Jordan Peterson's Negotiations with The God

Andrew Klavan brings out some of the best God-Questions out of Jordan

This far too brief conversation between @andrewklavan and @jordanbpeterson was to this point one of the best on JBP's relationship with religion and Christianity.

My only comment (short of a video commentary which I can't make right now being on vacation) is that "faith" is exactly the right word for our posture as @jordanbpeterson said himself with his analogy to his wife.

As @andrewklavan pointed out he surely knows his wife exists in order to have faith in her. @jordanbpeterson acts as if his wife exists in order TO have faith in her.

When the conversation turned to the "objective" and the "subjective" it got even better because as @jordanbpeterson noted we DO as a society actually premise our actions on "transcendent subjective". That's a helpful framing even with my regular kvetching about the objective/subjective framing. But I'll bow to the transcendent-subjective in order to meet the demands of communication. A culture's religion is exactly THAT "transcendent subjective" of the culture which ever culture has and must have in order to order their world.

They are right then to land on the question of consciousness and God because in my opinion the REAL fight around the existence of God is around whether or not @jordanbpeterson 's God can be negotiated with consciously similarly to how he negotiates with his wife. Does The God respond to our negotiations in a way analogous to a wife? That is of course the assertion of the Hebrew prophets and in many ways every culture up until and in some ways through the Enlightenment.

This is THE BEST way we can actually proceed. We have no other as I argued with @vervaeke_john here based on Pascal's "spirit of finesse vs spirit of geometry".

What secular culture then creates in the West is something analogous to Hyacinth Bucket (she demands it be pronounced "bouquet") as a comedy of manners. "We always behave perfectly rationally!"

What we deeply aspire to with our negotiations with The God is identical to what we aspire to in our negotiations with each other: dominance. We wish our willful consciousness to subject The God as we try to subject our neighbors. This was first best laid out in a certain story about a man, a woman, a tree, a serpent and some fruit. You might know it.

At this point it might serve to ask what @andrewklavan and many Christians like him would really like of @jordanbpeterson . I think the best conversation like this was had so far with @PageauJonathan .

Might JBP find more peace for his soul?

I think probably yes. But Jordan does in fact have a cross to drag up a long, hard hill.

As a Calvinist I believe that Jordan's life is not his own. He is serving a master greater than himself in ways we can't fully comprehend.

Serve he must and serve he will. I pray he finds peace sooner rather than later yet just as I would hesitate to wade in with his negotiations with his wife I'll also pause before his negotiations with The God. Keep it up @jordanbpeterson you are making the world a better place. :)