10. I Learn How God Reveals Himself To Humans | Dramatic Adaptation Of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher [Part 10]

“Theology is not just an intellectual exercise.”  

Welcome to 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.

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

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Transcript

GOD: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY - THE PODCAST

JLM -       Narrator (Jerry L. Martin) - voiced by Scott Langdon
Jerry -     Jerry Martin - voiced by Scott Langdon
GOD -    The Voice of God - voiced by Jerry L. Martin, who heard the voice

__________

EPISODE TEN: Where I am told how God reveals God-self to human beings


GOD

Instrument of revelation.

JERRY

Is this what you want me to be?

GOD

Yes, that's right.

JERRY

What kind of revelation?

GOD

And what kind of instrument. First, I want you to model the spiritual life. Live it deeply. Theology is not just an intellectual exercise. It must be grounded in an intimate relationship with me, an intimate openness to my word. 

JERRY

Aren't I already open? 

GOD

Yes, but you turn away. You know the problem. You hold me at arm's length and listen to me only part of the time, and only partially, not as a whole person. You need to draw me into yourself totally--live through me--and let me guide you totally. 

JERRY

That sounds miserable. I couldn't have fun and enjoy life anymore. 

GOD

No, it doesn't mean that. You will find life perfectly pleasant. This is not a renunciation. It is an affirmation, a growing in a certain direction, in a certain domain. 

JERRY

What do you want me to do?

GOD

Nothing dramatic. Just pause in the course of the day to take me in. It doesn't mean you have to interrupt other things you're doing. But I will be co-present and a co-participant. Try it now, as you eat your lunch.

JERRY

Okay, Lord.

GOD

Good.

JLM

That day I ate lunch with God. But most days I do not. 

JERRY

Lord, it sounds as if you want to announce a new revelation. In this day and age?

GOD

There is nothing surprising or shocking in further revelations. I reveal things to people all the time in many different ways--in prayer, inspiration, intuition, ethical insight, even aesthetic response. My revelations evolve. I reveal different things now than millions of years ago.

JERRY

Millions of years ago?

GOD

Yes, I revealed things to prehistoric people, though they had a limited ability to understand. My revelations to Abraham and Moses were unusual, because they marked the first of the clear messages that got through and were really understood. 

But the current situation is different. I have been revealing things always to individuals who asked, but this was piecemeal, fragmentary, usually added by the recipients as interpretations of previous texts and old revelations. 

Now we need a new systematic revelation, from bottom to top, almost to start over again--with a new Genesis, one might say, with a new Gospel of John. And a new philosophical understanding of God. The old one was only partly inspired and contains too much of the arrogance of human reason.

Mankind does not live in a period for a Great Prophet. There can be no new Moses or other Deliverer. There can be at best Elijahs--prophets and seers--people who explain my story in a form that can be understood by this age. 

A time of mending is needed, but the nature of the world today prevents the presentation of a single, unitary vision. The best I can do is to share visions with particular individuals and let them articulate these visions in their own voices.

It is difficult being God. One is not well understood. One is even ignored, neglected, and denied. Yet I need to be known, to be recognized. The world needs for me to be known. 

My nature, the true nature of the universe, of Being, and my relation to human beings, to their role and destiny, is complex. Einstein's theory of relativity is child's play by comparison. An adequate understanding cuts across some of the categories human beings find most natural, though they are really profoundly "unnatural"--and I mean that in the eerie sense. They are warped; they often represent disorders of the soul, distortions of Being.

It is your task, as one of my messengers, my Elijahs, to straighten out some of the errors and distortions, and also to broadcast these particular revelations to others. 

JERRY

How will I get myself heard?

GOD

You will be heard precisely because there is spiritual awakening. Many are listening, waiting, open to a new world. It will be most hard for two groups--the atheists, secularists, who have set theirs hearts against me, against hearing, and followers of the old religions, who are set in their ways, very attached to specific forms and formulas. The latter pains me because, in many ways, these have been my most faithful servants. Like a servant whose master has died and faithfully carries out his last wish--but misheard the wish. The old religions are mostly based on insights, revelations I gave them. But they became rigidified. Partial insights were mistaken for the whole. Ritualism and creeds have been overemphasized, and I am Myself partly to blame, since at one point those were the most important things in the world to me. I am hoping I can open their hearts to something new, without unduly disturbing their good and faithful practices. 

One other thing, besides the new spiritual openness, will help. The testimony of the speaker, by which I mean the witness of his character, makes the message credible. You have a good, sound character. People can see that. You are not a nut or a fanatic or a self-important imposter. People see that. That is why it is important that you write in your own honest, authentic voice--not as some oracular imitation of me. 

JLM

Following that instruction, I have never tried to *improve* what God told me.  

GOD

I give you information, insight, but I am not bequeathing any authority. Pass it on in that spirit. 

JERRY

Having this line of communication with you does make me feel superior, though. 

GOD

You are not superior. You have drenched yourself in sin for fifty years. Do not feel superior to anyone. Your only superiority is your willingness to obey, and that I have given to you. I opened your heart to love and to me. You did things to prepare, but I have opened the hearts of some who did not. It is neither deserved nor a gift--it is a fact about me. I am expressing myself through you. 

JERRY

What is my role supposed to be?

GOD

Just to be a serious reporter of what you are told when you pray. 

JERRY

Okay, that I can do.

(The End)