A significant challenge for the evangelical Christian has arisen as of late in the person of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, specifically, the challenge of understanding his views on God generally, and Christianity specifically. How should evangelicals view Peterson? Is he the second coming of a Francis Schaeffer or a C.S. Lewis? Is he a Trojan horse sent by the Evil One to obfuscate the message of the gospel? Is he a friendly? A foe? Is he somewhere in between? In order to answer these questions, we need to have a finer grained understanding of Peterson’s thought. My goal in this paper is to help evangelical Christians understand what Jordan Peterson means in his use of theological and mythological language and help them think critically about Peterson in relation to the True Myth. In order to do this, I will briefly introduce the reader to Peterson, then I will analyze his view of myth and revelation, followed by a categorization of his psychological theology through the Christian metanarrative categories of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, I will then finish by offering a brief evangelical critique of his thought.
Jordan Peterson, a professor and clinical psychologist, burst onto the public scene in 2016 over a controversy around the Canadian Bill C16 and the enforcement of compelled speech concerning preferred pronouns. After Peterson’s initial popularity spike due to his stand on free speech, people became interested in Peterson’s broad political thoughts, his psychological thoughts, his thoughts on gender, and also his thoughts on religion, amongst others. Through his numerous lectures and interviews on YouTube, Peterson has become one of the most influential and controversial modern thinkers. His videos, which receive millions of views, regularly address the psychological significance of religion, especially of Christianity, as he situates himself within the Christian tradition.
Despite his positive endorsement of the utility of religious beliefs, his personal religious beliefs have proven exceptionally difficult to pin down. He is routinely asked the question “do you believe in God” to which he often replies something along the lines of “I don’t like that question.” He argues that there is fatal flaw in the question itself, the presumption that the questioner and Peterson both have the same conceptions of the words “believe”, “in”, and “God”- which he then argues they most likely do not. Due to the frequency of the question, and his dissatisfaction with his typical answer, Peterson devoted an entire hour and forty-five-minute video response titled “Who Dares Say He Believes in God?”[1] In the video, Peterson’s main response to the question “do you believe in God?” is: “I’m not going to say something virtuous like ‘I’m a believer’ because there’s plenty wrong with me that needs to be fixed before I would dare utter words like that.”[2] While this response is noble, it demonstrates just how different Peterson’s thought is from an evangelical’s and why we have difficulty in categorizing him. Imagine thinking that you have to get your life in order before you even admit you believe in God, would anyone, on this scheme, ever feel comfortable accepting the gospel?
Myth
In order to understand Peterson’s views on religion and Christianity, we need a firm grasp on what he means by myth. Though Peterson is a modern man who appreciates the role of scientific discovery, ancient myths play a central role in Peterson’s thought. He laments what he sees as an unnecessary bifurcation between scientific descriptions of the world and mythological descriptions. In seeking to remedy this bifurcation, Peterson says,
“The world can be validly construed as a forum for action, as well as a place of things. We describe the world as a place of things, using the formal methods of science. The techniques of narrative, however- myth, literature and drama- portray the world as a forum for action. The two forms of representation have been unnecessarily set at odds, because we have not yet formed a clear picture of their respective domains. The domain of the former is the objective world- what is, from the perspective of intersubjective perception. The domain of the latter is the world of value- what is and what should be from the perspective of emotion and action.”[3]
He goes on to explain that any depiction of the world which lacks one of these two modes of description “remains insufficiently discriminated.”[4]
For Peterson, science reveals facts but myth reveals meaning. In this sense, myth is not ignorant pseudoscience or even primitive proto-science. Myth is the vehicle for meaning and as such, it “signifies the world (for action).”[5] Though science can describe what we are, mythic archetypes can tell us who we are and what we should do. “Mythic truth is information, derived from past experience- derived from past observation of behavior- relevant from the perspective of fundamental motivation and affect… mythic narrative offers dramatic presentation of morality, which is the study of what should be.”[6]
Myth represents an important rung on Peterson’s developmental ladder from action to explicit behavioral wisdom. Peterson describes a system of abstracting moral and behavior wisdom which starts with human action and interaction, and moves to imitation, to play, to ritual, to drama, to narrative, to myth, to religion, to philosophy, to rationality.[7] Myths are important because they are a key feature in the process of abstraction from “know how” to “know that.” As such, myths encode and reveal wisdom for life. Peterson says, “Narrative description of archetypal behavioral patterns and representational schemas- myth- appears as an essential precondition for social construction and subsequent regulation of complexly civilized individual presumption, action and desire.”[8]
But at an even more fundamental level than inherited moral wisdom, myths also represent our neurobiological composition. Peterson explains,
“Myth evolves toward declarable description of a procedural schema capable of underlying construction of all complex culturally determined hierarchies of specific behavior. This schematic pattern matches the innate, instinctual, neuropsychological predicated individual potential for creative exploratory behavior- indeed, has been constructed in the course of historical observation of that potential in action.”[9]
For Peterson, then, myth represents shared moral wisdom passed down through human history, which is ultimately grounded in the human psyche, which in turn is governed by our neurobiology. He says, “the lines among which culture develops are determined biologically, and the rules which govern that developments are the consequence of the psychological expression of neurophysiological structures.”[10] So myths represent ancestral wisdom, as well as our attempts to explain the phenomena of our psyche and neurobiology.
