A defining trait of 20th century biblical scholarship was its shift toward a Christology “from below” rather than “from above.”1 Theologians began regarding Jesus’ humanity as their preferred methodological starting point rather than his divinity. Some claimed that this approach was truer to the experience of the disciples themselves, who encountered Jesus as a man from Nazareth prior to any reflection on his heavenly origins.
And yet this from-below approach also reflects modernism’s lower view of Scripture. After all, the New Testament itself clearly places the emphasis on a Christology from above (see John 1:1–18; Philippians 2:5–11). Since modernists tend to privilege human experience over supernatural revelation, a Christology from below runs the risk of remaining forever “below,” closed off to the truths received from “above.”
Jordan Peterson’s handling of Scripture is beset with similar difficulties in his latest work, “We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine” (Portfolio, 2024). This volume, intended as the first of a two-part commentary on the Bible, explores Old Testament narratives spanning from creation to Moses, as well as Jonah. Although Peterson (quite refreshingly) dismisses the superficial and clichéd attacks on Scripture from the likes of Richard Dawkins, he is still not a Christian.
Peterson adopts an archetypal approach to biblical interpretation, reflecting the work of contemporary secular scholars like Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade, whom he frequently cites. He views the Bible as Western civilization’s supreme written expression of the deep psychological patterns (archetypes) inherent in humanity’s striving for the transcendent. The biblical stories thus serve as concrete symbols of what is “by definition” (a repeated expression in this volume) eternally true of our experience. For this reason, one could justly describe Peterson’s project as a sort of “theism from below.”
Such an approach has its merits. Peterson writes as a psychologist, so he naturally takes human nature as his point of departure for exploring the divine mysteries. John Calvin himself said that our wisdom consists of two parts: knowledge of God and of ourselves. It is unclear which of these precedes and gives birth to the other.2 More pointedly, I largely agree with Peterson that theological belief finds justification in human need—although this point requires some careful qualification. He writes that the biblical story is “true” in the sense that if we act contrariwise in our own lives, “all hell breaks loose” (6).3
In effect, a “necessary fiction” becomes true in the most fundamental sense of ultimate utility. Although I would object to Peterson’s use of the word “fiction” here (more on that below), I think he correctly intuits how our innate longings function as signposts to divine reality. Our need for dignity, meaning, and justice points toward a transcendent source. This form of argument has a long pedigree, spanning from Paul, to Augustine, to Pascal, to Lewis. Philosopher Clifford Williams has written extensively on the subject in his work “Existential Reasons for Belief in God.”
Peterson is also correct to view the biblical characters as symbolizing human experience in all its profound complexity.
- Mankind’s initial creation in God’s image points to our calling to name, subdue, and bring order out of chaos.
- Adam and Eve serve as paradigms for the respective strengths and flaws of manhood and womanhood.
- Cain represents the resentful spirit of vengeance when, offering only our second-best, we encounter reality as if set against us.
- Noah embodies the spirit of integrity, preparation, and upward-aiming in the face of society’s degeneration.
- Babel represents the tyrannical consequences of wedding the prideful Luciferian spirit with the quest for technical mastery, along with the ensuing fragmentation and confusion of conflicting social interests.
- Abraham symbolizes the obedient response to the call to adventure, even when such a call requires us to sacrifice what we value most for the sake of what is highest.
- Moses typifies the spirit of leadership out of totalitarian oppression, through the desert of instability and hedonistic materialism, and toward the promised land of responsible freedom.
- Jonah embodies the courageous spirit of truthfulness which speaks, even at great personal cost, in order to avoid a greater personal and societal hell.
Even if Peterson can sometimes be faulted for importing his own idiosyncratic ideas into the text, the method itself has validity. There is pastoral value in treating the biblical characters as archetypes of human virtue and vice, and preachers could benefit from incorporating this method into their homiletic toolkit.
One can likewise appreciate how Peterson seeks to make common cause with Bible-believing Christians in the struggle to preserve what is best in Western civilization. As in his previous books like “12 Rules for Life” and “Beyond Order,” he is willing to advocate unpopular ideas like tradition and hierarchy and to warn against identity-based ideologies rooted in a sense of victimhood and entitlement. In an age when large segments of society have called into question truths as basic as the gender binary, Peterson positions himself as an ally (or at least a co-belligerent) to those committed to a biblical view of human nature and society. He even defends the Bible’s teaching on sexuality against accusations of arbitrariness and prejudice (307).
In these respects, Christians might regard Peterson as akin to Dante’s Virgil (as others have also noted). Like Virgil, Peterson has much to teach us about human nature, law, and sin—but he can take us only so far without a knowledge of grace.
