This independent research paper was submitted on April 15, 2022 for my Varieties of Religious Experiences in Christianity course.
It is all too expected for the Bible to be dismissed in the secularized world of the modern West. The religious a priori foundations of Christianity deteriorated as humans began to understand the world under the lenses of science and objective reason in much greater depth than what was given in Biblical accounts. This disillusionment is further compounded by the reality that much of what is presently understood as acts of injustice—the enslavement of African-Americans, the Holocaust, and Canadian residential schools, to name a few—were justified by passages of the Bible. These days, much of the lime-light given to the Bible is when it is in the hands of outspoken fundamentalists in protest against recent ideological shifts on issues such as abortion and family planning, and homosexuality and transgenderism. It is no wonder that many are left questioning: How is one supposed to find love, hope, and life from an ancient text that has provoked so much oppression, despair, and spiritual death?
An alternative, equally prevalent question that many face is something like: If rationality was meant to unveil the needs of humanity and help us meet those needs, then why is the world still miserable? Dr. Jordan B. Peterson reckons that, in the fight to purge the world of inaccurate and outdated religious ideas, humanity has lost sight of how to live a truly meaningful life. Peterson further emphasizes that it is the Bible that holds the key insights to a meaningful life. As an ancient text that has prevailed through a history of ever evolving civilization, many biblical narratives resonate with fundamental and intrinsic aspects of the human psyche with an unparalleled level of richness. This paper will elaborate on how Peterson, by way of psychological rationale, has revitalized the seemingly age-old concept of the Bible as a source of meaning. Utilizing his lecture series “The Psychological Significance of Biblical Stories”, and his book 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos, this paper will explore Peterson’s analyses of the biblical narratives on i) Creation, ii) Adam, Eve, and The Fall, and iii) the Death and Resurrection of Christ that illustrate the realities of chaos and order, the problem of evil, and the virtue of sacrifice. Drawing on conversations from his self-titled podcast, the final section of this paper will discuss how Peterson’s intellectually-driven perspective on the Bible has impacted the Christian world in revolutionary ways. This paper—albeit merely skims the deeply profound ideas of Peterson’s theories—ultimately aims to demonstrate a contemporary psychological way of interpreting biblical stories that has proven to be compelling enough to captivate the modern audience into exploring Christianity.
Peterson’s Education, Career, & Theoretical Foundation
Rising into prominence in the late-2010s from the success of online videos and a bestselling book, Peterson has retained a place in modern media as a public intellectual and educator. He began his intellectual journey studying political science, English literature, and psychology in his home province of Alberta, completing his undergraduate degree at Grande Prairie College and the University of Alberta. In 1991, Peterson graduated from McGill University with a Ph.D. in Psychology and continued his work in McGill’s Douglas Hospital until 1993. Peterson served as a Psychology professor at Harvard University from 1993 to 1997, later returning to Canada to teach at the University of Toronto (Taylor, Peter Shawn, et al.; “Jordan Peterson”). In the academic world, Peterson has published more than a hundred scientific papers on alcoholism, antisocial behaviour, play, emotions, creativity, competence and personality (“About Jordan Peterson”). In 2016, Peterson went viral with a series of controversial YouTube videos against Bill C-16, which sought to include gender expression and gender identity under the Canadian Human Rights Act. While the mixed reception ultimately contributed to retiring from his tenured position at U of T in 2021 (Alexander and Shafiq), Peterson shifted his focus on sharing his ideas on a global scale with his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Selling more than five million copies, 12 Rules became an international bestseller. Peterson continues to be featured on numerous podcasts, shows, articles, and videos to converse with others on topics of psychology, religion, and politics, also producing his own content on his YouTube channel, podcast, blog, and other social media platforms to millions of followers (“About Jordan Peterson”).
Peterson’s judgment of biblical narratives find its basis in a Jungian understanding of the collective unconscious that emphasizes the commonalities embedded in the psychology of all humans. Carl Jung introduced the idea of the collective unconscious in psychological discourse to describe universal themes found in various cultures over time and geographical location. As a result of human evolution all human minds are innately predisposed to a set of characteristics and ideas, called archetypes, that manifests in human behaviour, beliefs, and personality. More significantly, archetypes are understood to be the themes and patterns ingrained in symbols across cultural artifacts, such as dreams, literature, art, or religion (McLeod). It is for this reason that Peterson recognizes that there is truth in fictional stories, an idea that many atheists and rationalists use to dismiss the Bible and similar mythological stories. While fiction may not be scientifically or historically accurate, great fiction derives its truth and meaning from the way it speaks to these archetypes of the collective unconscious. A great story has the power to change one’s life because of the way it explains the nature of the human experience, and this transformative power, to Peterson, can only be best described as religious in nature (“Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity with Word on Fire”).
