A Nonbeliever's Antidote to Chaos
I recently finished reading Dr. Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Peterson is an incredibly brilliant man, I learned a great deal and I highly recommend the book for a discerning reader. However, I specify a discerning reader because Peterson has so carefully crafted his ideas that he will be quite convincing to many who have not been trained to think through these sorts of issues. Sadly, those who choose to follow his prescribed antidote for chaos will be set off on a road paved with good intentions, but one which is certainly bound for Hell.
While I much prefer reading books my current schedule would not have allowed me to work this book in for a while so I opted for the audio book. Thankfully, Peterson was the reader because there were a number of points in the book where he became audibly emotional even to the point of swallowing tears. Hearing such a strong response regarding the suicide of an old friend or about the suffering his daughter experienced would have been completely expected, but the time it shocked me was at the end of two of the saddest chapters I have ever read/heard.
In chapter 6, Peterson recounts numerous tragedies and sufferings before writing, "If you are suffering - well, that's the norm. People are limited and life is tragic. If your suffering is unbearable, however, and you are starting to become corrupted, here's something to think about." (156). The next section is titled "Clean Up Your Life," where Peterson says the first thing to do is to "Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong" (157).
The chapter then moves to a close by stating how things will begin to get better and that "perhaps" some really good things will happen from cleaning up your life, "... perhaps it (the world) 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?" (157).
If that chapter wasn't depressing enough, Peterson followed it with another chapter considering some of the extreme sufferings and evils of history and of the 20th century in particular. Peterson weaves a very myth based interpretation of biblical stories and characters throughout his book, but this chapter is where he explains his falling out with the Christianity of his youth.
Peterson discusses how Nietzsche "mounted an assault" on Christianity. According to Nietzsche, the central Christian claim has brought about three "mutually reinforcing consequences: First, devaluation of the significance of earthly life, as only the hereafter mattered. ... Second, passive acceptance of the status quo, because salvation could not be earned in any case through effort in this life ...; and finally, third, the right of the believer to reject any real moral burden (outside of the stated belief in salvation through Christ), because the Son of God had already done all the important work" (189).
Perhaps another time I will work through each of these claims in detail, but for now it should be enough to simply state that historic, biblical Christianity would firmly deny all three of those claims. All three are straw-men drawn from those who have claimed the name of Christ while denying much of what he taught. Those firmly planted in the historical and biblical Christian tradition would gladly join in stating that those three items are a denial of New Testament Christianity.
Having tossed aside the tin-god of his own making, Peterson must now seek to offer an answer for the incredible suffering in this life. He considers a particularly heinous practice at Auschwitz where a guard would force inmates to carry heavy sacks back and forth for no reason. It was the pointless torment of another human being and it brought him to a realization, "There are some actions that are so intrinsically terrible that they run counter to the proper nature of human Being. This is true essentially, cross-culturally - across time and place. These are evil actions. No excuses are available for engaging in them. To dehumanize a fellow being, to reduce him or her to the status of a parasite, to torture and to slaughter with no consideration of individual innocence or guilt, to make an art form of pain - that is wrong" (196).
There is so much to say about that paragraph but so little time, however, there is plenty of time and space if we live in the purely materialistic and evolutionary world Peterson believes in. How does one contrast the care of humans and parasites in a world where both came from star stuff? If we are all just matured and maturing star stuff, can we truly say that one star stuff's treatment of another is evil? Would that mean when a star goes super nova and consumes everything in its wake that it has done something evil too? Questions abound, but alas answers do not appear to be following. Please excuse my dangling participle, it seemed apropos in comparison to Peterson's worldview which hangs in midair.
Now that Peterson has defined evil as the dehumanizing of fellow beings through torture and slaughter he reasons, quite logically (logically, that is, if we assume that these beings have worth and value which the rest of all the maturing start stuff does not have), "the good is whatever is diametrically opposed to that. The good is whatever stops such things from happening" (197).
