Jordan Peterson Wrestles with God

Jordan Peterson Wrestles with God

What kind of book is the Bible? Is it a book of history, fables, useful moral principles, or ancient superstition? Does it even matter whether the God of the Bible exists and is active in human history, or can we profitably reinterpret him as a literary construct designed to help us grapple with human psychology and guide our search for meaning?

These are the questions readers of Jordan Peterson’s 𝑊𝑒 𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝑊𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝐺𝑜𝑑: 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑒 will grapple with. But after 505 pages of creative and occasionally insightful interpretation of biblical stories, readers will probably be no closer to understanding his answers. This is a book that purports to reveal God by illuminating Scripture. What it actually does is obscure and redefine both.

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐖𝐢𝐬𝐝𝐨𝐦

Since soaring to fame in 2016, Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has interacted freely with traditional and religious ideas. Anyone who has read his best-selling self-help books (12 𝑅𝑢𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒 and 𝐵𝑒𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝑂𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟), listened to him on podcasts, or watched his media appearances knows that when he’s not quoting Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, he’s referencing Scripture. But he’s not exactly preaching.

For Peterson, the Bible functions like a treasury of social and psychological wisdom that, if unlocked, can organize people’s lives and revivify civilization. The power of stories is central to his approach to Scripture, as he believes they reveal aspects of humanity’s “collective unconscious”—the ideas, symbols, and “maps of meaning” all people supposedly share (xxix–xxxi).

Thus, Peterson punctuates each biblical tale by asking, “What does this mean?” (310). What does it mean when God creates Adam in his image? What does it mean when the first couple falls into sin? What does it mean when Cain kills Abel, when Noah weathers the flood, when Abraham offers Isaac, or when Moses encounters the burning bush? In Peterson’s telling, each of these stories exists primarily as “an attempt by the collective human imagination to distill, transmit, and remember the essentials of good and bad into a single narrative” (103).

He certainly admires the Bible, describing it as “both sophisticated and great,” “true literature” (256), and “the most compelling meta-story conceivable” (445). “It is a miracle,” he writes of the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4, “how much information can be compacted into so little space” (99). The information he means isn’t theological but psychological. He thinks the Bible is stuffed with “archetypal characters of the narrative world”—Jungian figures like “the Dragon of Chaos, the Great Mother, the Great Father and the divine Son” (20).

Peterson believes this trove of themes evolved over millennia through a process in which people told and retold stories, preserving only the bits that resonated with universal human experience. This is how such stories “became better and better and, simultaneously, deeper and deeper.” Rather than say no one wrote them, we ought to say everyone wrote them (104). According to Peterson, this is just a “bottom-up” description of what Christians mean when we speak of “divine inspiration” (445).

𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐬

What meaning does he mine from Scripture’s stories (specifically the Pentateuch)? In the creation account, he finds a suggestion that each of us, being made in God’s image, wakes every morning brooding over the figurative waters of chaos (infinite potential), which we must order in imitation of the Creator. Eden signifies a Mandala, an area of experimentation and potential anchored in the center by the rod of nonnegotiable tradition (which also corresponds with Moses’s staff): the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. To steal from that tree is to challenge the world’s moral foundations—to usurp God’s rule. And this is the essence of sin: a step away from balance and back into primordial chaos.

The near-universal human practice of religious sacrifice begins, in Peterson’s telling, with the discovery that creation rewards deferred gratification. Like Abel, we must learn to bring forward our best, and unlike Cain, we must resist the envious temptation to murder the ideal that condemns our shoddy offerings.

In imitation of Abraham, we must heed the “call to adventure” that inevitably summons each of us, refusing comforting lies that keep us from shouldering responsibility to bless our world. We must, in turn, hold our blessings lightly, being willing to figuratively “sacrifice” even our children when the highest ideal demands it, having faith that we will, like Abraham, receive them back (312). And like Jacob, we must allow the adventure of life to transform us, to wound us, and to give us a new name, which is to say we must wrestle with what Peterson calls “God.”

These are a few of his dark sayings. Traversing the accounts of creation, fall, Cain and Abel, Noah, the Tower of Babel, Abraham, Moses, and Jonah, Peterson blends biblical plots and other ancient epics with modern literature and psychological and political reflection. The result is a heady (and often wordy) brew of soft-scientific mysticism reminiscent of Joseph Campbell’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑒𝑟𝑜 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐹𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑠, drawing conclusions that often require interpretive leaps but that clearly hew to Peterson’s monomythical template.

𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐆𝐨𝐝

Some of it is genuinely insightful, grasping themes and typology that do exist in Scripture and showing that the Bible is more than a gazette of God’s doings. It’s subtle literature that reads you as you read, addressing deep and ancient questions of the human spirit and imparting wisdom by osmosis. Even a nonbeliever can see this. Peterson is right to treat Scripture as pregnant with meaning—enough to fill a lifetime of attentive reading. After all, “the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7).

Yet amid this deluge of “meaning,” it’s easy to lose sight of the Bible as revelation that contains straightforward claims about divine intervention in history and about the God doing the intervening. For Peterson, Bible stories seem capable of any meaning except the most obvious, the one believers have always insisted on, and he becomes cagey when pressed on this issue.

