Over the years I’ve listened to a lot of Dr. Jordan Peterson’s talks on (or related to) religion, and I’ve witnessed his very public, very slow and agonizing conversion. After reading his new book, “We Who Wrestle With God,” I’ve written a response, which attempts to organize and systematize his argument into something like a logical format.
Here’s the short version.
Man is an evolved creature. Our ancestors did not have a language in the sense we would understand it. As they evolved cognitively, some instinctual functions became conscious, but those instincts continue to have an impact on our perceptions and behavior.
Man is a biological creature with limited cognitive ability faced with an infinite array of possibilities. Our bodies and our minds evolved to filter the cacophony of experience into patterns that are useful to our goals. This goal-orientedness lies beneath all our perception of the world.
We enacted things – often in ritual, often imaginatively – before we understood them. We slowly developed semantic representations for the patterns of our lives.
We developed these semantic representations of how to get along in the world through stories that were refined and condensed over time into myths, legends, symbols, and images. We understand the world through the lens of these stories.
Many of the stories represent how to respond to the threat of the various monsters we encountered along the way – whether those threats were from animals or from our fellow man. These stories helped us prevent the Hell life could easily descend into.
Stories exist within a moral hierarchy. Whatever is placed at the top of that hierarchy is “god” – by definition. It is the concept or system of values around which all goals, all perception, all moral reasoning is organized.
We can understand this god by looking at the values that over time have been useful in helping human societies to flourish. These values are expressed in all human culture, but most particularly in the fundamental texts and stories of culture.
The story that unites all these values is a story of sacrifice, which is best illuminated in the Gospels.
Wrestling with Jordan Peterson’s God: A Systematic Guide to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Religious Thoughts
Sounds what you are describing is that Peterson is slowly converting to the god that Man created rather than the God that created man.
Something like that. JBPs god is along the lines of a cosmic principle that pervades / suffuses the entire universe — including the minds of men.