How does Peterson propose we enforce this good and manifest destinies in keeping with it? He closes the chapter with his answer, a section explaining "Meaning as the Higher Good." I can hear you all through the interwebs declaring - "Now I get it ... ... I think."
It was this "Meaning as the Higher Good" section which first grabbed me because in it Peterson reads the last page of this chapter once again moved to tears. He becomes emotional not by considering the horrors recounted earlier in the chapter, but by the proposed solution of meaning manufacturing:
Peterson's worldview requires something of an undoing of the Copernican Revolution. On his understanding, humans are the cause of evil but through human meaning-make they can also build something "Mighty and Good." Mankind is both the evil and the good, both the Satan and the Savior, both the problem and the solution - the whole of the cosmos seem to be circling us ... even though we came from the same star dust and only exist for a very short period of time in comparison to the rest of that star dust. How it is that this particular formation of star stuff known as humans became so important compared to all the other star stuff is left completely unanswered.
As I listened to Dr. Peterson struggle to read this section of his book, while he wrestled with his emotional reaction to what he perceives to be the greatest possible good and beauty, I too became a bit choked up. However, mine were emotions of grief - not worship. I mourned for this man who is a beacon of common grace, one who I am gladly cobelligerent with on many fronts. A man who has clearly read the Bible many times and yet he has, at least until this point, rejected both the description and the prescription which the Bible provides.
In the biblical account mankind most certainly is a part of the problem, but the solution is not to be found from within the diseased and spiritually dead humanity. The cure must come from elsewhere from outside. It must flow, as did the atoning blood, from the God who enters this world of evil and suffering in order to be conquered by it. Regardless the number of rules which are created for humanity to adhere to they will never resolve the chaos of our existence. Though there most assuredly is an antidote and his name is Jesus.
While I much prefer reading books my current schedule would not have allowed me to work this book in for a while so I opted for the audio book. Thankfully, Peterson was the reader because there were a number of points in the book where he became audibly emotional even to the point of swallowing tears. Hearing such a strong response regarding the suicide of an old friend or about the suffering his daughter experienced would have been completely expected, but the time it shocked me was at the end of two of the saddest chapters I have ever read/heard.
In chapter 6, Peterson recounts numerous tragedies and sufferings before writing, "If you are suffering - well, that's the norm. People are limited and life is tragic. If your suffering is unbearable, however, and you are starting to become corrupted, here's something to think about." (156). The next section is titled "Clean Up Your Life," where Peterson says the first thing to do is to "Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong" (157).
The chapter then moves to a close by stating how things will begin to get better and that "perhaps" some really good things will happen from cleaning up your life, "... perhaps it (the world) 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?" (157).
If that chapter wasn't depressing enough, Peterson followed it with another chapter considering some of the extreme sufferings and evils of history and of the 20th century in particular. Peterson weaves a very myth based interpretation of biblical stories and characters throughout his book, but this chapter is where he explains his falling out with the Christianity of his youth.
Peterson discusses how Nietzsche "mounted an assault" on Christianity. According to Nietzsche, the central Christian claim has brought about three "mutually reinforcing consequences: First, devaluation of the significance of earthly life, as only the hereafter mattered. ... Second, passive acceptance of the status quo, because salvation could not be earned in any case through effort in this life ...; and finally, third, the right of the believer to reject any real moral burden (outside of the stated belief in salvation through Christ), because the Son of God had already done all the important work" (189).
Perhaps another time I will work through each of these claims in detail, but for now it should be enough to simply state that historic, biblical Christianity would firmly deny all three of those claims. All three are straw-men drawn from those who have claimed the name of Christ while denying much of what he taught. Those firmly planted in the historical and biblical Christian tradition would gladly join in stating that those three items are a denial of New Testament Christianity.