I. Creation: Transforming Chaos Into Order
The account of creation in Genesis describes elements of human consciousness in the ways God brings order and purpose into the chaos of the unknown. The ideas of order and chaos is an ongoing theme in Peterson’s conceptions of the nature of experience. “[T]he world of experience has primal constituents,” Peterson explains, “One of these is chaos. Another is order. The third…is the process that mediates between the two, which appears identical to what modern people call consciousness”. Chaos is everything we neither know nor understand. This unexplored territory, outside of what is safe and known, houses ignorance, fear, anger, and despair. On the contrary, order is everything known and understood. This is the security of certainty, the status quo, and the stable structure in the world (Peterson, 12 Rules 35-36).
God begins by creating the heavens and the earth out of a formless void (Genesis 1:1–2), which Peterson parallels with the aspect of human consciousness that brings forth a reality out of formless potential. The human brain thrives on the recognition of potential, the recognition that something could be more than its current form, releasing dopamine to respond with motivation and active effort. Billions of years of evolution has produced an a priori structure in the human mind that enables us to bring forth reality out of formless potential. The earliest humans ventured into the unknown of the world and encountered strange creatures, plants, materials, elements, and terrain. There was a world of potential treasures and dangers to uncover, and this interpretive structure innate to the brain aided humans to transform the chaos of the uncharted environment into manageable and habitable order. For Peterson, this interpretive structure is akin to the God in Genesis who created the universe out of pieces of the unknown. In the same way humanity grappled with the potential of what is yet to be understood, God brought habitual order into the formless void (“Bible Series II” Section II).
A key aspect of the Genesis 1 account of creation is the idea of Logos, that God uses the Word to bring things into existence. Consciousness operates with active effort to bring order out of chaos, and humans usually begin the process of grappling with the unknown using language. God spoke into existence light, water, land, plants, animals, and humans with the similar intention and effort of humans acting on potential. It is through God’s act of speaking that this biblical narrative of creation highlights the unique capacity of human consciousness to use language in order to conceptualize the world. Further, the particularity of God calling the light “day”, the darkness “night”, the dry ground “land” and the gathered water “seas” (Genesis 1: 5, 10) illustrates the human tendency to name novel things at the onset of discovery. Giving something a name transforms its nature from something unknown and full of potential, to something closer to actuality and purpose (“Bible Series II” Section III).
The story of creation concludes with the creation of humankind in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). Peterson notes that it is quite ambiguous and peculiar that the author of the creation story would conceptualize the creation of humans as being in the image and likeness of God. We would not usually characterize humankind as “God-like”, but there is no mistake that every human is regarded to fundamentally have some transcendent value. The respect given to this transcendent value plays an integral role in the creation of habitable order out of chaos, and Peterson asserts this to be the cornerstone of our legal system. Civilized humans are characterized as those who treat others with a certain level of respect out of reverence for the transcendent value embedded in their humanity (“Bible Series II”). Equally important to this idea of being made in His image and likeness is the human capability to bring order out of chaos. Within every human is “a spark of the divine,” granting us the “semi-divine capacity for consciousness,” that “participates in the speaking forth of Being (Peterson, 12 Rules 60). Even when evil enters both the world and human consciousness during the Fall, Peterson asserts that it is important to remember this intrinsic value within each of us that is capable of bringing forth goodness (Peterson, 12 Rules 57).
II. The Fall: Introducing Evil & Sacrifice
The story of Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2–3 depicts the reality of evil through the idea of self-consciousness: the fact that humans are mortal, and that we know it. God creates man and woman and places them in the Garden of Eden, commanding them to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). Peterson notes the paradoxical nature of this story, the fact that God even put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden in the first place. While God wants to protect humanity like a parent to his children, parents ultimately wish to make their children stronger (“Bible Series IV”). The inclusion of the serpent in the Garden is akin to the black dot in the Taoist yin/yang symbol, it is a depiction of the reality that even in the most orderly of places, the possibility of the chaotic unknown remains present (Peterson, 12 Rules 46). It is simply impossible to permanently lock away the dangers of the unknown, and so God places the Tree in the Garden and a serpent inhabits it. Moreover, Peterson contends that Adam and Eve were less than who they became after eating the Forbidden Fruit because their goodness was bestowed onto them; it is much harder to be good if you have a choice not to be (56). “Perhaps,” says Peterson, “Heaven is something you must build, and immortality is something you must earn” (53).
Adam and Eve begin their lives in the Garden unashamed of their nakedness (Genesis 2:25), which is only important enough to note if humans are conventionally ashamed when they roam the world naked. Nakedness renders one vulnerable, unprotected, and easily damaged, it is no wonder why Adam and Eve immediately looked for cover after realizing they were naked (Genesis 3:7). The Forbidden Fruit, as explained by the serpent, gave Adam and Eve the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:5). By eating from the Tree of Knowledge, their eyes were opened and they gained sight of their nakedness: they became self-conscious and aware of their capacity for evil (“Bible Series IV”). Now that they were aware of their faults and weaknesses, Adam and Eve hid away from God in shame (Genesis 3:8). Peterson explains, “In their vulnerability, now fully realized, they felt unworthy to stand before God” (Peterson, 12 Rules 50). Where Adam had previously walked with God through the Garden without second thoughts of inadequacy next to literal Perfection, God was now left looking for Adam as he hid (Genesis 3:9). Self-consciousness causes us to hide away because we feel that we are not good enough; our insecurities debilitate us from manifesting our destiny (51).
As punishment for eating of the Tree of Knowledge, God tells Adam, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground” (Genesis 3:19)—humanity is doomed to work for a living. The Forbidden Fruit gave Adam and Eve the ability to see the future, their inevitable mortality. “We work,” Peterson explains, “because we have awakened to the truth of our vulnerability, our subjugation to disease and death, and wish to protect ourselves for as long as possible” (174). In becoming self-conscious of our vulnerabilities, it becomes necessary to prepare for all contingencies by sacrificing the present for the welfare and security of the future. This can be conceptualized as setting up a bargain: some sacrifice today in exchange for a better tomorrow. Our ancestors took this idea further by personifying the force that governs fate as a spirit that can be bargained with, offering ritual sacrifices to the deity in order to secure a better future (165).
However the reality is that life is not as simple as “sacrifice now to gain later” when humans have the capacity for evil. The knowledge of good and evil revealed to Adam and Eve their vulnerability, understanding that they can feel pain and what produces it. But truly understanding pain and what causes it means that one understands how to cause pain to others (174-175). Eating the Forbidden Fruit is perceived as the Original Sin because it gave humans the capability to act in evil ways. The consequences of this new capability on the idea of sacrifice is illustrated in the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1–9). Humankind has learned the benefits of offering sacrifices to God, however for whatever reason, God rejected Cain’s sacrifices. “[Cain’s] lost the present and the future… his work—his sacrifice—has been pointless” (175). He was bitter because God had rejected him, angry that his work was for nothing, and jealous of his brother, Abel, for offering sacrifices that pleased God. Cain feels pain, and in his capacity to inflict pain he murders Abel. “The central problem of life,” Peterson deduces, “...is not merely what and how to sacrifice to diminish suffering, but what and how to sacrifice to diminish suffering and evil—the conscious and voluntary and vengeful source of the worst suffering” (177). The solution to this problem, for Peterson, is outlined in Christ’s death and resurrection.
III. Jesus: The Archetype of a Hero
The narrative of Christ’s death and resurrection provides significant insights to elements of sacrifice and psychological transformation, ultimately illustrating a lifestyle that Peterson attributes as the key to a meaningful life. Prior to his crucifixion, Jesus was led into the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1–11). This is much like the story of Cain from Genesis 4, who faced a sense of evil when his sacrifices were rejected by God. Cain metaphorically entered the wilderness, and "[h]e obsesses over his ill fortune; his betrayal by God. He nourishes his resentment” (Peterson, 12 Rules 178). As difficult as it is, confrontation with the terrible unknown—full of tragedy, failure, loss, and betrayal—is necessary for psychological growth. Peterson says, “Christ was willing to confront and deeply consider and risk the temptation posed by the most malevolent elements of human nature” (180). In the same way Jesus wandered the wilderness to better understand the evil that was holding the world back from reaching its full potential, one must confront and come to understand the obstacles that hinder their growth in order to move forward (“The Death and Resurrection of Christ”). The difference between Cain and Jesus, however, is that Cain fell prey to Satan’s temptations, concluding that Evil will give him what Good could not (Peterson, 12 Rules 179). Conversely Jesus overcame the temptations of evil, not only in the wilderness, but in His death on the cross. In His human form, God faced Satan to deeply consider how the nature of evil has hindered humanity from reaching their ultimate potential, and in His death he sacrificed himself so that humanity can move forward towards the Good.
The cycle of death and rebirth is the foundation of psychological development: we work to let go of the parts of us that hold us back, and in its place a better life is cultivated. While it may feel easier to stay unchanged, becoming our full potential requires us to step out of what we know, even if that means sacrificing what we value most. Christ’s death exemplifies this idea of psychological transformation on a cosmic level: "That is the archetypal story of the man who gives his all for the sake of the better—who offers up his life for the advancement of Being—who allows God’s will to become manifest fully within the confines of a single, mortal life. That is the model for the honourable man. In Christ’s case, however—as He sacrifices Himself—God, His Father, is simultaneously sacrificing His son. It is for this reason that the Christian sacrificial drama of Son and Self is archetypal. It’s a story at the limit, where nothing more extreme—nothing greater—can be imagined" (171–172). The story of Christ is exemplary of a true hero, who bravely and selflessly sacrifices everything for the ultimate Good. Even though we may not be called to die for the sake of cosmic Good, the call to fight for the Good makes even the most difficult of sacrifices worth it (“Christianity and the Modern World”). Peterson contends that humans are neither order nor chaos, but rather a process by which what we know is transformed into what could yet be. To pursue the path of ultimate meaning is thus to participate in the cycle of death and rebirth—both in our personal development and in the grander scheme of things (“The Death and Resurrection of Christ”).
Christianity: Its Problems & A Solution
Immediately following Peterson’s delineation of the Christian mode of sacrificial living in 12 Rules is a section titled “Christianity and its Problems”, which outlines the misguided focus of the Church that eventually contributed to its demise among the people. He begins the section by stating a hypothesis by Jung “that the European mind found itself motivated to develop the cognitive technologies of science…after implicitly concluding that Christianity, with its laser-like emphasis on spiritual salvation, had failed to sufficiently address the problem of suffering in the here-and-now” (Peterson, 12 Rules 185). Earlier in history, the Christian idea that everyone, whether slave, master, or someone in-between, were all equally valuable before God proved to positively transform the fundamental presuppositions of Western law and society. The claim that even the lowliest had rights that must be respected was revolutionary, and it solved the problem of inequality that plagued civilization. However, by placing emphasis on the inherent salvation of all, what resulted were three mutually reinforcing consequences: First, the significance of earthly life was devalued as the focus shifted to the afterlife; second, the status quo was passively accepted since salvation was not dependent on efforts in this life; third, the believer was entitled to reject moral burden because Christ had already done the work to save them (189). In short, the idea of imitating Christ in heroic pursuit was severely undermined by the Christian truth of universal salvation, resulting in a dogma that had little action behind the tenets it upheld. Likewise, Bishop Robert Barron, a prominent Catholic Church leader in the contemporary Western world, explains that Catholicism had lessened the moral demand on practitioners and dumbed down its theological emphasis in fear that high expectations would discourage people from practicing the faith. Barron recalls the portrayal of Catholicism in his youth as a subject to be taken less seriously as math or science, in turn it painting the religion as an ideology that did not take the realities of life seriously. It seems like the Church does not demand enough of their young people despite the fact that its tenets speak of a Saviour that sacrifices everything, so young people look elsewhere in search of a meaningful adventure (“Christianity and the Modern World”). What developed out of the ashes of Christian dogma is both nihilism—the belief that existence is useless and traditional values are unfounded, and a dangerous susceptibility to new, totalizing, utopian ideas—those in the likes of Communism and Fascism. Both outcomes are far worse for humanity, contends Peterson, because psychologically “we cannot invent our own values, because we cannot merely impose what we believe on our souls” (193). There is an inherent nature within all of us that we must discover and emulate in order for us to learn our capabilities, and this nature is profoundly delineated through the narratives in the Bible.
