Jordan Peterson said atheism is explained by THIS... | Pastor Reacts

Wise Disciple

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

And what's crazy to me is that people actually think that when it comes to metaphysics, when it comes to the existence of God, when it comes to religion,

00:08

Christianity, all of a sudden, people are the most sober and rational they've ever been. They're never led by their desires.

00:15

All of a sudden, people are the most objective judges of what is true and real that you have ever met. And, you know, some people's dislike of God and of Christians and Christianity, well, somehow it has nothing to do with emotions and desires.

00:27

Ask them, and they'll tell you, Oh, yeah, well, you know, I actually do hate the idea of God. I've met too many so -called

00:32

Christians who are just a bunch of jerks. I would never become a Christian. I would never go to church if the God of the

00:38

Bible did actually exist. But that has nothing to do with my rejection of his existence. Welcome back to another episode of Pastor Reacts.

00:52

My name is Nate, and this is Wise Disciple, where we're helping you become the effective Christian that you are meant to be.

00:58

And part of how we help you is we make these kinds of videos to walk alongside you and just discuss what it means from a

01:05

Christian perspective so you can think through these issues with more clarity and confidence. Today, I'm reacting to a conversation between Dr.

01:12

Jordan Peterson and Dr. Peter Kreeft. Both of these men I strongly recommend that you pay attention to.

01:17

Both are powerhouses of intellect. Their discussion appears to entail psychology, the psychology of atheism.

01:25

So, very interesting stuff. Let's go ahead and just jump right to that part of the discussion right now.

01:31

When Nietzsche announced God was dead, he did it. He did it, weirdly enough, the same way that God told

01:39

Moses, in some sense, to set his people free in Egypt.

01:44

So, I just did a seminar on Exodus, half a seminar with a group of scholars in Miami, which we're going to release in November.

01:53

And I just reacted to the first episode of that series, and you should check it out if you haven't already.

01:59

God tells Moses to tell the Pharaoh to let his people go, which you hear all the time, that phrase.

02:07

But that's not the whole phrase. He says, let my people go so that they may serve me in the wilderness, which is very different than just let my people go, which is more like a call to maybe even a hedonistic freedom.

02:19

When Nietzsche says that God is dead, which is what you see written on bathroom walls, for example, and that's the claim that's trumpeted, he followed that up with an observation that I'm paraphrasing, which is something like,

02:34

God is dead and we have killed him. The holiest of all that has ever existed has now bled to death under our knives, and we'll never find enough water to wash away the blood.

02:44

That's right. Nietzsche wrote a book called The Gay Science. In it, there is this brief story about a madman who wanders the streets looking for God, but everybody just laughs at him because nobody believes in God, and so finally the madman breaks down and he cries out,

03:03

God is dead. God remains dead and we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?

03:10

What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives.

03:16

Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

03:21

What festivals of atonement, what sacred game shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?

03:28

Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? Notice those last few lines.

03:35

They don't read as celebratory. You know, the tone is way more funerary. It's somber.

03:42

Nietzsche doesn't take the death of God lightly, you know? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?

03:47

Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? As an atheist myself in my teens and 20s,

03:55

I was heavily influenced by Nietzsche. I mean, he was one of the largest influences on me as an atheist, and I read him ironically to impress a girl that I liked, and that's typically how some of that goes sometimes, but his ideas weighed heavy on my mind long after that girl was gone, and I think everyone should wrestle with Nietzsche.

04:15

Christian and non -Christian would benefit. I think everyone should wrestle with Bertrand Russell, and I say that as a pastor and a believer in Jesus Christ.

04:25

Christians should be familiar with these men and their writings, but to bring it back to the point, Nietzsche is not exactly being celebratory about the idea that God is dead, and whenever I see some atheists act very flippantly about that,

04:39

I always wince. That's very different than a triumphal statement that God is dead, and I've been thinking that through on the atheist materialist front as well, and it's possible, and I think

04:51

Dawkins and Harris to some degree are experiencing this in the culture right now, is that when you lose that sense of the transcendent spirit, let's say, that's more explicitly associated with religious belief because God is now dead, there's a good possibility that you lose the transcendent object too, and so that if we kill off Judeo -Christian or even the

05:14

Abrahamic tradition under the onslaught of postmodern criticism, we're also going to simultaneously kill off scientific inquiry and scientific endeavor.

