A Revelation about Revelations
A conversation with philosopher Jerry L. Martin on hearing God
Dear Living Dark reader,
In early 2023, I recorded an interview with Dr. Jerry L. Martin, whom I have been friends with at a distance for around 15 years now, ever since he and I first met online as I was writing A Course in Demonic Creativity and he was writing God: An Autobiography, as Told to a Philosopher. The interview’s focus was on the remarkable story behind—and implications of—Jerry’s book. Today I’m republishing it to call it to the attention of the significantly larger audience that has gathered here at The Living Dark in the nearly two and a half years since I first shared it.
Jerry is a former professor and philosophy department chair at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He also served as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and became a widely known voice in America’s national conversation over education reform in the 1990s. Then, to his astonishment, he had an unexpected encounter with a voice claiming to be God, and that changed everything.
Our 2023 interaction focused on this remarkable experience, its impact on Jerry’s life, and its possible meanings. We delved into the problem of spiritual discernment, the role of faith, and the varied reactions he encountered from friends and colleagues when they learned of his experiences. We also examined the significance of God’s relational aspect, the importance of understanding different world religious traditions, and the implications of a new understanding of God for religion today. In all, we focused on the diverse spiritual journeys that individual people may undertake as they connect with the divine in their own unique ways.
Here’s that conversation, clocking in at just over an hour. Also see the downloadable transcript below, as well as the additional notes about the themes that emerged, the origin and nature of the transcript, and the reason why there’s only this free-standing episode instead of a regular Living Dark podcast.
Talking with Jerry Martin, God’s autobiographer:
Enhanced transcript:
Moments:
(00:00) - Introduction: daemon muses and divine voices
(07:00) - A Baptist childhood and a philosophical education
(09:30) - Leaving the education field behind. The idea of divine life assignments.
(12:40) - Inner voices and spiritual callings
(14:00) - An awakening to love
(17:00) - Epistemology and the problem of spiritual discernment
(20:20) - Reactions of others to claims of hearing God
(22:50) - The “big story” of God
(25:00) - God’s interactions with different cultures throughout history
(27:15) - A God with a divided personality
(32:00) - God and the world’s religions
(34:30) - The God: An Autobiography podcast
(35:40) - Theology without Walls. The trans-religious imperative. A new Axial Age.
(40:40) - The ecumenical movement and religious pluralism
(44:40) - Religious devotion. Bhakti. An intensely personal God.
(47:30) - The nature of divine communication
(53:00) - How to hear God: virtue epistemology and the clarified soul
(58:20) - Self-surrender and living one’s life as a duet with God
People and topics
Baptists
The independent Christian church movement
Paul Tillich and “ultimate concern”
Higher education
T. S. Eliot, “the time of death is every moment” (from Four Quartets, Section 3, “The Dry Salvages”)
Philosophy and epistemology
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza
The transformative power of love
Judaism
Christianity
Buddhism
Hinduism
The problem of spiritual discernment
Saint Ignatius
William James
Romano Guardini and prayer
The daimon
Genesis and divine creation stories
The American Academy of Religion
Theology without Walls, contemporary religious diversity, and the trans-religious imperative
The Christian ecumenical movement
John Hick, religious pluralism, and the need for a theological Copernican revolution
Karl Jaspers, the original Axial Age, and the new Axial Age
Training in obedience. Hearing God. The story of Abraham and Isaac.
God’s divided personality. Yahweh’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Bhakti devotion in Hinduism
Huston Smith
W. E. Henley
Links
God: An Autobiography, as Told to a Philosopher
A Course in Demonic Creativity: A Writer’s Guide to the Inner Genius
Romano Guardini, The Art of Praying
John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths
W. E. Henley, “Invictus”
William James, “The Will to Believe”
About the transcript
I originally published the transcript in 2023 as well, not long after I published the audio interview. It was for paid subscribers only, but now that I’ve abandoned the paid subscription model, I’m bringing it out for free access to all TLD readers.
Note that it’s not just a literal transcript but an enhanced one. I used the opportunity afforded by making a textual version to improve the articulation of our ideas, and even to add several ideas or offshoots that are new to the transcript itself. The result is essentially a companion to and expansion of the audio version. I laid out this plan to Jerry when I sent him the partially edited draft, and I invited him to edit his own words with abandon, with the aim of perfecting the original verbal form of his words so that, in this alternate textual form, they would say exactly what he intended them to say now that he was able to re-engage with them and recast them with the benefit of calm reflection and hindsight. I also gave myself the same permission. I’m pleased with how this turned out on both sides.
For the transcript I also added, and Jerry answered, a question that I didn’t ask him in the podcast version: Why does he think God picked him to communicate to the world a “revelation about revelations,” as a friend of his characterized the God book? Why choose an agnostic philosophy professor who lacked the specific training and the professional career path for such a thing, and who even lacked any kind of religious orientation or outlook? You’ll find this question and Jerry’s response clearly marked about four-fifths of the way through the transcript text.
A note on having no Living Dark podcast
When I produced and edited this conversation as a podcast-style episode, my thought was that it would be the start of a series. But so far it has remained a one-and-done affair. This doesn’t surprise me. The same was true with the single episode that I produced some years ago for a podcast to accompany my former long-running blog, The Teeming Brain (see “Cosmic Horror vs. Sacred Terror”). Time, energy, and circumstances have made it unrealistic for such things to become regular outings. And I’m fine with that. Video and audio production was my original career, and I enjoy working on projects like this for their own value. When or whether I will ever make any more such things is an open question. No different from any other creative activity in my life, really.
At the moment, I hope you find something worthwhile in Jerry’s and my conversation, whether the audio version or the transcript.
Update on Writing at the Wellspring
Layout of the book continues even as I’m writing these words. Back cover copy is being perfected. I’ll give you a substantial update in the near future. For now, I’ll just share this little fact: After 25 years of being a traditionally published author—except for my decision to release A Course in Demonic Creativity as a free PDF—I have decided to dive into self-publishing with the Wellspring book. I’m quite pleased with how it’s going so far. I’ll share more details with you soon.
Warm regards,
Thank you, Matt. It was a great interview. Edifying.
Great interview. From Love to God. Thank you.