Revelation
For Peterson, revelation is not a divine message from a transcendent divine being, God. Revelation, rather, shares a common origin with myth in the “collective unconscious.” The collective unconscious is a term Peterson borrows from Swiss psychiatrist, Karl Jung- of whom Peterson is indebted for much of his thought. Peterson explains the unconsciousness as “the psychoanalytic god [which] is our capacity for the implicit storage of information about the nature and valance of things.”[11] He further explains that, “The ‘collective unconscious’ that constitutes the basis for shared religious mythology is in fact the behavior, the procedures, that have been generated, transmitted, imitated, and modified by everyone who has ever lived, everywhere.”[12]
While revelation is similar to myth for Peterson, he maintains a difference. Myth is a broader category which encompasses stories about divine revelation. Myths generally carry implicit knowledge which is then abstracted out and made explicit, whereas revelation, nested in mythology, carries explicit knowledge. Peterson notes,
“The emergence of moral knowledge in explicit semantic form (as opposed to its implicit representation in narrative) appears represented in mythology as “brought about” by revelation. This revelation is reception of knowledge “from a higher source”- in this case, from the episodic to the semantic memory systems (from the mysterious domain of imagination to the concrete word).”[13]
Peterson explains that the process of revelation results in a jump from the collective unconscious, his understanding of the transcendent, to explicit knowledge through the pressure which comes from the responsibility to make moral judgements over time. Using Moses as his case study, he says,
“Adoption of this responsibility entails voluntary acceptance of tremendous intrapsychic strain- strain associated with necessity of constant, demanding moral judgment (establishment of hierarchical order, resultant of intrapsychic quasi-Darwinian struggle of abstracted values)- and, when the ability is there, consequent generation of compensatory adaptive activity. In the mythic case of Moses, such activity took the form of translation– translation of moral principles from procedure, and narrative representation thereof, into an abstract semantic code.”[14]
While Peterson attributes specific instances of divine revelation within myths to the collective unconscious, he also attributes the entire Bible to the very same process. In his best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life, Peterson says,
“The Bible is a library composed of many books, each written and edited by many people. It’s a truly emergent document- a selected, sequenced and finally coherent story written by no one and everyone over many thousands of years. The Bible has been thrown up, out of the deep, by the collective human imagination, which is itself a product of unimaginable forces operating over unfathomable spans of time. Its careful, respectful study can reveal things to us about what we believe and how we do and should act that can be discovered in almost no other manner.”[15]
This account of revelation is grounded in the process of human abstraction which “speaks” directly from the collective unconscious (serving as God in his paradigm), bypassing the developmental ladder. Rather than a word from God, Peterson’s revelation is more accurately described by the colloquial use of ‘a revelation’ as in, “ah-ha! I’ve had a revelation!”
Creation
With the analysis of Peterson’s view of myth and revelation now in place, we may begin our analysis of his view of the True Myth, the Christian metanarrative. Peterson has a high regard for the Christian metanarratival categories, as he says, “Indeed, our very cultures are erected upon the foundation of a single great story: paradise, encounter with chaos, fall and redemption.”[16] However, what Peterson means by these categories is much different than what the evangelical Christian means.