05:23

I mean, that's an interesting point. I know that some atheists are going to take issue with that last statement particularly, you know, but I agree with Peterson.

05:32

To study the universe as if to understand it is to take for granted the orderliness of it, and Christians have rightly pointed out that you can't take these things for granted as a materialist.

05:44

As someone who rejects a transcendent God, you end up losing any kind of basis to even trust your own thoughts about the science that you are conducting if materialism is true.

05:53

I think that's inevitable. I agree, but there's something more. The love of truth is not enough.

06:02

If truth doesn't somehow rebound on you and love you back, if truth is only an abstraction, not a person, not a spirit with a will, you have theology but not religion.

06:18

Theology is a one -way relationship. Theology is a science. I try to understand the truth about God.

06:25

Religion is a two -way relationship. So, God's initiative comes first, and our response comes second.

06:34

That's the grammar of being. And the theologian is tempted to change that grammar of being and play

06:40

God and almost call God into existence through his concepts. Jared This is why

06:45

I love Peter Kreeft. So, a moment ago I said that Christians and non -Christians should read

06:50

Nietzsche and Russell. Well, I think that they should also read Kreeft, okay? I was introduced to Kreeft when

06:56

I was studying the philosophy of free will and predestination, you know? He has a great mind,

07:02

God has gifted him immensely, and he makes a great point here about theology and religion. See, I came up as a

07:09

Christian and a pastor in a specific sort of Southern Baptist slash evangelical context, and so I've heard this often said by pastors.

07:17

I still hear this being said today, but the saying is Christianity is not about religion, it's about relationship.

07:23

And I totally understand why pastors say this. I even agree with, you know, the motive behind the statement, because I think that one of the fundamental issues that many

07:32

Christians, and well, people in general have, is this kind of works -based means of righteousness.

07:39

I just think that that attitude is baked into the cake of humanity, and we see this pop up in Galatians, you know, for example.

07:46

I mean, the biggest issue that the Apostle Paul had is spelled out in Galatians chapter 3 right at the very top.

07:51

He said, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh?

07:58

And what he's referring to is this notion of working your way in your own strength and in your own will towards righteousness.

08:06

That's not what God calls us to in Christianity. He calls us to be with him in a relational sense, and so pastors will create this distinction between religion and relationship wherein, you know, it's understood that religion is works -based and relationship is grace -based.

08:25

And like I said, I think that's good as far as it goes, but the problem is religion is relationship, you know?

08:31

The true understanding of religion is relationship. You can't cut out the concept of relationship in the word religion.

08:39

You know, the connotation of religion, especially when you think of the etymology of the word, which, granted, is a little murky, you know, and it's a bond between humanity and God.

08:49

Well, that's marital in nature. You know, I just did a video reacting to Matt Walsh on the

08:54

Joe Rogan Show, and I said that marriage speaks theology. Well, one of the expressions of this is in the word religion itself, because the word brings in the notion of vows.

09:04

It brings in the notion of a bond between mankind and God. Does that entail responsibilities and works?

09:10

Yes, but that's not the only thing religion is. It's bigger than that. And so, to sort of speak and think that religion is works -based is to reduce it unnecessarily down to a definition that I don't think is useful.

09:26

And so, kudos to Kreeft for pointing that out. When Nietzsche announced the death of God, he formulated another proposition.

09:34

He said that we may have to become gods merely to atone for the sin of deicide.

09:44

And so, he believed that the overman, the superman, would be someone who, through the power of his own will, set his own values.

09:52

Now, I spent a lot of time reading Jung, Carl Jung, in relationship to Nietzsche.

09:58

So, before doing these reaction videos, I'd never seen any teaching of Peterson's. I don't think I'd seen anything other than his viral video on pronouns,

10:08

I think it was, or something like that. So, I'm watching a lot of Peterson lately, you know, for this channel, doing reactions, and I'm noticing a pattern.

