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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, incompleteness, and ongoing relationship with the world.

Moving through Jewish thought, rabbinic midrash, and biblical interpretation, Jerry and Abigail consider divine ambivalence and the intimacy implied in speaking to God as a family member rather than a distant abstraction.

Abigail reflects on her own philosophical autobiography, "Confessions of a Young Philosopher," while Jerry situates God and Autobiography within a broader narrative of God’s interaction with cultures, histories, and individual lives.

The dialogue turns to skepticism and epistemology, questioning whether modern habits of doubt genuinely reflect how human beings know and live. Against intellectual posturing, the episode argues for sincerity, trust in experience, and the moral seriousness of truth-seeking. Love, in particular, emerges not as a distraction from philosophy but as a decisive mode of knowing—one that reshapes memory, reframes the past, and opens new ways of understanding both God and the self.

This conversation closes the year by inviting listeners into a deeper form of spiritual inquiry—one grounded in history, relationship, and lived truth rather than abstract certainty.

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

• Read the book: God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher at godanautobiography.com or Amazon
• Share your questions and reflections: questions@godanautobiography.com

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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 affirmed a radical insight—that the world, and even God’s presence within it, can be understood as incomplete and still unfolding.

The episode introduces two complementary ways of seeing reality: a horizontal perspective, in which struggle, disorder, and moral effort unfold over time, and a vertical perspective, in which ultimate meaning, goodness, and victory are already present. Through this lens, human action—acts of obedience, love, and partnership with God—becomes essential to the healing and completion of the world.

Jerry also reflects on the Kingdom of God, not as a distant future event, but as a living reality made present through love. Seen in this light, Jesus is not merely a historical figure, but a cosmic presence—one who embodies God’s full presence in the world and serves as a conduit to the Kingdom of God.

This episode offers a thoughtful, non-reductionist approach to suffering, meaning, and faith, and will resonate with listeners wrestling with the limits of purely material explanations of reality.

Listen, reflect, and experience the world from God’s perspective — as it was told to a philosopher.

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

• Read the book: God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher at godanautobiography.com or Amazon
• Share your questions and reflections: questions@godanautobiography.com
• Subscribe and l

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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 reflective dialogue on experience, purpose, and spiritual openness for truth across life.

Related Episodes:

261. What’s Your Spiritual Story: Amanda on Love, Trauma, and Discovering a God Who Suffers With Us

260. Radically Personal: A New Philosophy of God — Life Seeking Understanding

257. What's Your Spiritual Story: Dr. Richard Oxenberg on his Spiritual Journey and the Peace That Passeth Understanding

255. What’s Your Spiritual Story: Laura Buck on Becoming Visible, Intuition, Loss & the Inner Voice

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: questions@godandautobiography.com
• Get the books: God: An Autobiography, Radically Personal

Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

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 to a life of seeking, learning, and slowly opening toward the spiritual dimension.

She describes how psychology and philosophy helped her make sense of the world, how meditation and sacred texts offered moments of grounding, and how discovering a God who suffers with us reshaped her understanding of love and presence. Her story highlights the quiet ways growth can emerge from vulnerability and how even confusion, pain, and uncertainty can become part of a meaningful spiritual journey.

If you’ve ever wondered whether God is present in the difficult places of life—or whether your own story “counts” as spiritual—this episode offers gentleness, curiosity, and hope. It’s a reminder that the search itself matters, and that there are many ways God reaches out along the way.

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 God: Book
• 📖 Get Two Philosophers Wrestle with God

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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 with direct experience rather than boundaries set by any single tradition.

Jerry reflects on the challenge of religious exclusivism, the belief that only one religion is true while others must be rejected, engaging the influential argument by Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga. Plantinga contends that simple logic requires believers to view other religions as false. Jerry examines this claim carefully, suggesting that many spiritual teachings once assumed to be contradictory may, in fact, illuminate different aspects of divine reality. Truth may not be limited to one place or one people.

