I’ve been highly critical of Peterson, but this article has persuaded me to ease up on some of my criticisms. This is partly because it reminded me that Peterson, in many ways, prepared the way for my own reversion to the Christian faith. When he first entered the public scene, I was captivated by what he had to say as it pointed beyond my shallow understanding of Scripture. But now, in 2025, my frustration stems from the realization that he’s been rehashing much of the same material he introduced in 2017. And this rehash reduces the full force of Scripture—often in tortured and convoluted prose—to Jungian archetypes with ties to neuroscience and evolutionary biology.
Consider your rendition of Peterson’s all-too-familiar response to the question of whether he believes in God:
“And anyway, who are you to declare that you are on the side of the highest good? Who are you to claim the name of Christ or God and to say that you really and truly believe it?
Because if you really believed that God existed, you would act as though He did in every moment and every way. I’m not ready to claim that. Are you?
So my answer remains, ‘I act as though God exists, and I’m terrified that He might.’”
While this response exemplifies Peterson’s sincerity and his commitment to wrestling with the true weight of living authentically, it also reveals his underlying confusion. When Peterson speaks of God as “the highest good,” he clearly doesn’t mean this in an ontological sense. His understanding often resembles Feuerbach’s critique of God as a projection of humanity’s highest values. If I’ve understood him correctly, when he says he is “not ready to claim” that he is “on the side of the highest good,” he confuses having faith with embodying the highest good entirely, rather than seeing faith as a pure, unmerited gift given even to those wholly unworthy of it.
Though Peterson’s understanding of faith is confused, his refusal to assent to a performative or superficial notion of belief is admirable. There’s conviction in his refusal to proclaim something he doesn’t fully grasp or live out.
This also brings to mind Kierkegaard’s "possibility of offense" in "The Sickness Unto Death." In that chapter, SK uses the parable of the emperor offering the poor man his daughter in marriage. SK argues that such an offer would be an incomprehensible scandal to the poor man, raising skepticism as to whether the emperor is sincere—or simply mocking him to “make fun of the poor fellow [and] render him unhappy for the rest of his life.”
Kierkegaard goes on to say:
“If there is anything that would make a man lose his understanding, it is surely this! Whosoever has not the humble courage to dare to believe it, must be offended at it. But why is he offended? Because it is too high for him, because he cannot get it into his head, because in the face of it he cannot acquire frank-heartedness, and therefore must have it done away with, brought to naught and nonsense, for it is as though it would stifle him.”
Perhaps, despite Peterson’s sincerity, his misunderstanding of faith—as something requiring full embodiment of the Good—offends him precisely because it feels unattainable. This is, as SK might put it, despair in disguise: a failure to recognize that grace is given freely to all, even to him—not as something to be embodied all at once, but as something that calls us, nevertheless, toward divinization.
Yet despite these criticisms, I can’t deny that Peterson does the Lord’s work, evidenced by the fruit he bears (my own conversion, or reversion, being testament to this). Perhaps my frustration lies in the fact that I see him failing to bear that same fruit in his own life (at least for now), remaining lost in the abstractions of Jungian archetypes, unwilling to move beyond myth in order to embrace the scandal of divine love, and the “humble courage to dare to believe.”
When it comes to authenticity and conviction, Kierkegaard surpasses Peterson with his critique of Christendom, his understanding of despair, and his conception of the self before God. But then again, Peterson was a gateway drug for me—leading not only to thinkers like Kierkegaard but the Gospel itself.
I love this reflection, and I'm glad to have persuaded someone. :)
The Kierkegaard references are apt, and I'm interested to look closer at that work. I think you are also correct to say that Jordan Peterson is, at some level, failing to grasp the nature of grace, perhaps for fear of loss of moral urgency. Yet despite this roadblock in his own spiritual journey, I do think his public influence has been markedly positive and preparatory to faith for many, including yourself!
This was really well said. I never even knew about some of the interviews he did that Anna mentioned - I'll be saving them to read for later! Thanks for sharing this, Joel
Well said. To mix in another parable, I tend to think the secret hidden in the Parable of the Sower (where Jesus explicitly says he tells parables so people will NOT understand) is that Jesus' ministry is almost more about soil-tilling than seed-planting. The truth (the seed) is simple and plenty. The problem is the lack of fertile soil. Jesus came to til the soil, to play the long game--not just to give us the truth, but to make sure the truth could go in. Jordan Peterson is an example of a good soil-tiller. And yes, I think Christians are called to adopt this method as our Savior did.