10:15

And I think maybe this could be a drinking game. Every time Peterson mentions Carl Jung, take a drink.

10:21

Denominationally appropriate drinks, of course. Wink! Jung, for example, published a, must be a, 1500 -page, two -volume book on the first third of Thus Spake Zarathustra, and was a very deep

10:36

Nietzschean scholar, and, but fell under the influence of Freud. And this turned out to be of cardinal significance, because Freud was one of the first secular thinkers to note that, in some unbelievably fundamental sense, we are not masters in our own house.

10:57

There are sub -personalities within us. There are complexes within us. There are angels and demons within us.

11:02

That's another way of thinking about it. And they pull us this way and that, sometimes independent of our will, and often contrary to our will.

11:11

That's right. This is a great observation. Jonathan Haidt has pointed this out as well.

11:17

You know, we are riders on top of an elephant, right? The problem is, we think our logical, rational side is the elephant, and our emotions are the rider, and it's actually flipped around.

11:30

Such that, very often, we'll do something because we are led by our non -rational side, and then after the fact, we'll seek to logically justify our actions, ad hoc.

11:40

Why? Well, because deep down, we like to think that we are master and commander of our own vessel, that we are always in control.

11:47

Well, reality paints a different picture, friends. So Freud's conclusion was, it's very difficult for human beings to create their own values, because we have an intrinsic nature that's not subject to our arbitrary will.

12:01

And then Jung took that a step further, and he said, well, there's no doubt that we act out a myth and a story, and that, in the deepest sense, that has to be a theological story.

12:14

And that the spirit that guides us has to have a unitary nature, which he did associate with Christ, quite explicitly.

12:23

And it's a vicious rejoinder to the Nietzschean presumption that we can create and impose our own values.

12:32

For the psychoanalysts, those values, and I would say for the wise clinicians, those values have to be discovered, not self -generated and imposed.

12:43

Plus, you just don't live long enough to do that. You're just not wise enough to generate a whole system of universally applicable values out of whole cloth in the span of your trivial life.

12:54

And if you know you're doing that, then you reduce life to a game. You have created the meaning of life.

13:00

Well, who is the creator? You? What gives you the right to do that?

13:06

What gives you the power to do that? You did not create the universe. How can you write the laws of morality any more than you can write the laws of physics?

13:14

Well... Yeah. This is why some Christians, and this is not polite conversation by any stretch, but some

13:20

Christians see some non -believers, atheists particularly, as like immature children.

13:27

And it's not to be rude. It's because these folks are not truly wrestling with the implications of the worldview that they reject, and they're not wrestling with the implications of their own worldview, such as it is.

13:38

The difference is Christians don't have, you know, the skill set or the experience to say these things and be taken seriously.

13:44

Jordan Peterson, on the other hand, being a clinical psychologist, can. And everyone should listen to what he's saying.

13:50

I wish Jordan Peterson and the discussions that he's now having was around when I was an atheist.

13:55

It's also people find that shallow. You know, in my clinical work, I saw this time and time again.

14:03

So if I was dealing with someone who was suffering, you know, maybe they had a tragedy in their own life, a medical tragedy or medical tragedy among members of their family, or maybe they had been subject to some really vicious malevolent actors and they were despairing.

14:19

They had to discover the values that would lift them out of that catastrophe.

14:25

They couldn't impose them. And it's a real search. I think this is probably related to your work on prayer. It's a real search.

14:32

And one of the things I used to counsel my clients about, and I also built a program called self -authoring that helps people do this is, and this is associated with that biblical injunction in the

14:44

New Testament to knock and have the door open and to ask and to receive and to seek and to find is that you can have a dialogue, an interior dialogue that proceeds something like this.

14:58

And I think it's a prayer, which is okay. I understand because I'm reasonably mature that there is a tragic and malevolent element to life.

15:07

And it's deep enough to destabilize me and to upset my faith in existence itself.

15:14

Is there a path that I could walk down that would be so rich and meaningful that I would find the challenge of dealing with the tragedy and malevolence ennobling and worthwhile?

15:29

And then it's a search. You think, well, what would be of sufficient value to offer that possibility?

15:36

And people find that in – they find it in love. They find it in family.

15:42

They find it in friendship. They find it in sacrificial occupation, let's say. They find it in beauty.

15:48

But these aren't created values. They're discovered values. So, you know,

15:54

I'm in total agreement with Peterson on the things that he's said so far.

16:00

To this last point, he kind of makes reference to something that Jesus said, you know, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you.

16:09

This is related to a series that I'd like to start on this channel soon, and so I'm trying to figure out what I should say, what

16:15

I should not say. And I don't even know what to call the series yet. Maybe call it Understanding Jesus or something. Because a lot of what

16:21

Jesus said in the Gospels goes right over our heads, because the Bible is a coloring book that has not been colored in, because we don't understand the historical context and we don't understand the

16:31

Jewishness of Jesus. I will say this. When Jesus made that statement, it was not about seeking a value that will provide some solution to the malevolence of life and the suffering that is entailed.

16:42

Jesus, what he's doing by making those statements is he's rehashing Old Testament teaching. So, when he says, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, the first century

16:51

Jew is supposed to hear the Old Testament and understand what Jesus is referring to. And we know what he's ultimately referring to because the

16:59

Gospel of Luke, which gives the same account as we find in Matthew, tells us more explicitly, gives us more information about what

17:07

Jesus is really talking about. So, I'm a huge fan of Peterson, you know, on board with a lot of what he's saying.

17:13

I think this video, so far, is a pleasure to watch slam dunk, but I wish that he would go further and understand that the

17:21

Bible and its teachings are even more transcendent than what it appears he allows for.

17:26

Maybe, maybe Kreeft being, you know, a Christian will jump in and help here. Then you bring yourself into alignment with them.

17:33

That's when you wrote your book on Islam. One of the things that you had to say about Islam that was very laudatory was that the

17:42

Islamic people have appeared to do a better job of insisting that human beings are subordinate to the divine will in this, in this sense,

17:53

I think, in the best sense, in this sense of discovery that we're talking about. Especially in Europe and North America, we have this obstacle about an obsession with freedom and a misunderstanding of freedom.

18:07

We are not totally free. Our freedom in every sense is limited. We are finite.

18:13

And we don't like that. We want to play God with regard at least to freedom and autonomy.

18:20

Uh, that's maybe the biggest difference between modern

18:27

Western civilization and all others in, in, in world history. You know, it's funny and, you know,

18:32

I don't mean funny, haha. I mean, funny appropriate because the Bible is not a philosophical textbook by any stretch, but it does give tremendous insight into human psychology.

18:41

The Bible teaches that we are heavily influenced by our own desires. I mean, literally what

18:46

Jung was pointing out way back when, what Jonathan Haidt is saying, is the teaching of the Bible. You know, the

18:52

Proverbs says that a brother offended is harder to win than a strong city. And by win, the

18:58

Proverbs is talking about persuasion. So, to change someone's mind, especially someone you know, potentially is close to you, is extremely difficult if their emotions have taken over.

19:10

If the emotion of offense, of, of being offended takes over, you won't win them in order to be persuaded.

19:17

You could have the most logical argument, you could have the best reasons ever, and it won't make a dent.

19:23

Why? Because we are heavily influenced by our desires and emotions. And everyone who is intellectually honest knows this deep down.

19:31

You know, the most obvious example, I think, is dating and relationships. And we've all been there, you know.

19:36

We all either know somebody who went through this or we were the ones who went through this, but it's like somebody who has dated the wrong person and then everyone tried to tell them that they were dating the wrong person, but they wouldn't listen, right?

19:50

And even worse than that, they came up with the dumbest logic to justify dating the wrong person, even though anyone with half an objective eye could recognize that their, their date was totally wrong for them.

20:02

And why? Why did they do these things? Because they were led by their desire to be with this wrong person, period.

20:08

And what's crazy to me is that people actually think that when it comes to metaphysics, when it comes to the existence of God, when it comes to religion,

20:17

Christianity, all of a sudden, people are the most sober and rational they've ever been. They're never led by their desires.