The conversation considers how spiritual knowledge grows. Just as scientific understanding expands by taking in new insights rather than discarding what came before, religious understanding can deepen when seekers remain open to what God may disclose beyond familiar walls. Jerry proposes a different epistemic strategy — one grounded in conviction but accompanied by humility — acknowledging that human beings are limited, that divine mystery exceeds our concepts, and that God may be revealing truth in multiple traditions across the world.

This episode is a call to be rooted, open, curious, and responsive — to seek a relationship with the Divine that is radically personal.

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

Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

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 from a successful Washington career and toward writing God: An Autobiography. He describes how inner guidance can be unmistakable even when it arrives without logic or explanation.

Abigail offers her own powerful experiences, including years of divine absence in her twenties, a visionary encounter with angelic presence and prophecy, and the moral resolve that shaped her effort to remove a predatory figure from her temple. She shows how spiritual experience intersects with honor, justice, and courage in real life.

Together, Jerry and Abigail consider why divine guidance is unpredictable, how intuition challenges rational analysis, and how spiritual communication reshapes our understanding of calling and purpose. They reflect on timing, prophecy, and the ways God works through both silence and intervention.

The episode also turns toward women’s lives, agency, vulnerability, and the limits of second-wave feminism.

Abigail reflects on what she feels called to now, and Jerry considers how her insights continue the larger spiritual and philosophical journey they share. This intimate dialogue weaves together spiritual autobiography, lived philosophy, and honest testimony.

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

• Read the book: God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher at godanautobiography.com or Amazon
• Share your questions and reflections: questions@godanautobiography.com

Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

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 turns to the heart of the episode: a clear, four-step method God gave him for recognizing divine communication in daily life.

You’ll learn how God speaks through prayer, dreams, intuition, hunches, insights, and inner signals, and how to prepare yourself to receive that guidance. Jerry breaks down each step—listening, heeding, openness of heart, and sensitive attunement—as a real spiritual practice you can begin using today.

Whether you’re discerning a big life decision or simply trying to stay more connected to the sacred in everyday moments, this episode offers an accessible, experiential path for SBNR seekers looking to deepen their relationship with the Divine.

Listen in as Jerry shares how your search for God meets God’s search for you, and how the relationship unfolds from there.

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

• Read the book: God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher at godanautobiography.com or Amazon
• Share your questions and reflections: questions@godanautobiography.com
• Subscribe and listen free wherever you get podcasts

Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

Questions? Comments? Text Us!

In this deeply moving episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, philosopher Richard Oxenberg—co-author of Two Philosophers Wrestle With God—shares his full spiritual story for the first time.

His journey begins with childhood tragedy: witnessing the sudden death of his seven-year-old sister. The shock shattered his early understanding of God, safety, and reality. From that moment, Richard became a lifelong seeker.

He describes moving through secular Judaism, atheism, and years of intellectual searching. Zen Buddhism, Hindu philosophy, and the symbolic theology of Paul Tillich each opened new doors, yet none fulfilled his deeper longing for spiritual connection.

Everything changed when he encountered an Indian guru and experienced overwhelming energetic phenomena—experiences that were both exhilarating and terrifying. This crisis pushed him toward Christianity, where a transformative encounter at a monastery in Conyers, Georgia offered unexpected peace.

Richard speaks honestly about trauma, mystical experience, fear, grace, and the long struggle to discern truth. He explores the difference between understanding God intellectually and encountering the divine directly.

Through reflections on samsara, the ground of being, baptism, communion, and the “peace that passeth understanding,” Richard reveals how faith finally took shape in him as trust in the ultimate goodness of reality.

This episode is a profound look at doubt, longing, spiritual awakening, and the human search for meaning—and at a God who meets us through every question.

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 God: Book
• 📖 Get Two Philosophers Wrestle with God

Share Your Story | Site | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube