What Jordan Peterson REALLY Said About the Bible | Analysis & Reaction

Culture, Categories, and Shared Meaning

Wow, yeah, so here's what I love about this. It started out about.

Culture and.

Categories of culture right and then it and then it kind of veered into a story about the Bible, right? He went to the museum and all that stuff. But the apex of all of this is really What is up? Everyone Nate Sala from wise disciple here if you're brand new to the channel, welcome.

Welcome. I'm glad you're with us. Make sure to check out the description in our playlist for materials that will be of interest to you in the area of theology apologetics and engaging the culture for Christ.

Got a super quick video here for you. Not the normal routine or the normal schedule, you know, usually the schedule is like Tuesday Fridays for videos. You know Friday being like the big You know debate teacher reacts or something along those lines Video, but I was talking to a friend on Monday.

He's an elder at My church here and He was telling me. Have you seen the Jordan Peterson Joe Rogan conversation? And of course because I'm usually way late to the game on this kind of stuff. All right, I hadn't seen it.

I'm I'm only focused on what I'm focused on. All right. Well, he told me you know what you have to check it out. It's a great conversation. And so I figured you know what I have a few minutes here Let's go ahead and watch it together and see what happens.

Let's get right into it.

If categories just just dissolve especially fundamental ones. The culture is dissolving because the culture is a structure of category. That's what it is. So and in fact culture is a strap culture is a structure of category that we all share.

So we see things the same way, well, that's why we can talk. I mean not exactly the same way because then we'd have nothing to talk about but Roughly speaking we have a bedrock of agreement.

The Bible as the Foundation of Western Meaning

That's the Bible by the way immediately. I'm thinking yes and amen. Okay, and I'm so glad Peterson's talking about this it's been well understood that the only way the American experiment would ever work is if we have a clearly articulated shared culture and values.

Right culture stands on top of values and. Some of those values are communicated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And more articulated in the Federalist Papers, for example, which is why it's so important to know your history.

All right, not so that you you know blindly adopt what others have done before but so that you're informed when you make your own cultural determinations today. Cultures truly thrive when those categories as Peters Peterson calls them.

They are clearly understood and shared. But what happens when they're no longer shared? What happens when we become a people who are hyper individualized like little free-floating atoms. That we're no longer a people but we're like a collection of individuals that all are near each other.

You know, well, I think we're seeing what happens right now. Okay, it's the breakdown of shared values.

And the breakdown of our culture. So I just walked through the Museum of the Bible in Washington. That was very cool. So the structure that's what the what I figured out. I mean, I just figured this out this week.

So it was a cool. It was a cool thing to walk through because It's it's chronological. They have one floor, which is the history of the Bible. Mm-hmm. That's not exactly that. It's really what it is is the history of the book.

Now in many ways the first book was the Bible. I mean literally because at one point there was only one book like as far as our Western culture is concerned There was a one book and for a while. Literally, there was only one book.

Look at the genius.

I mentioned it's another video. There goes the genius fingers again, you know. Say what you will about Peterson. Okay agree or disagree with his ideas, but the guy is probably one of the Top intellectuals alive right now.

I mean, that's why we're doing this video. That's why it's important to interact with his ideas with an open mind. And that book was the Bible and then before it was.

The Bible it was a cult, you know. It was scrolls and it was writings on papyrus and but it was we were starting to aggregate written text together and it went through all sorts of technological transformations and then it became Books that everybody could buy.

The book everybody could buy and the first one of those was the Bible and then it became all sorts Of books that everybody could buy. But all those books in some sense emerged out of that underlying book and that book itself.

The Bible isn't a book. It's a library. It's a collection of books. And so what I figured out was partly because I was talking to my brother-in-law Jim Keller, who's The world's greatest chip designer and has now designed a chip That's as powerful as the human brain, which is optimized for artificial intelligence learning, by the way.

And so I talked to him about that. He said you heard of the Internet. I said, yeah GM I've heard of the Internet. He said this is way more revolutionary than that.

There you see the downside of someone whose brain is so huge. Right all the tangents that you have to keep up with in order to get to the proper conclusion of the original thought. We I did a video on Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, right?

It's the same thing. You know you he'll get there, but he's gonna take some Other paths to get there and enjoy the scenery as he gets there, right? So in any case we were talking about.

Epistemology, Noetic Structure, and Worldview

Meaning in text because we were talking about translation and the problem of understanding text and Jim said the meaning of words is coded in the relationship of the words to one another and. The postmodernists make that case that all meaning is derived from the relationship between words.

That's Wrong because well, what about rage? That's not words. And what about moving your hand? That's not words. So it's wrong, but but part of its right because. The meaning we derive from the verbal domain is encoded in the relationship between words so.

So now then you think well, let's think about the relationship between words. Well, some words are dependent on other words. Some ideas are dependent on other ideas. The more ideas are dependent on a given idea the more fundamental that idea is.

