GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
212. Special Episode | Revisiting I Ask God- What’s The Point Of It All
What’s the point of it all? In this special episode, we revisit the transformative moment when Dr. Jerry L. Martin asks God life’s ultimate question- and receives an astonishing answer.
Discover a profound perspective on existence: life’s meaning is not found in reaching an end but in the living itself. Explore themes of divine love, personal growth, and our intimate relationship with God, as well as the spiritual journey from polytheism to monotheism.
Learn how Abraham became the first to truly hear God’s voice and why understanding God from the inside out can deepen your connection to the divine and the world around you.
Listen now for insights that can transform your perspective on life, love, and purpose.
Other Series:
The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series:
- The Life Wisdom Project- How to live a wiser, happier, and more meaningful life with special guests.
- From God To Jerry To You- a brand-new series calling for the attention of spiritual seekers everywhere, featuring breakthroughs, pathways, and illuminations.
- Two Philosophers Wrestle With God- sit in on a dialogue between philosophers about God and the questions we all have.
- What's On Our Mind- Connect the dots with Jerry and Scott over the most recent series episodes.
- What's On Your Mind- What are readers and listeners saying? What is God saying
Resources:
- READ "Love Exists at All Levels, at the Physical Level it is Gravity."
- DRAMATIC ADAPTATION PLAYLIST
Would you like to be featured on the show or have questions about spirituality or divine communication? Share your story or experience with God!
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Scott Langdon 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. Hello and welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm Scott Langdon.
Scott Langdon 01:15 Today, with Episode 210, we take a look back for a bit of preparation and context. Next week for our 23rd The Life Wisdom Project episode, Jerry sits down once again with Abigail Rosenthal, this time to discuss episode 23, which we called I Ask God- What’s The Point Of It All. It's in this episode that God explains to Jerry that the meaning and purpose of a life is in the doing of it and asks Jerry to consider what is the doing of a life. God also explains to Jerry God's desire for us to get to know God from the inside out, as we would desire to do in a relationship with another person. Here now is episode 23.
Jerry L. Martin 01:58 What is the point of it all? My intellectual curiosity was being satisfied, as God was answering questions about the creation and how He has related to various cultures. For a philosopher, that goes a long way. But I had a deeper yearning that was profoundly unsatisfied. What, I wanted to know, is the point? Is there a point? Or does God preside over a world that lacks discernible meaning?
Jerry L. Martin 02:58 Lord, what is the meaning or purpose of life—and of the world?
The Voice of God 02:58 The meaning of the universe is not exactly a teleology, though this is not a bad concept. In other words, it is not a beginning-to-an-ending narrative of progress, with a single, simple outcome, such as reuniting with God. The meaning that encompasses the entire story is a total holistic meaning: various moments are all bearers of this total meaning simultaneously and, in a sense, all the time. Think of the meaning of a body of work, such as Beethoven's symphonies. Their meaning does not depend on the Ninth being better than the First.
Jerry L. Martin 03:39 Lord, I can understand a story-like meaning that goes from lower to higher, or worse to better. And I can understand a rather formal meaning in a single work, its patterns and structures and the like. But, frankly, I don't see that the collected symphonies have any overall meaning. What do You mean by meaning?
The Voice of God 03:58 I can see this will take some time. You will come up with an analogy that works for you if you keep searching. You surely understand that a single symphony has a meaning—it certainly has a meaningful structure and sequence—yet "the purpose of a song is not to get to the end." The purpose is in the doing of it. Ask yourself, what is the doing of a life?
Jerry L. Martin 04:28 Much of it is a struggle to achieve certain ideals—achieving justice, right versus wrong, and so forth.
The Voice of God 04:36 Exactly, but that is not all. There is insight, understanding, beauty, love itself.
Jerry L. Martin 04:44 Well, I meant ideals in a broader sense than just ethical values.
The Voice of God 04:44 That is right.
Jerry L. Martin 05:06 So we are supposed to achieve those things worth achieving?
The Voice of God 05:06 It is for God to achieve them as well, for God to grow and develop.
Jerry L. Martin 05:06 And purpose does not require a sequential, progressive pattern with a climactic ending?
The Voice of God 05:06 That is correct. Beginning and end are much closer to each other than you imagine.
Jerry L. Martin 05:14 Then You are working with individuals, both for their own growth and for the social and cosmic order?