For Peterson, creation myths, including the Genesis accounts,[17] are projections from the psyche onto history and reality. The psyche, determined by neurobiology, represents the right and left hemispheres of the human brain in its mythology. According to Peterson, the right hemisphere of the brain is associated with “explored territory” and the left hemisphere is associated with “unexplored territory”- the familiar and the foreign. The human psyche then represents the right hemisphere through the masculinity and order of the mythological “The Great Father”[18] and it represents the left hemisphere through the femininity and chaos of “The Great Mother.”[19]
Peterson explains that
“it is reasonable to regard the world, as forum for action, as a “place”- a place made up of the familiar, and the unfamiliar, in eternal juxtaposition. The brain is actually composed, in large part, of two subsystems, adapted for action in that place. The right hemisphere, broadly speaking, responds to novelty with caution, and rapid, global hypothesis formation. The left hemisphere, by contrast, tends to remain in charge when things- that is, explicitly categorized things- are unfolding according to plan. The right hemisphere draws rapid, global, valence-based, metaphorical pictures of novel things; the left with its greater capacity for detail, makes such pictures explicit and verbal. Thus, the exploratory capacity of the brain “builds” the world of the familiar (the know), from the world of the unfamiliar (the unknown).”[20]
Peterson traces this dualistic theme of light and darkness, known and unknown, masculine and feminine, Great Father and Great Mother, order and chaos, throughout various ancient Near Eastern creation myths including Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Hebrew creation myths. Through his method of abstraction, Peterson traces a progression from the polytheism of the Enuma elish and the Egyptians to the monotheism of the Hebrews. Despite the progression to monotheism, Peterson finds in each the battle between the masculine gods or God and the feminine dragon of chaos, Uroboros.
In the biblical account, he associates the “formless and void” state of creation in Genesis 1:2 with chaos and the Logos of John 1 with the emergence of human consciousness which is able to bring order out of chaos. He also associates biblical references like Psalm 74:13-14 to Leviathan with Uroboros and Marduk’s defeat of Tiamat.[21] This move to radically enmesh ancient creation myths is crucial for the credibility and explanatory power of Peterson’s order-chaos schema.
Fall
In order to understand Peterson’s view of the fall and sin, we need to first understand his view of morality. It should be no surprise by now that Peterson grounds his notion of morality in Darwinistic evolution,
“It might be said that the emergence of a scheme of ultimate value is an inevitable consequence of the social and exploratory evolution of man. Cultural structure, incarnated intrapsychically, originates in creative action, imitation of such action, integration of action and imitated action- constitutes adaptive action and representation of integrated pattern of action. Procedures may be mapped in episodic memory and abstracted in essence by the semantic system. This process results in construction of a story, or narrative. Any narrative contains, implicit in it, a set of moral assumptions. Representations of this (primarily social) moral code in form of episodic memory constitutes the basis for myth; provides the ground and material for eventual linguistically mediated development of religious dogma or codified morality.”[22]
Morality, then, is the abstracted eventual byproduct of human social interactions over the course of thousands of years. While morality, situated and grounded in the evolutionary history of mankind, has a degree of stability, Peterson allows for no transcendent ontic referent, no summon bonum like God, in which to find a sure footing. This, in turn, means that morality, the highest ideal, the Good, etc., is subject to change with the adaptive needs of the human species. Peterson admits that
“identification of what constitutes the basis for establishing the nature of morality or the comparative value of objects is no simple matter. In fact, such judgment comprises the constant central demand of adaptation. No fixed answer solution to this problem can be offered- this question, “the nature of the highest ideal” or “the nature of the highest good”- because the environment posing the query, so to speak, constantly shifts, as time progresses (that shift constitutes, in fact, times’ progression).[23]
Morality is subject to process, to the changing environment, and with it the changing social climate as the needs of the human actor evolve.
The fall, for Peterson, is not a historical event, but rather the mythological representation of the dramatic emergence of the human race from consciousness to self-consciousness. This idea of self-consciousness is represented in the Genesis account by Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. In so doing, they became aware, self-conscious, of their limitations and fragility, they then had knowledge of good and “evil”. They progressed from a simple state of child-like consciousness and bliss, to the enlightened and eminently burdensome state of self-consciousness. This higher state brought with it both senses of the word; the sense of self-referential, reflexive thought, and the colloquial “embarrassed, undue awareness” sense of “self-consciousness”. Peterson explains,
“Adam and Eve exist as independent beings prior to their “fall,” but still commune with the animals and walk with God. Sheltered in an eternally productive garden, blissfully ignorant of their essential nakedness and vulnerability, they exist without anxious care of toil. It is the emergence of second-order self-reference- awareness of the self; self-consciousness- which finally disrupts this static stare of perfection, and irreversibly alters the nature of experience.[24]
Peterson’s fall, is not the result of a morally culpable act of defiance against the Creator God, rather, his fall is the dramatization of the period of mankind’s evolutionary history in which the neurobiology of the brain developed to the extent that self-consciousness was able to emerge. Once mankind was self-conscious, there was no going back to the naivety of the garden. In this sense, they were “exiled” from paradise.
Peterson’s fall is a precondition for his understanding of sin and moral evil. In Peterson’s view, once mankind became self-conscious, they were able to recognize their vulnerability which subjected them to fear. Fear of death, fear of the elements, fear of the animals, fear of lack of resources, etc. This fear posed significant moral dilemmas, and was the impetus for all sorts of evil. Mankind was pulled to the safety of their explored territory, to the safety of the known to the detriment of the advancement of the species, which became the fascistic Tyrannical Father. But they were also pulled to the chaos of the unexplored territory, to chaos and disorder, to the cruel chaotic Destructive Mother. Both of these trajectories are evil because for Peterson,
“Evil is rejection of and sworn opposition to the process of creative exploration. Evil is proud repudiation of the unknown, and willful failure to understand, transcend and transform the social world. Evil is, in addition- and in consequence- hatred of the virtuous and courageous, precisely on account of their virtue and courage.”[25]
So, self-consciousness is represented by the fall in that it is a precondition of the ability for mankind to reject the good, and the good is the process of creative exploration, the advancement of human flourishing, the continued evolution of the human race. The rejection of this good is evil and it plays out in the twin ditches of tyranny and chaos.
Redemption
Redemption for Peterson is the “third way” which is represented by the Archetypal Hero, the Son of the Great Father and the Great Mother. Peterson’s heroic redeemer, is one who leaves the tyrannical Father of explored territory and “confront[s] chaos constantly- to eternally work toward transforming it into real being- rather than to master it finally, once and for all (and to therefore render everything intolerably static!).[26] Peterson sees, in Christ Jesus, the archetypal way to follow, the hero who walks the razor’s edge between yin and yang, not succumbing to the allure and safety of the walled tyrannical garden, who steps forth in courage to confront the dragon of chaos and create new culture, and thus expanding the cause of humanity.
Peterson says,
“Christ embodies the hero, grounded in tradition, who is narrative depiction of the basis for successful individual and social adaption. As the Word “made flesh” (John 1:14) there “in the beginning” (John 1:1), he represents, simultaneously, the power that divides order from chaos, and tradition rendered spiritual, abstract, declarative, semantic. His manner of being is that which moves morality itself from rule of law to rule of spirit- which means process. Spirit is process, simultaneously opposed to and responsible for generating static being.”[27]
So, for Peterson, Christ the Lord is not the second person of the Ontological and Economic Trinity, the Eternal Son of God who stepped into his own creation in the person of Jesus Christ, who literally died on a Christ for the sins of the world in time and space and who was raised on the third day by the power of the Holy Spirit. Instead he is the projection of the archetypal hero, the Logos of consciousness, who’s speaking order into chaos is a mythological representation of the third way between order and chaos, which represents our duty to aid in human flourishing by advancing culture.
Consummation
Consummation in evangelical theology is typically understood as God’s fulfillment of His promise to make all things right; what Tolkien called the “Great Eucatastrophe”[28] where all evil is finally undone. This is the evangelical notion of the consummation of God’s plans, the consummation of the wedding feast of the Lamb, when Christ Jesus is finally united with his bride, the Church. Consummation for Peterson, however, is a bit different. Peterson answers his own problem of evil, his problem of self-consciousness, with a type of felix culpa theodicy, which in turn gives rise to his understanding of consummation. He says,
“The eternal consequence of self-consciousness is therefore the expulsion from Eden, in its maternal and patriarchal forms. But such a fall is a step on the way to the “true paradise”- is a step toward adoption of identity with the hero, who is not protected from the vagaries of existence, but who can actively transform the terrible unknown into the sustenant and productive world. Acceptance (at least recognition) of the mortal limitation characterizing human experience therefore constitutes the precondition for proper adaptation.”[29]
So then, for Peterson, the evil which comes with the intolerable responsibility of self-consciousness is a necessary consequent on the path upward to true paradise. This fall is not inconsequential, but the ability to identify with the archetypal hero, the Son, in following the third way of creating culture out of chaos might be worth the “fall” of self-consciousness, after all. He fleshes this point out more eloquently in his 12 Rules for Life,
“If you cannot bring peace to your household, how dare you try to rule a city? Let your own soul guide you. Watch what happens over the days and weeks. When you are at work you will begin to say what you really think. You will start to tell your wife, or your husband, or your children, or your parents what you really want and need. When you know that you have left something undone, you will act to correct the omission…you will untangle your past… perhaps you will discover that your now less-corrupted soul, much stronger than it might otherwise have been, is now able to bear those remaining, necessary, minimal, inescapable tragedies…Perhaps you will become an ever-more-powerful force for peace and whatever is good. Perhaps you will then see that if all people did this, in their own lives, the world might stop being an evil place. After that, with continued effort, perhaps it could even stop being a tragic place. Who knows what existence might be like if we all decided to strive for the best? Who knows what eternal heavens might be established by our spirits, purified by truth, aiming skyward, right here on the fallen Earth? Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.”[30]
If we all followed the third way, the way of Peterson’s Logos, in heroically creating order out of the chaos around us we would all embody the heroic Son, Peterson’s Christ. Then we would realize his the eschatological “true paradise” here and now.
