Clinical psychologist, lecturer and author Dr. Jordan Peterson has turned his in-depth analysis to the Bible for his latest book.
In “We Who Wrestle with God: Theological Conceptions,” Published on 19 November, he argues that the stories of the holy book can help guide anyone in life, no matter their religious views.
“If you can’t see the wisdom (in the Bible), you haven’t thought about your own suffering… That’s the thing you have to understand: The books are about you,” he explained. The Post’s Rikki Schlott in an exclusive interview.
Here, he explains how young people can navigate the chaos of modern life with the guidance of a religious text:
This book is an impressive book. How long did it take you to write it?
This is a difficult thing to say. I probably started working on it, in some ways, when I was 13 years old. So how long is that – 50 years?
Now, when did I put pen to paper? For this particular book, it was after the publication of the last book (in 2021), but I wrote three at the same time.
A large part of this was the result of tours and lectures, as I used the lectures to develop ideas, and sometimes I recorded them and used the transcript as a template for a chapter. It was radically rewritten because a lecture and a book are very different, but it took three years.
You have a remarkable ability to get young people excited about things that might not be sexy to them at first glance, like making their bed. How do you get youth excited about a topic? Serious As a religion?
There is an identity crisis in our culture. Obviously, the culture war is an identity crisis. And, well, it’s a book about identity.
It is about the identity of God and His relationship with men, women and culture.
The reason I say make your bed is because you probably can. Maybe your life is a mess, absolutely hellish, like the Israelites in the desert, and you don’t know where to start. Well, you can organize your sock drawer and make your bed. It is a symbolic morning offering.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s still true: It’s a recreation of the opening scene in Genesis where God creates order out of chaos. This is what you are called to do, because you are made in the image of God. Create some order out of the chaos.
I make the case in the book – and it’s a very exciting thing to know – that the boldest path forward, which is also the most meaningful path forward, is one that involves the voluntary bearing of the greatest amount of responsibility. By the way, it is a symbol of the cross.
Without responsibility, there will be no adventure. There is nothing at stake. And if there’s nothing at stake, there’s no point. So this is an invitation to adventure.
It is a call to even the deepest levels of memory. Plato and Socrates believed that all learning was to be memorized. Well, there is truth in it. It’s about remembering who you are.
You are Abraham. You are Moses. You are Sara. You are Adam. You are Noah. Who else would those stories be about?
I believe that if you lived your life, you would be all they deserve. All these things will happen to you, because everyone goes through storms, everyone lives in the Tower of Babel, everyone commits the sin of pride.
Now everyone has the call to adventure. Everyone should stand against tyranny and slavery. This is all part of the human experience, and that’s why I’m explaining it to you.
Do you think the lack of spiritual foundation is partly responsible for the epidemic of anxiety and depression in our society?
All this lacks spiritual foundation. It’s as if people have become subservient to arrogant technologists (in Silicon Valley) – this is exactly what happens in the Tower of Babel. In that story, everyone procrastinates and no one can communicate.
Well, yes, obviously – we can’t even agree on what a man or woman is. Words have lost their context. This is a sign that you are in the Tower of Babel. Will it hurt? Definitely.
What is the way? Well, we are talking about it. You need to know the stories. They guide you. Because if you say, in Nietzschean terms, ‘God is dead’, the unifying ethos collapses and the world becomes meaningless. What happens is that the world becomes hell, and hell is characterized by suffering.
Well, what is the antidote to mortal suffering? This is a very good question. That’s what the Bible stories are about.
Young men have been discouraged, and young women have been tempted down the garden path, and the way out of their self-conscious misery is to embrace responsibility.
Without that responsibility, there will be no adventure. There is nothing at stake. And if there’s nothing at stake, there’s no point.
You may degenerate into your childish self-satisfaction, but… if this is what everyone needs, then it is too pitiful. It’s like, who are you? You are just a bottomless pit of consumption.
Well, it’s no wonder you’re fat and unhappy. You know, it’s scary. This is a horrifying scene.
How do you hope a religious skeptic, agnostic, or atheist will approach your book?
Look, when you’re reading you’re trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s what a critical reader does. A critical reader doesn’t find something that bothers them and then throws the book away.
Reading is investigation. This is how you look at a text. You collect what is relevant and useful, and you discard the rest and use your critical judgment. If you are smart, you do it well, because your aim is up, and you want to learn.
You are all characters in the story. This is what you have to understand: books are about you.
But even if we take the opposite proposition: It’s not about you. Well, then what is it about? Even if you are an atheist, consider that humans wrote the book. Okay, okay, so it’s about us – and that means it’s about you.
This is quite a challenging feeling.
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