Peterson’s refreshing work on the Bible has captured the attention of atheists and believers alike as it reconceptualized biblical narratives to appear as more than merely outdated historical accounts of the ancient Israelites. In his understanding of Christian theology Peterson emulates themes from Church forefathers such as Augustine, who understood biblical text to pertain to moral life rather than historical life. Augustine specifically asserted that all truth is from God, and in that belief he found no issues in bringing in knowledge from other disciplines into theological discourse. Peterson’s work is especially influential to young people, who are drawn to his analyses of biblical narratives because of the way he brings out contemporary issues from them (“Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity”). According to Barron, young people are most compelled by mentors that are equally knowledgeable about the subject they are sharing and appear to be truly committed to these ideas. Young people desire to have conversations that are intellectually and morally challenging, and both Peterson and Barron agree that the Church has fallen short in this light. The call to sainthood, as it is often called in Christianity, is to imitate Christ by entering the dysfunctional world, bear its pain and suffering, and bear to it the divine mercy of God. This great adventure of heroism is not being laid out before the youth of today by conventional Catholicism, however this aspect of Christianity is precisely what Peterson emphasizes in his conversations about the Bible. Peterson satisfies the modern world’s hunger for serious conversations, and in even his most intellectual discourses he concludes that serving God is objectively the best and most meaningful path to choose (“Christianity and the Modern World”).
Conclusion
The works of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson explored in this paper have captivated the intellectual minds of many in its efforts to uncover the depth behind biblical narratives through the lens of Jungian psychology. The process of evolution has rendered the psyche to encompass a universal nature, the collective unconscious, that operates beneath the surface of human behavior, art, myths, literature, and religion. The collection of stories found in the Bible come from the minds of some of the earliest humans, but it is its antiquity that brings the most fundamental aspects of human experience to the modern world. The story of Creation delineates the nature of human consciousness as we strive to bring order out of voidless chaos. Adam and Eve eating of the Tree of Knowledge illustrates the reality of human consciousness: the expansion of knowledge introduces to the world the virtue of sacrifice and the problem of evil. Finally, the story of Christ’s death and resurrection outlines the blueprint of a true hero who does everything it takes to ensure a better future for the world. It is by emulating Christ’s boldness to confront the chaos and sacrifice for the sake of the Good that Peterson claims to be the key to living a meaningful life. It is this call to partake in life's greatest adventure that attracts young minds towards further exploring Christianity.
The death of God leaves our current world in search of something to make the sufferings of life worth it. The realities of the world make life unfair, and the exhausting chaos can present itself in the most painful, disheartening ways. It becomes enticing to deem this life and this world useless, and in our misery we might grab at flashy ideals of utopia to sedate the hopelessness. The overwhelming existence of Evil makes it easy to lose sight of the Good, but even in the most chaotic void is the potential for order. Better yet, inherent to our human psyche is the capability to detect this potential for order, to detect even the smallest potential for good in the midst of evil. It is no easy task to bring this potential to fruition, but even in the struggle to bring order to chaos we have already brought a bit of good into the world. In the process of turning the most sour of lemons into lemonade, a pinch of sugar makes all the difference.
Work Cited
“About Jordan Peterson.” Jordan Peterson, 1 Dec. 2021, https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/about/.
Alexander, Lauren, and Tahmeed Shafiq. “Controversial Professor Jordan Peterson Retires from Tenured Position at U of T.” The Varsity, 24 Jan. 2022, https://thevarsity.ca/2022/01/23/jordan-peterson-resigns-u-of-t.
“Jordan Peterson.” U Of T Mind Matters, http://uoftmindmatters.com/mind-matters-5-power/programme/jordan-peterson/.
Mcleod, Saul. “Carl Jung.” Carl Jung | Simply Psychology, 1 Jan. 1970, https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-jung.html.
Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Random House Canada, 2018.
Peterson, Jordan B. “Biblical Series II: Genesis 1: Chaos & Order” 27 May 2017, https://youtu.be/hdrLQ7DpiWs.
Peterson, Jordan B. “Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death.” 19 June 2017, https://youtu.be/Ifi5KkXig3s.
Peterson, Jordan B. “Christianity and the Modern World” The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. 19 Apr. 2021, https://youtu.be/BVrLqpt0APo.
Peterson, Jordan B. “Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity with Word on Fire.” The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. 10 Dec. 2021, https://youtu.be/m9Njk8vpToQ.
Peterson, Jordan B. “The Death and Resurrection of Christ: A Commentary in Five Parts” 5 Apr. 2018, https://youtu.be/xPIanlF6IwM.
Taylor, Peter Shawn, et al. “The Perils of a University Education.” C2C Journal, 12 Apr. 2021, https://c2cjournal.ca/2016/12/were-teaching-university-students-lies-an-interview-with-dr-jordan-peterson/.
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