The Voice of God 05:21 Yes, though that does not sound as intimate as it is. One lover doesn't say of the other, "I am trying to call her into being, and trying to create a harmonious, well-ordered household." That is immensely too sterile. You are living in and through one another, enjoying each other's growth, feeling the pain of each other's heartbreak, and trying to create a life together that has value and reflects a range of values. But you falsify all that if you make it too means-ends, too instrumental in conception. It starts from an intimate core, just you and her and making a life together.
The Voice of God 06:33 Why shouldn't the universe be like that? Why shouldn't that be the whole story of creation? You do not say about the love, "Oh, it's meaningless because it lacks a larger purpose." If you say that, it's not love. The universe is one great act of love.
Jerry L. Martin 06:55 So I should conceive of telling Your story as telling a love story, not so much the external drama of it (boy meets girl) as the intimate life of it.
The Voice of God 07:04 Exactly. That is what Maritain meant when he talked about getting to know the mind of God.
The Voice of God 07:31 It is just as how you want to get inside the mind and heart of someone you love. You want to understand them from the inside out, you might say. I want you to understand Me from the inside out and, in those terms, how I have related to Abraham, Buddha, and others.
Jerry L. Martin 08:11 Where do we begin today, Lord?
The Voice of God 08:14 Abraham is a perfectly good place to start. The most important part of the entire Old Testament is the Abraham story.
Jerry L. Martin 08:22 What should I understand about Abraham?
The Voice of God 08:25 He is, as I told you earlier, the first man who truly heard My voice—and recognized it as My voice. Although I appear in many ways, an important part of My nature is that I am One. I am a Person, and I am One. Polytheism is all good and well, but it utterly fails to grasp that fact, and as a result, it not only has an inadequate picture of the whole but it cannot be a sufficient guide to life or basis for interacting with Me. As you can see, none of the other modes of revelation achieves that.
The Voice of God 09:14 The Chinese relate to Me through an aestheticized nature—fine, but incomplete. It is mistaken insofar as it takes the natural order to be fixed, impersonal, eternal, unchanging, regular, law-like. But I am a Person—willful, interested, engaged, unpredictable. I surprise even Myself, and that is essential, not only to My story—you might just think, "Well, God isn't all He's cracked up to be"—but to the true nature of the Cosmos, the total reality.
The Voice of God 09:58 In spite of its apparent polytheism, Egyptian religion is an important step toward monotheism, because it has a sense that God is personal and that the various gods are manifestations of a single God—not fully articulated except in the odd case of Akhenaten, but quite presupposed. The Egyptian God is, however, inadequate for guiding action. And hence the importance of the contrast between Israel and Egypt, and the story or experience of Moses.
Jerry L. Martin 10:22 Didn't the people of Israel experience You as acting in history, fighting battles for them, and the like?
The Voice of God 10:30 Do not get carried away with that aspect. The chief thing was the divine encounter. They encountered Me as a self. I revealed Myself, and I gave them a law.
Jerry L. Martin 10:51 And monotheism?
The Voice of God 10:51 I also revealed Myself as One God who demanded allegiance.
Jerry L. Martin 11:15 Scholars say that, in the earliest textual stratum, the God of Israel does not dispute the validity of the gods worshipped by other peoples. Lord, at the beginning, it seems, You were understood as just one god among many.
The Voice of God 11:15 But always as One who demanded absolute obedience. The rest—the monotheism—flows from that.
Jerry L. Martin 11:39 Why was revealing Yourself as a Person important, Lord?
The Voice of God 11:39 First, because I am, among other things, a Person. Second, it was the first step to personal guidance—once interiorized as a God personal to each individual, loving and guiding, not just in the abstract but a partner in each individual's life.
Jerry L. Martin 12:03 Was Abraham a real historical person, Lord? Was Moses?
The Voice of God 12:03 I know those are important questions in one way, but for our purposes, now at least, they are not. The stories reveal a truth. In the case of Moses, they reveal the truth of the inadequacy of the Egyptian revelation. Read these texts again, and you will see Moses responding to the fully personal, fully One God, and seeing the inadequacy of the Egyptian lack of full articulation and realization of this. Confronted with the One God, their gods become false. The same is true of polytheism. Their gods are real—they are real manifestations of Me—but they are not final, not adequate.
Jerry L. Martin 12:48 Well, is the idea of the One God final or adequate?
The Voice of God 12:48 That is not the question for now, but you know the answer: of course, it is not complete, and in that sense, a fuller, more adequate conception is needed.
Jerry L. Martin 12:48 I wanted to put God in a conceptual box. He wouldn't let me do it.
Scott Langdon 13:05: 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.