GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
254. Radically Personal: How Divine Reality Reveals Itself In Every Spiritual Journey
Radically Personal is a new series exploring how divine reality reveals itself within the lives of individual seekers. Based on Dr. Jerry L. Martin’s newest book, Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age, the series invites listeners to rethink what it means to encounter the divine as intimately present and personally responsive. Each episode follows the unfolding conversation between human experience and transcendent reality, uncovering how theology itself must evolve to meet a pluralistic, spiritually awake world.
In this premiere episode, “How Divine Reality Reveals Itself in Every Spiritual Journey,” Jerry begins with a simple but profound truth: reality discloses itself. Drawing from philosophy, theology, and lived experience, he explores how ultimate reality — or what we might call God — has revealed itself across times, cultures, and religious traditions.
Through stories like missionary Kenneth Cracknell’s awakening in Nigeria and reflections on Abraham Joshua Heschel’s life-seeking theology, Jerry challenges traditional boundaries and invites a new kind of understanding. Theology Without Walls, he argues, is not just a scholarly ideal but a way of life: the quest to orient one’s being toward the ultimate source of meaning.
Hosted by Scott Langdon, this episode introduces listeners to a living philosophy of faith — one that honors revelation wherever it occurs and asks how each of us might find our own access point to the divine.
✨ Listen as theology becomes personal, revelation becomes universal, and the search for God becomes the search for your truest self.
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 your thoughts or questions at questions@godandautobiography.com
- 📖 Get the book
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Scott Langdon [00:00:16]: 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.
Scott Langdon [00:00:17]: Episode two fifty-four. Welcome to God and Autobiography the podcast. I'm your host, Scott Langdon. Over the course of the last five years, it's always been a particular thrill of mine to be able to guide you into something new when we introduce a new series to this program.
Scott Langdon [00:01:14]: This week, that thrill continues as I present to you the first episode in our brand new series, Radically Personal. In this new series, based on Jerry Martin's latest book, Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age, Jerry delivers new insight into God's desire for each one of us to know God more deeply.
Scott Langdon [00:01:45]: In the personal journey of each seeker, it’s important to understand that the divine reality is available to all of us because reality, even divine or ultimate reality, discloses itself. Now it becomes our task to find our own best access to it and how to orient our lives in relation to it. Here now is Jerry Martin. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:02:48]: Reality discloses itself. Reality discloses itself. Yes, even divine or ultimate reality. If it didn't, we'd be quite in the dark. Reality has disclosed itself at more than one time, in more than one place, and within more than one culture.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:03:55]: Well educated and spiritually alert, members of this scholarly audience were quite aware of the sparks of ultimacy in multiple traditions. But I did not stop there. I drew the inference, staring them in the face. Had they been willing to notice that theology, if it is to be adequate to the array of divine disclosures, we must take them all in. We must take them all in. And to do that insofar as possible, in their own terms, and on an equal footing.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:05:22]: It must be a theology without walls, not bounded by a single tradition. Here my listeners were puzzled. For them, theology was defined as the articulation of the understandings of one's own tradition. And having said that much, we were all aware of a crowd of difficult issues crying out for discussion. Doesn't divine reality completely escape our language and our concepts? And if not, how not? Does reality disclose itself? Or is that a hopelessly naive, pre-critical claim?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:05:58]: Another requirement would be to specify the relevant sense of reality. The reality pertinent here is that toward which we should orient our lives. For me, divine reality has that connotation. There are other types of ultimate as well. For example, John Locke's matter is his metaphysical ultimate. But here we're discussing that reality that has or ought to have gravitational pull on our lives. Hence this reality has soteriological, that is, salvific implications, whether conceived in terms of salvation or enlightenment or liberation or some other way. It is that reality in orientation toward which we set our course rightly. A life in concert with the divine or ultimate. So theology must be understood not just as a particular faith-seeking understanding, as the classic definition has it, but more broadly, as life-seeking understanding.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:07:40]: Let us set these issues in the cultural context, theologizing in a multi-religious world. What we will be doing in this series is not outlining the steps of an argument, as if I were legal counsel to a theological thesis. Rather, we will follow spiritual and intellectual clues to see where they lead.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:08:10]: Let's begin with the telling experience of a missionary in West Africa. Ardent for his faith, the young minister sent by the Methodist Missionary Society arrived in eastern Nigeria, determined to bring the Igbo, quote, the light of Christ, to heathen darkness. But as he got to know them, he made a shocking discovery. They already knew about God. They knew about God, he says, before ever a white missionary set foot in their territory. The Igbo knew of both the high, the transcendent being who was called Chuckwu, and the eminent form of deity called Qi. They knew about grace and the holy. They had, he says, subtle and fascinating insights into how God and human beings interact.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:09:35]: The young missionary was Kenneth Cracknell, who was to become a major leader in interfaith dialogue. Later he recalled those days with regret. I missed so many opportunities, both to learn and to teach, because I had not woken from a deep dogmatic slumber. Surrounded by manifestations of godliness and true faith, I could not see what lay under my nose, for I had arrived with a hopelessly inadequate theological framework.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:04]: Well, what would an adequate theological approach have been for young Kenneth Cracknell? Or for any of us, once we confront divine truth where we did not expect to find it, that is the question that must be addressed. The project can be stated in what I call the ineluctable syllogism. If the aim of theology is to understand the divine or ultimate reality as fully as possible, and if insight into that reality is not limited to a single tradition, then what is needed is a theology without walls, without confessional or religious boundaries.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:40]: The argument is ineluctable and unavoidable because experiences like Cracknell's are far from unique. Well, how do we proceed from here? Well, for openers, theology itself must be reconceived. Traditionally, theology is based on a single religion. But that single religion understanding is not adequate to our pluralistic world. It will not suffice for truth-seeking that takes into account the multiplicity of religious sources, as well as insights from the rest of life.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:11:10]: A formulation by the great rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book God in Search of Man could well be adapted to the broad sense in which we will be using theology. Religion, he writes, is an answer to humanity's ultimate questions. We are engaged in an effort to understand issues on which we stake our very existence. Well, this is indeed life seeking understanding. The problem, he says, is not how does humanity arrive at an understanding of God, but rather how can we arrive at an understanding of God? That is what in this series we will mean by theology.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:11:37]: We are never pure spectators, says Heschel. The challenge devolves onto each of us. Onto each one of us. It's radically personal. Now some would say we've already made a terrible wrong turn. Next time we will look at what they have to say.
Scott Langdon [00:12:27]: 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 1 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.