Perhaps that is the greatest shortcoming of Peterson’s book: the idea of grace is almost entirely absent. For Peterson, and in keeping with the idea of “theism from below,” the Bible is essentially a distillation of humanity’s highest aspirations toward self-salvation: “We can bring about the salvation and redemption of the world, in small ways and great” (xxx).
On this account, man becomes the hero of his own story rather than God. Peterson poses the rhetorical question, “If those stories are not about us (and this is a serious question for atheists as well as believers), then who or what could they possibly be about” (309)? For Christians the answer is God, of course, but for Peterson the distinction isn’t so clear. He treats God not as the radically transcendent Creator who does for us what we cannot do for ourselves, but as essentially identical with that which is most noble in us: “Who then is God? The spirit within us, that is eternally confident in our victory” (137).
God is depicted as the “spirit of being and becoming” (128) and the “ground of all reality” (334)—sentiments closer to mid-20th-century liberal German theologians like Eberhard Jüngel and Paul Tillich than to traditional Christian orthodoxy.
If God amounts to little more than our sublimated self-talk, then at best what remains is a generic monotheism. This explains Peterson’s otherwise baffling denial of the Bible’s obvious and repeated teaching on exclusive allegiance to the Lord:
It is not at all that the Israelites are insisting, with the fervor of authoritarian believers, that the God they worship must be the One True God; it is that the true followers of Yahweh—those who wrestle with God—are always those seeking to discover what constitutes the genuine highest and uniting principle and then to live in accordance with that revelation. (351)
Further, without a proper view of divine grace, it is understandable why Peterson appears so indifferent to the historicity and particularity of the biblical narrative. He reveres the stories as symbols of eternal human truths, but symbols are fungible.
Why these symbols and not others? Won’t any symbol do, so long as it accurately represents the timeless reality? On Peterson’s reading, the Christian Bible’s elevated status in the West seems to be merely an accident of history: “For better or worse, the story on which our western psyches and cultures are now somewhat fragilely founded is most fundamentally the story told in the library that makes up the biblical corpus” (xxx–xxxi). This is why he is also willing to draw from various other world religions, including Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythologies, Taoism, and more.
As a consequence of his disregard of Scripture’s historicity, Peterson ends up blurring the fundamental distinction between creation and fall. Despite acknowledging that the effects of death can be limited or delayed through moral effort, he writes, “It seems beyond dispute that death is something built into the very structure of being, and not a consequence of moral error, no matter how extreme” (426; cf. 65).
If Adam and Eve are merely archetypes, then their function in the story is no longer to explain historically how death invaded a world created originally very good. Rather, they are merely “the universal story of humankind in its sorrier states” (72), serving to show us what happens to all of us when we fall short of our highest ideals. They are nothing more than symbols of our eternal fall.
I wish Peterson had been more consistent with his utilitarian conception of truth. If what is necessary points to what is true, then I would encourage him to consider how human longing points to the brokenness of the world we inhabit. A world with death woven into its very structure is obviously not good. Such a proposition would entail either the existence of a malevolent deity, a Manichaean dualism in which good and evil are principles in eternal conflict (and the victory of good over evil is thus never assured), or a bleak nihilism in which good and evil are meaningless categories.
If none of these options is endurable from a human perspective, then we are left with only one possible alternative: this world was brought into existence by a good Creator, but was marred when his creatures rebelled against him at some point in history.
And if the problem is historical, then the solution must likewise be historical. Further, if the effects of the problem go beyond anything that humans can remedy by their own moral effort, then the solution must rest in divine initiative. Hence our need for divine grace. Hence the death and resurrection of Jesus, not merely as our eternal and archetypal example, but as our substitute in real time and space. Peterson writes:
If what is eternal and unchanging and therefore most reliable is the proper bedrock—and it is, by definition—then what transmutes in time or place cannot be properly regarded as what is most real. Thus, it will also be necessary in times of trouble to return to the foundation. (336)
What would it look like to lay our foundation on a historical event? This is the scandal of particularity in Christianity, the truth that is staring Peterson in the face, but which he is not (yet) able to admit. It means the end of our striving and effort. It means receiving a Word that comes “from above.” It is in such a source that we find both forgiveness for our failures and also the power to aim upward. I hope and pray that Peterson comes to see that as well.
Kyle Dillon serves as assistant pastor at Riveroaks Reformed Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Tennessee.
1 See Donald Macleod, “The Person of Christ” (InterVarsity Press, 1998), 21–25.
2John Calvin, “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” I.1.1.
3Note: this review is based on the pagination of an advance review copy, which might not reflect the pagination of the final published form.