Great question. In fact, such a good question, that’s it’s almost impossible for me to answer briefly. See my essay “The Master Soil-Tiller” for the direct answer about Jesus and “Why God Hides” (which is a kind of preface to the former, dealing with the same question in the Bible at large) for the details. But in short, it’s not a psyop. It’s just that the process of true understanding requires “un-understanding.” What is the least fertile soil? The path. Because it’s the epistemic ground which has been most tread, so that nothing new seed can enter in. The enemy of clarity is not confusion but false clarity. This is the same symbolism as the flaming sword that turns on itself in Genesis 3, circumcision in the OT, circumcision of the heart in Paul’s writing, and really the whole theme throughout Scripture of judgement, which is not, as some supposed, for its own sake (as though God’s merciful hands were tied) but for the purpose of restoration. When Jesus talks this way about the parables, he is quoting Isaiah in a passage where God has decided to harden the hearts of his own people because of their sin—why? so they can go to hell? no—so that through hardening they can be restored. This is also what’s going on in Romans 9-11. So the parables are initially an act of judgement—to bring confusion rather than clarity. But confusion is far more fertile ground than false clarity. For outsiders, Jesus says, they only bring confusion, but for the disciples, the secrets of the kingdom are being revealed. So what you’re seeing is Jesus’s patient process of transforming the false clarity of outsiders into confusion (think how confused his disciples are!) so that they can be brought in and eventually see the secrets of the kingdom. “Nothing is hidden except to be made manifest.” This is also the key to the riddle hidden in the oft-repeated maxim in not the OT and the NT, “He exalts the humble, but humbles the exalted.” True, but what happens when he humbles the exalted? Well now they’ve been humbled, and can therefore be exalted! Double inversion. This double inversion pattern is all over Scripture, but it's difficult to see, because, usually, it requires waiting (abiding) to see it play out, and most people don't have the patience/faith for that. Mercy is hidden in judgement, even when it just looks like straight-up judgement. Anyway, there’s way more to it, but that’s a summary. Read those pieces if you get a chance and tell me what you think.
I’ve been highly critical of Peterson, but this article has persuaded me to ease up on some of my criticisms. This is partly because it reminded me that Peterson, in many ways, prepared the way for my own reversion to the Christian faith. When he first entered the public scene, I was captivated by what he had to say as it pointed beyond my shallow understanding of Scripture. But now, in 2025, my frustration stems from the realization that he’s been rehashing much of the same material he introduced in 2017. And this rehash reduces the full force of Scripture—often in tortured and convoluted prose—to Jungian archetypes with ties to neuroscience and evolutionary biology.
Consider your rendition of Peterson’s all-too-familiar response to the question of whether he believes in God:
“And anyway, who are you to declare that you are on the side of the highest good? Who are you to claim the name of Christ or God and to say that you really and truly believe it?
Because if you really believed that God existed, you would act as though He did in every moment and every way. I’m not ready to claim that. Are you?
So my answer remains, ‘I act as though God exists, and I’m terrified that He might.’”
While this response exemplifies Peterson’s sincerity and his commitment to wrestling with the true weight of living authentically, it also reveals his underlying confusion. When Peterson speaks of God as “the highest good,” he clearly doesn’t mean this in an ontological sense. His understanding often resembles Feuerbach’s critique of God as a projection of humanity’s highest values. If I’ve understood him correctly, when he says he is “not ready to claim” that he is “on the side of the highest good,” he confuses having faith with embodying the highest good entirely, rather than seeing faith as a pure, unmerited gift given even to those wholly unworthy of it.
Though Peterson’s understanding of faith is confused, his refusal to assent to a performative or superficial notion of belief is admirable. There’s conviction in his refusal to proclaim something he doesn’t fully grasp or live out.
This also brings to mind Kierkegaard’s "possibility of offense" in "The Sickness Unto Death." In that chapter, SK uses the parable of the emperor offering the poor man his daughter in marriage. SK argues that such an offer would be an incomprehensible scandal to the poor man, raising skepticism as to whether the emperor is sincere—or simply mocking him to “make fun of the poor fellow [and] render him unhappy for the rest of his life.”
Kierkegaard goes on to say:
“If there is anything that would make a man lose his understanding, it is surely this! Whosoever has not the humble courage to dare to believe it, must be offended at it. But why is he offended? Because it is too high for him, because he cannot get it into his head, because in the face of it he cannot acquire frank-heartedness, and therefore must have it done away with, brought to naught and nonsense, for it is as though it would stifle him.”