Critique
While there is certainly much an evangelical Christian can affirm in the Jordan Peterson phenomenon, I would like to offer a few points of criticism.
True myth:
Though Peterson situates himself within the Christian tradition, his understanding of myth is incommensurate with that of the Christian tradition. Although there is a continual debate within Christianity as to the status of myth[31] at the very least, the Christian has to affirm with C.S. Lewis that the Christian myth (if it can rightly be called a myth) actually became fact.[32] It actually did happen, in time and space. Peterson denies this. In so doing, he probably should not continue to situate himself in the Christian tradition.
God the Demythologizer:
Peterson’s project depends on essential continuity between ancient creation myths in order for his order-chaos schema to work. Yet, though there are superficial similarities between other ancient Near Eastern mythologies and the biblical account of creation, there are fundamental differences that Peterson does not account for. One glaring example is creation ex nihilo found in the biblical account and Christian tradition. As Bruce Waltke notes,
“Israel’s sovereign God created matter out of nothing, is transcendent in his rule over all of his creation, conflicts with cosmic and volitional evil to produce virtue and bring rightful praise to him, and created the cosmos as the first of his saving acts in a trajectory ending with his kingdom irruption into the world through his magnalia Dei and word an eternal state in which he finally eliminates all hostility. The radical difference between the inspired biblical cosmogony and other genera of cosmogony points to its supernatural origin, though ultimately the Spirit must illuminate the truth.”[33]
Though there are similarities, it appears that Peterson’s project necessitates his practice of eisegesis of these myths rather than exegesis.
But there are portions of Near Eastern mythologies which appear in the biblical account. How, if not through Peterson’s schema, are we to understand these appearances? Lawrence Toombs explains that, “The concepts and vocabulary of pagan mythology are drawn upon and used to illuminate historical events. They are, accordingly, taken from their original context, rearranged, readjusted to an historical beginning, and, in consequence radically transformed.”[34]
Likewise, Kevin Vanhoozer recognizes that the Bible, rather than uncritically appropriating Near Eastern mythology, instead demythologizes it,
“the Bible begins with some demythologizing of its own. In ancient Near Eastern myths, the “waters” symbolize the chaos with which the deities had to struggle in order to bring order into the world. Some of these myths personified the chaotic waters as sea-monsters or dragons (Leviathan). It is therefore significant that the biblical mythos stipulates that “God created the great sea creatures” too (Gen. 1:21).”[35]
God, in the Christian metanarrative, does not create out of preexistent matter or out of vanquished gods- He creates ex nihilo. He is not involved in an eternal dualistic battle with Uroboros the dragon of chaos- He is Lord of all.
Peterson, through his synthesis of ancient myths, is left with no true creation account. He has an eternal struggle between order and chaos, but no explanation to Leibniz’s question, “why is there something rather than nothing?” Why is there something rather than nothing in Peterson’s project? Even with the universal acid of Darwinism, he is still left with no answer to Leibniz. Though I find that point troubling enough, the discontinuity between the biblical metanarrative and the myths Peterson cites is enough to give those who study his work serious pause.