20:23

All of a sudden, the people are the most objective judges of what is true and real that you have ever met. And, you know, some people's dislike of God and of Christians and Christianity, well, somehow it has nothing to do with emotions and desires.

20:36

Ask them and they'll tell you, oh yeah, well, you know, I actually do hate the idea of God. I've met too many so -called

20:41

Christians who are just a bunch of jerks. I would never become a Christian. I would never go to church if the God of the

20:47

Bible did actually exist, but that has nothing to do with my rejection of his existence. You know, because it isn't.

20:53

So let's say, here's the claim. I want to be free to do what I want.

20:59

Okay, well, hang on a sec. Which eye are you talking about there? Are you talking about the mature eye that sees next week and next month and next year and 10 years out and that takes the community into account?

21:12

Or are you talking about the impulsive, hedonistic, self -serving, narrow eye that just wants exactly what it wants right now?

21:21

And what makes you think that when you make a case for that hedonism, that you're not just falling under the sway of an impulsive, short -sighted demon, so to speak?

21:32

One of the things that shocked me the most in talking to atheists was that when

21:37

I give them something like the argument from desire, don't you at least wish there was a God? Don't you at least see religion as an attractive fairy tale?

21:45

Don't you at least hope that it's true, even though you don't believe that it's true? Almost always they say, no, I don't want there to be a

21:52

God. I don't want there to be a heaven. I would be threatened by that.

22:00

And I think they're suppressing something. I don't think the human heart is that different between an atheist and a theist.

22:07

The human heart was not designed at Harvard or Hollywood, it was designed in heaven. So, we all want the thing we can't define.

22:17

We're all mystics deep down. We want unlimited goodness, truth, and beauty. Pete That's right.

22:23

This is what I was saying earlier. We cannot ever think that our deliberations about the existence of God and the way the universe actually is has nothing to do with our desires.

22:33

Everything is all intertwined together. That's why Frank Turek has a helpful question along these lines.

22:39

If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? You know, or something like that. And if the answer is no, and for a lot of non -believers that is the answer, then the person should be re -examining their objectivity.

22:51

Don Definitely the case. I mean, I would say in some sense by definition is that the most profound goods are reflected in the structure of the human heart.

23:02

If people are striving forward, and I mean forward rather than downward, let's say, forward and uphill, they are by definition pursuing something that's a reflection of a transcendent good.

23:16

It's transcendent because if they already had it, which means it would be imminent, if they already had it, they wouldn't have to pursue it.

23:24

They posit something outside of themselves as better. And then the ultimate definition of that in some sense is the pursuit of the divinely good.

23:35

Don God, the pursuit of God? Frank That is a matter of definition. And so now, you know, on the atheist front,

23:43

I've read a lot of comments from atheists in my YouTube comment sections on my biblical lectures.

23:51

I probably read at least hundreds of them and maybe thousands of them, but at least hundreds. And one of the things that has struck me continually is that many of the people who become atheists are reactionary.

24:08

And I don't mean that in a denigrating sense. A huge proportion of people who are stridently atheistic were hurt very badly by people who purported to be religious when they were young.

24:21

And I think that also applies to Dawkins, by the way. I've seen some evidence for that in his public utterances.

24:30

And so you have people who've been terribly betrayed by the agents of what was supposed to be the best.

24:37

And so they carry that utter bitterness with them, that ultimate betrayal, because I think there isn't anything worse in some sense than being betrayed by people who claim to be acting, let's say, in Christ's name.

24:50

I mean, how could anything be worse than that? And so then they're driven to this atheism, and they're so afraid then again to re -establish a new faith because they've been hurt so badly that they're willing to suffer this purgatorial drought of vision rather than to put themselves up on the chopping block one more time.

25:12

Again, if Christians were to point this out in regular conversation, they would be ridiculed.

25:18

They would be ripped apart up and down for saying something like this. But when Jordan Peterson says it, with his background and expertise,

25:24

I think everyone should lean in and pay attention. And it's sad. Every single time this happens, it's just sad, because the fact is, so many people hurt so many other people inside the confines and the structure of what should be an edifying and encouraging and spiritually maturing environment.