Perhaps, despite Peterson’s sincerity, his misunderstanding of faith—as something requiring full embodiment of the Good—offends him precisely because it feels unattainable. This is, as SK might put it, despair in disguise: a failure to recognize that grace is given freely to all, even to him—not as something to be embodied all at once, but as something that calls us, nevertheless, toward divinization.
Yet despite these criticisms, I can’t deny that Peterson does the Lord’s work, evidenced by the fruit he bears (my own conversion, or reversion, being testament to this). Perhaps my frustration lies in the fact that I see him failing to bear that same fruit in his own life (at least for now), remaining lost in the abstractions of Jungian archetypes, unwilling to move beyond myth in order to embrace the scandal of divine love, and the “humble courage to dare to believe.”
When it comes to authenticity and conviction, Kierkegaard surpasses Peterson with his critique of Christendom, his understanding of despair, and his conception of the self before God. But then again, Peterson was a gateway drug for me—leading not only to thinkers like Kierkegaard but the Gospel itself.
I love this reflection, and I'm glad to have persuaded someone. :)
The Kierkegaard references are apt, and I'm interested to look closer at that work. I think you are also correct to say that Jordan Peterson is, at some level, failing to grasp the nature of grace, perhaps for fear of loss of moral urgency. Yet despite this roadblock in his own spiritual journey, I do think his public influence has been markedly positive and preparatory to faith for many, including yourself!
This was really well said. I never even knew about some of the interviews he did that Anna mentioned - I'll be saving them to read for later! Thanks for sharing this, Joel
Well said. To mix in another parable, I tend to think the secret hidden in the Parable of the Sower (where Jesus explicitly says he tells parables so people will NOT understand) is that Jesus' ministry is almost more about soil-tilling than seed-planting. The truth (the seed) is simple and plenty. The problem is the lack of fertile soil. Jesus came to til the soil, to play the long game--not just to give us the truth, but to make sure the truth could go in. Jordan Peterson is an example of a good soil-tiller. And yes, I think Christians are called to adopt this method as our Savior did.
May I ask Ross, why do you think Jesus tells parables so people will NOT understand?
Do you mean the parable is a teaching aid, something that if you engage with it can bring you to the truth of the message? Or just literally a psyop?
Great question. In fact, such a good question, that’s it’s almost impossible for me to answer briefly. See my essay “The Master Soil-Tiller” for the direct answer about Jesus and “Why God Hides” (which is a kind of preface to the former, dealing with the same question in the Bible at large) for the details. But in short, it’s not a psyop. It’s just that the process of true understanding requires “un-understanding.” What is the least fertile soil? The path. Because it’s the epistemic ground which has been most tread, so that nothing new seed can enter in. The enemy of clarity is not confusion but false clarity. This is the same symbolism as the flaming sword that turns on itself in Genesis 3, circumcision in the OT, circumcision of the heart in Paul’s writing, and really the whole theme throughout Scripture of judgement, which is not, as some supposed, for its own sake (as though God’s merciful hands were tied) but for the purpose of restoration. When Jesus talks this way about the parables, he is quoting Isaiah in a passage where God has decided to harden the hearts of his own people because of their sin—why? so they can go to hell? no—so that through hardening they can be restored. This is also what’s going on in Romans 9-11. So the parables are initially an act of judgement—to bring confusion rather than clarity. But confusion is far more fertile ground than false clarity. For outsiders, Jesus says, they only bring confusion, but for the disciples, the secrets of the kingdom are being revealed. So what you’re seeing is Jesus’s patient process of transforming the false clarity of outsiders into confusion (think how confused his disciples are!) so that they can be brought in and eventually see the secrets of the kingdom. “Nothing is hidden except to be made manifest.” This is also the key to the riddle hidden in the oft-repeated maxim in not the OT and the NT, “He exalts the humble, but humbles the exalted.” True, but what happens when he humbles the exalted? Well now they’ve been humbled, and can therefore be exalted! Double inversion. This double inversion pattern is all over Scripture, but it's difficult to see, because, usually, it requires waiting (abiding) to see it play out, and most people don't have the patience/faith for that. Mercy is hidden in judgement, even when it just looks like straight-up judgement. Anyway, there’s way more to it, but that’s a summary. Read those pieces if you get a chance and tell me what you think.
Outstanding comment, very well done!
Thanks!
A great and refreshing take, great stuff Joel and Anna!
Thanks! I told you the Peterson piece was coming!
A husband/wife collabo! 👏
Yes! Our second to date: https://open.substack.com/pub/joelcarini/p/are-thoughts-sins?r=k9yk0&utm_medium=ios