Peterson the Demythologizer:
Though Peterson makes himself out to be the champion of myth, his conception removes any objective veracity which myths might genuinely have. By making myths subject to the projection of the psyche, which in turn is determined by neurobiology, Peterson essentially demythologizes mythology. Rather than revealing ancient truth about reality and the history of mankind, Peterson’s mythology instead, is the necessary epiphenomenal byproduct of brain chemistry. Likewise, when it comes to Christian theology, Peterson merely “[translates] biblical statements about God into existential statements about human being.”[36] In this sense, Peterson is what Vanhoozer terms, a “hard” demythologizer in the vein of Ludwig Feuerbach, who leaves no room for transcendent revelation and who’s “demythologizing… insists that it is anthropology all the way down.”[37] A Christian perspective, on the other hand, affirms that “The Bible is the means whereby God projects his own voice onto the stage of world history.”[38] And indeed that the “biblical mythos is theodramatic, focusing on what God is doing in relation to the world as its creator and redeemer.”[39]
The Christian vision, is not man’s projection of his psyche out onto reality, but rather God’s projection, God’s speaking into and onto creation for His glory. This biblical doctrine of God’s revelation provides the firm foundation for the great metanarrative of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation.
Moral Relativism:
Though Peterson seeks to fight against evil and chaos, his conception of morality as situated within the ever-shifting sands of time and subject to the changing needs and desires of mankind produced in Darwinistic evolutionary theory, erodes any foundation by which he could call anything evil or bad. Things aren’t right or wrong, good or evil, they are biologically advantageous or not- today or yesterday, but not eternally morally right or wrong.
Pragmatism:
Lastly, I would like to offer a critique of Peterson’s pragmatism which is mostly implicit within his Maps and 12 Rules, but which he explicitly affirms in conversation with Sam Harris,[40] and which his entire project presupposes. If Peterson’s pragmatic view of truth is true, then we have no reason to believe it to be true. If what we believe is true is merely that which works best for the survival of our species, then we wouldn’t have reason to believe that Peterson’s project is true. Maybe it is “true enough” to aid our survival, but that is not the same thing as truth. Peterson’s project ends up stumbling right into Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.
But worst still, if what we believe about reality as a forum for action is the result of our psyche’s projection, which is the of the necessary result of our neurobiology, then our beliefs are ultimately subject to the laws of physics rather than the laws of thought. This would leave us without reason to believe what Peterson spent eight hundred-odd pages, and hundreds of hours of YouTube videos explaining. His view, in the end, appears to be self-referentially incoherent.
Conclusion
Although there is a lot that an evangelical Christian can learn from the teachings of Jordan Peterson, we should probably not go to him for answers to the fundamental questions of life. Certainly not for our theology.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carson, D.A. The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016.
Henry, Carl F. H. God, Revelation, and Authority vol. I. Wheaton: Crossway, 1999.
Limited, 2018.
Maxwell, Paul. Jordan Peterson’s Hermeneutical Method
Menzies. James W. True Myth: C.S. Lewis and Joseph Campbell on the Veracity of Christianity. Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2014.
Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Toronto: Penguin Random House
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. (New York: Routledge, 1999
Tolkien, J.R.R. Tree and Leaf. (London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001
Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
[1] https://youtu.be/MnUfXYGtT5Q
[2] “(141) Who Dares Say He Believes in God? – YouTube.” Accessed December 13, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnUfXYGtT5Q&t=2021s.
[3] Jordan Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. (New York: Routledge, 1999) xxi.
[4] Ibid., 1.
[5] Ibid., 9.
[6] Ibid. 382.
[7] Ibid., 79.
[8] Ibid. 78.
[9] Ibid., 384.
[10] Ibid. 459.
[11] Ibid. 71.
[12] Ibid. 93.
[13] Ibid., 376.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. (Toronto: Penguin Random House Limited, 2018.) 104.
[16] Maps, 31.
[17] I use the plural, accounts, because Peterson holds to the JEDP theory which posits at least two creation accounts in Genesis.
[18] Ibid., xxi.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid. 32.
[21] Ibid. 91.
[22] Ibid. 229.
[23] Ibid., 229.
[24] Ibid. 291.
[25] Ibid., 310.
[26] Ibid. 322.
[27] Ibid., 385.
[28] J.R.R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf. (London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001) 73.
[29] Maps, 333.
[30] 12 Rules, 158-159.
[31] See Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority vol. I. (Wheaton: Crossway, 1999) 44-69., James W. Menzies, True Myth: C.S. Lewis and Joseph Campbell on the Veracity of Christianity (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2014) 22-41., Bruce Waltke, “Myth, History, and the Bible” in The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures ed. D.A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016) 542-576.
[32] “Now as myth transcends thought, incarnation transcends myth. 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. It happens– at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences.” C.S. Lewis, “Myth Became Fact” in God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970) 58-59.
[33] Waltke, Myth., 575.
[34] Cited in Waltke, Myth., 575.
[35] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 36.
[36] Ibid., 15.
[37] Ibid., 18.
[38] Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology, 24.
[39] Ibid., 25.
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