By depth that's a definition of fundamental. So now imagine you have an aggregation of texts in a civilization. You say which are the fundamental texts and the answer is the texts upon which most other texts depend.

And so you'd put Shakespeare way in there in English because so many texts are dependent on Shakespeare's Literary revelations and Milton would be in that category and Dante would be in that category at least in translation.

Fundamental authors part of the Western Canon not because of the arbitrary dictates of power. But because those texts influenced more other texts and then you think about that as a hierarchy. Okay with a Bible at its base, which is certainly the case.

Now imagine that's the entire corpus of link of linguistic production all things considered. Now, how do you understand that like literally? How do you understand that? The answer is you sample it by reading and listening to stories and listening to people talk.

You sample that whole domain you build a low-resolution representation of that in your inside you and. Then you listen and see through that. And so it isn't that the Bible is true. It's that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth.

Which makes it way more true than just true. It's a whole different kind of true and I think this is. I think this is not only literally the case. Factually, I think it can't be in either way.

It's the only way we can solve the problem of perception. Wow. Yeah, so here's what I love about this it started out about culture and Categories of culture right and then and then it kind of veered into a story about the Bible, right?

He went to the museum and all that stuff, but the apex of all of this is really epistemology. Okay, maybe there's some ontology in there too but this is really a conversation about your noetic structure your noetic structure is the grid of beliefs that all They kind of interconnect and function together in relationship with each other in order for you to interact with the world around you to Interact with reality.

Really a more common word for noetic structure and you probably heard this word before is worldview, right? Your noetic structure or your worldview is the framework through which and by which you interact with the world.

So when Jordan Peterson talks about like a precondition for truth, that's what he's getting at. He's getting at your noetic structure your worldview and his claim is which I absolutely agree with this.

Your noetic structure it has been largely shaped by the Bible and people are gonna say no way Nate I don't live by the Bible. I reject that book. Okay, fine fair enough but the reality is no one in the West can escape the fact that we were born into a Framework that was adopted by our parents and their parents parents and their parents parents.

You know, I mean like going all the way back to the establishment of our Western society to me. It's amazing how much we don't remember about basic history, right? Just as a people and we have to know our history.

It used to be very common knowledge that America and the West was founded on what's called Judeo-christian values. So whether you know you reject the Judeo-christian values now has nothing to do with the fact that you were born into that whole world of Influence and I would argue most non-believers still hold on to a lot of Judeo-christian values.

They've just tried to get rid of the source of those values, which is God and to me. That's like loving and drinking milk and dipping it into your Oreos, but then rejecting the concept of a cow so this is what it appears Jordan Peterson is getting at, you know your Noetic structure the framework through which we even understand concepts like truth.

It's shaped by the collection of historical texts that we call the Bible. That's good. It's good that that he's talking about this and shining a spotlight on it. And it's good that we're talking about it right because it leads to further discussion, doesn't it?

Because there's an even greater question to ask that comes out of this kind of discussion. And so let me do this. All right, I want to leave a question with you. I don't think I've ever done this before but let's do it.

Okay, let's start something I want to leave a question with you and I'm curious to get your thoughts and we'll close and this will be a short video. Okay, by the way, you can comment your answer below.

To the question I'm gonna ask or if you want to like more personally communicate your answer. You can email us at hello at wise disciple org. Okay, but let me ask you a question. Let's say Jordan Peterson is right.

All right, the Bible is more than truth. It provides the precondition or the Shaping influence for how we even understand truth. Okay. So here's my question if that's the case. Is it possible to? Objectively evaluate the Judeo-christian worldview if you're using certain elements of the worldview to evaluate the worldview.

You know what? I mean? So for example How can we truly critique the problem of evil when the skeptic or the critics presupposition that informs their critique is really two things number one evil is a feature of this world and Number two evil should not be a feature of this world, right?

Which by the way is the Christian understanding of evil. Okay, so Christians recognize that evil is a part of the furniture of reality and evil should not be here and And one day we understand that it will be eradicated.

Alright, but the skeptic begins with a version of the assumption as well. You know, we share that in other words, let me let's say this you come up to me and you say Nate I'm gonna shoot you right now.

All right. I just saw John wick the other day. Okay, so this is on my brain, right. Nate I'm gonna shoot you right now. Now show me where you keep your guns. Why would I let you use my own guns? You know, why should any Christian do that now?

Maybe you can't shoot me with another weapon, right? Okay, fair enough. But why should you use mine? Okay, that's what I'm asking here. Is it possible to objectively evaluate and even critique the Judeo-christian worldview if you're using certain elements of the worldview in order to critique it.

And if you think it's possible, why do you think it's possible? How does that work exactly again genuine question for all of you? I'm open to there being a good answer on this. I'm just kind of wondering out loud after having seen this video.

Again, let me know in the comments below what your response is or email us. Look, Jordan Peterson is awesome because he gets us thinking along these lines and it makes for some great discussion in my opinion.

And I look forward to hearing from you on this and I'll come back with another video real soon. But in the meantime, I will say bye for now.