. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:39:55]Well, that offers some hope? 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg Yeah.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin Because of what . . .to the extent that we have divine eyes, we have a very good chance of seeing the truth. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:40:05] So I thought the next time we would maybe focus on what God says about why He’s delivering this Revelation to you. And that might be the next step in our discussion.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:40:21] That makes sense, that makes sense. Well I look forward to it, Richard. 

Dr. Richard Oxenberg [00:40:25] Okay. Well, thank you, Jerry, and thank you. 

Scott Langdon [00:40:38] Thank you for listening. To God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. Subscribe for free today wherever you listen to your podcasts and hear a new episode every week. You can hear the complete dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin, by beginning with episode one of our podcast and listening through its conclusion with Episode 44. You can read the original true story in the book from which this podcast is adapted. God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher, available now at Amazon.com, and always at godanautobiography.com. Pick up your own copy today. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at questions@godanautobiography.com and experience the world from God's perspective as it was told to a philosopher. This is Scott Langdon. I'll see you next time.