Having tossed aside the tin-god of his own making, Peterson must now seek to offer an answer for the incredible suffering in this life. He considers a particularly heinous practice at Auschwitz where a guard would force inmates to carry heavy sacks back and forth for no reason. It was the pointless torment of another human being and it brought him to a realization, "There are some actions that are so intrinsically terrible that they run counter to the proper nature of human Being. This is true essentially, cross-culturally - across time and place. These are evil actions. No excuses are available for engaging in them. To dehumanize a fellow being, to reduce him or her to the status of a parasite, to torture and to slaughter with no consideration of individual innocence or guilt, to make an art form of pain - that is wrong" (196).
There is so much to say about that paragraph but so little time, however, there is plenty of time and space if we live in the purely materialistic and evolutionary world Peterson believes in. How does one contrast the care of humans and parasites in a world where both came from star stuff? If we are all just matured and maturing star stuff, can we truly say that one star stuff's treatment of another is evil? Would that mean when a star goes super nova and consumes everything in its wake that it has done something evil too? Questions abound, but alas answers do not appear to be following. Please excuse my dangling participle, it seemed apropos in comparison to Peterson's worldview which hangs in midair.
Now that Peterson has defined evil as the dehumanizing of fellow beings through torture and slaughter he reasons, quite logically (logically, that is, if we assume that these beings have worth and value which the rest of all the maturing start stuff does not have), "the good is whatever is diametrically opposed to that. The good is whatever stops such things from happening" (197).
How does Peterson propose we enforce this good and manifest destinies in keeping with it? He closes the chapter with his answer, a section explaining "Meaning as the Higher Good." I can hear you all through the interwebs declaring - "Now I get it ... ... I think."
It was this "Meaning as the Higher Good" section which first grabbed me because in it Peterson reads the last page of this chapter once again moved to tears. He becomes emotional not by considering the horrors recounted earlier in the chapter, but by the proposed solution of meaning manufacturing:
Meaning is what manifests itself when the many levels of Being arrange themselves into a perfectly functioning harmony.... Meaning is when everything there is comes together in an ecstatic dance of single purpose.... Meaning happens when that dance has become so intense that all the horrors of the past, all the terrible struggle engaged in by all of life and all of humanity to that moment becomes a necessary and worthwhile part of the increasingly successful attempt to build something truly Mighty and Good. ... Meaning is the Way, the path of life more abundant, the place you live when you are guided by Love and speaking Truth and when nothing you want or could possibly want takes any precedence over precisely that. (200)There should be no doubt that Dr. Peterson's worldview is incredibly anthropocentric. This is why he finds human torture to be the basest evil and why human harmony in meaning making is the highest good. For all Peterson's strong language about the horrors and evils of men he does not take mankind's wickedness serious enough. He sees the human capability for evil but he still holds out hope that we can be our own saviors if we can just manufacture enough meaning to go around.
Peterson's worldview requires something of an undoing of the Copernican Revolution. On his understanding, humans are the cause of evil but through human meaning-make they can also build something "Mighty and Good." Mankind is both the evil and the good, both the Satan and the Savior, both the problem and the solution - the whole of the cosmos seem to be circling us ... even though we came from the same star dust and only exist for a very short period of time in comparison to the rest of that star dust. How it is that this particular formation of star stuff known as humans became so important compared to all the other star stuff is left completely unanswered.
As I listened to Dr. Peterson struggle to read this section of his book, while he wrestled with his emotional reaction to what he perceives to be the greatest possible good and beauty, I too became a bit choked up. However, mine were emotions of grief - not worship. I mourned for this man who is a beacon of common grace, one who I am gladly cobelligerent with on many fronts. A man who has clearly read the Bible many times and yet he has, at least until this point, rejected both the description and the prescription which the Bible provides.
In the biblical account mankind most certainly is a part of the problem, but the solution is not to be found from within the diseased and spiritually dead humanity. The cure must come from elsewhere from outside. It must flow, as did the atoning blood, from the God who enters this world of evil and suffering in order to be conquered by it. Regardless the number of rules which are created for humanity to adhere to they will never resolve the chaos of our existence. Though there most assuredly is an antidote and his name is Jesus.
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