It isn’t even clear that he believes in God in any traditional sense. When asked, he typically obfuscates the meaning of the words “believe” and “God” (or else retorts, “It’s none of your d*** business”). In this latest book, he carries on with these gymnastics, treating God as a concept useful to human survival and psychological health, rather than as a Being who could audibly demand Peterson take off his loafers before treading holy ground. And although he devotes space to critiquing atheistic materialism, his real problem with figures like Richard Dawkins isn’t that they reject the Apostle’s Creed but that they don’t buy into his alternative world of Jungian abstractions. A person who has truly wrestled with God shouldn’t be doing gymnastics. He should be limping.

Peterson variously defines God as “The spirit within us that is eternally confident in our victory” (137), “What is to be properly and necessarily put in the highest place” (137), and the ideal to which we commit and sacrifice (171). The closest he comes to affirming something Christians would recognize is in critiquing Dawkins’s reductive view of the universe. He calls scientific atheists “moral dwarfs” (485) and argues that their belief in an evolutionary process that shaped consciousness implies consciousness must be fundamental to reality:

𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴, 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺? . . . 𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴, 𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬, 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦-𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳—𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳—𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦? (𝟥𝟨𝟨)

𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐭

Christian readers whose ears perk up at Peterson’s god-talk will be disappointed, though. He takes away with his left hand what he gives with his right, closing the book with an impersonal, utilitarian confession that has him wishing God into existence because believing is good for us:

𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭? 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘴—𝘢𝘯𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘶𝘪𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦, 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘹𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘵𝘰𝘪𝘭 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘴. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘶𝘱𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥. (𝟧𝟢𝟦)

In other words, God is real as an inspiring myth—humanity’s highest ideal. But beyond that, Peterson’s creed remains a mystery.

He doesn’t specifically cover Jesus or the New Testament in this book (that’s likely coming in a future volume), but he seemed to express a desire to believe in Christ during a 2021 interview with liturgical artist Jonathan Pageau. Since then, I’ve been among the Christian observers and Peterson appreciators hoping for a breakthrough. He’s certainly engaging with the Bible more vigorously than ever, but I regret to say 𝑊𝑒 𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝑊𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝐺𝑜𝑑 isn’t his good confession.

In “Myth Became Fact,” C. S. Lewis defended the legitimacy of treating Christianity as a myth. “We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology,” he wrote. But we mustn’t forget that it really happened, and that’s why the myth—and all myths that resemble it—truly matters: “The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the dying god, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history.”

Jordan Peterson is comfortable in the heaven of legend and imagination. And there is, without a doubt, much to wrestle with in his archetypal reading of Scripture. But it remains unclear whether he’s ready to embrace any of it as fact, to let theology disciple psychology, or to believe his Opponent when he insists, “I AM.” Peterson’s earlier books offered sound advice and even wisdom. This one also beckons readers to a form of godliness, but it’s a form of godliness that ultimately denies its power (2 Tim. 3:5).

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𝐉𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐧 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐆𝐨𝐝 by Shane Morris. Giving Tuesday is December 3! Your generosity helps us strengthen the church by equipping pastors, leaders, and believers with the tools to stand firm and lead confidently. Learn more about how your support can help to reach people here and abroad with the life-saving message of the gospel. Learn more: tgc.org/givingtuesday

This book is actually fairly hard to follow as it is a  verbose (25 hour audiobook—for comparison the entire New Testament takes 20-24 hours to hear on audiobook) stream of conscience. I’ve only seen one other person do this, a lecturer who spread out multiple journals and newspapers in front of himself on a table and talked non stop for about two hours. Basically the overarching discussion of Peterson  is mankind  from man’s perspective, or anthropology.  Under this umbrella of anthropology you have sociology, history, psychology, intellectual musings, philosophy, and religion especially judeo-Christian ideology. In regard to  anthropology and Christianity, it doesn’t matter if the Bible and god are true because mankind operates as if it is true. And he therefore references stories from the Bible as though they are an anthology of man’s journey recorded in a “Bible” that men hold to be true, making it true —for them—because they live by it.  Where he confuses Christians, perhaps, is that some of his sentences are written in the first person as if he himself is a Christian. He’ll say things like …we know this to be true because god tells us in thus- and-such passage. 

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The questions put forward here are bigger than this particular author. “How did God intend scripture to be used, particularly OT scripture?”, “is expository teaching appropriate and within what parameters?”. For instance, Christians might assume that going through the OT chapter by chapter drawing modern meanings e.g. from David and Goliath, Jonathan and David, Abraham and Isaac, etc. is appropriate. This methodology may seem to answer the call to “preach the Word”, but it really does not. It begs the question.

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John Canary

Seeking work in Aviation.

3w

Bye.

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Jonathan Hrovat, MBA, AIC

Engagement Coordinator at ChurchWest

3w

Ironically Peterson, despit a hero of the right, is closer to the progressive non-miraculous interpretation of much modern Christianity.

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The Bible is: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. It contains prophetic truths and facts. It is the ultimate guide for living rightly.

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