25:42

That's church. You know, there's a euphemism that some pastors use for this very thing.

25:47

They say that church is messy, right? And I don't like that phrase, because the word messy is too dismissive of the real pain that a lot of churchgoers, including pastors in senior leadership, cause.

26:00

They really do. And don't even get me started on the aftermath of a Christian hurting another

26:05

Christian, because very often it's not handled in a biblical and loving sense. It's mishandled and then typically swept under the rug and causes even further hurt, and even worse, spiritual damage.

26:17

And so, I totally understand where this comes from. You know, these are great observations from Peterson and Kreeft.

26:23

Kreeft himself an example of that. Didn't he have a very bad relationship with his father? And can't you use a

26:28

Freudian analysis to explain Freud? Well, that you can imagine, too, at a theological level, because especially in the

26:37

Abrahamic traditions, God is construed as a paternal spirit in some fundamental sense.

26:43

I know it's complex when you get to the highest level of abstraction. And what that would also mean was that if you had an impaired relationship with your father or with the patriarchal spirit in general, that that's going to put a resentful twist in your relationship to the paternal spirit as such.

27:04

And I certainly see that as, well, it's something that bedevils our current society as well, because there's so much objection to the patriarchal system and the catastrophic atrocities of history and the fundamental unreliability of the paternal or patriarchal spirit that all of that is tied together.

27:23

And it is tied together with the problem of sin. You know, a lot of women who object strenuously to the patriarchy, let's say, are also simultaneously women who have been rendered bereft of any positive relationship with any man even once in their whole life.

27:41

Yes, yes, yes. I have found that too in my limited experience. And I think the only adequate answer to that is not merely psychoanalysis and understanding, but Alyosha's kiss.

27:53

To experience genuine love, to meet a Mother Teresa, that will convert you much faster than all the arguments in the world.

28:01

Well, and not merely Mother Teresa, but Christ himself, right? Alyosha is the hero of the story of the brothers

28:08

Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, and there's a moment in the story where Alyosha, he's this kind of stand -in for Christ, you know, he's a kind of Christ -like figure, has a religious faith, is mature and selfless, even though he's,

28:21

I think he's the youngest brother, the youngest Karamazov, and, you know, Alyosha genuinely wants to help others.

28:29

Well, he runs into Ivan in the story, who is, you know, the opposite. And I mean run into figuratively, like, they're butting heads, right?

28:36

Ivan is very pessimistic about humanity, he doubts God's existence, says, you know, even if there was a

28:41

God, he's probably evil and wicked. And so, when they square off, and Ivan sort of, you know, explains his stance and gives his reasoning for his doubts and pessimism,

28:51

Alyosha doesn't respond in kind. He simply leans in and gives Ivan a kiss.

28:56

And what that speaks is volumes, you know? The kiss of love is categorically distinct from the logic of pessimism, and yet the kiss of love, according to Dostoyevsky, is the most profound answer to the pessimist and skeptic.

29:12

It can be transformational, you know? In other words, the love of God overrides the heart of the most strident non -believer in ways that are perhaps ineffable.

29:23

And so, Kreeft is right. Religion is not and should not be equated to just logical refutation of the best skeptic's arguments, right?

29:31

That's apologetics. But James 1 says that true religion consists of love, of acts of love and care for others.

29:38

You know, this goes back to the greatest commandment, to love God and love your neighbor. Jesus said, greater love has no one than this as someone lay down his life for his friends.

29:47

The Christian religion centers on love as the greatest expression that humanity desperately needs, and it is rooted in the love of God to come down to the world and die on the cross for our sins so that we may have right relationship with him again, but also not just him, ourselves, each other, those of us who, of course, believe in Jesus.

30:09

So, this was a great conversation. I loved the dialogue. I'm a huge fan of Peterson and Kreeft, and I encourage you to watch the whole video.

30:17

I'll leave the link for it below. What is your reaction to Peterson's discussion? Is he right about his psychological diagnosis of atheists?

30:25

Let me know in the comments below. But thank you so much for watching. Check out more videos on my channel, and until we meet again,