Does Jordan Peterson REALLY Believe in God? | Christian Reacts

Matthew 7 and the Difference Between Saying and Meaning a Bible Verse

Not all those who say Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven got that about. Right, which means something approximating. Just because you make a claim. To moral virtue, let's say wait, what did he just say?

Let me back that up to moral virtue.

Just because you make a claim to moral virtue. Isn't that interesting did you catch that see this is why it's so important to know your scripture when someone Quotes a Bible verse. Okay, they throw it out there.

It doesn't automatically follow that they know what it means. And this is a perfect example. Let's go to Matthew chapter 7 for a second and I'll show you dr. Peterson's mistake. What is up friends? I don't even know if I was going to have the time to make this video today.

Okay, and it looks like yeah, I have this little window to squeeze in here. So I thought hey, let's do it. Let's just jump right into a reaction video. If you don't know who I am pleased to meet you. My name is Nate Sala.

I'm the president of a Christian nonprofit organization called wise Disciple and here at wise disciple. We're all about living effectively as Christians in today's culture. Well in today's video Jordan Peterson is back in the spotlight.

He just dropped a video on his YouTube channel of himself answering the question of whether or not he believes in God. So.

I had three sort of.

Belief in God as Privacy, Definition, and Action

Burgeoning hypotheses. I don't like that question either. Okay. At least I don't like where that question leads for a lot of people when they ask it.

All right, maybe we can talk about that. One was it's none of your damn business. That's the first one. So it's like a privacy issue. Like it seemed to me to be a question. That was too private to be answered.

Properly and so and you know, you could consider that a cop-out maybe it is. How is that a privacy issue?

I don't get that. If someone is asking you whether or not you believe in God. They're just trying to understand who you are, you know, like what type of person are you at least? That's how I understand the question when it's posed to me.

So to make your faith like a Privacy issue for a follower of Jesus Christ the Bible doesn't teach us that our faith should be private. And then.

Another one was. Well, what do you mean by believe? Like do you mean the words. Do you mean to say the words? I believe in God. Does that indicate that you believe in God. Like I don't know what you mean by believe.

Exactly because. And that's got me in trouble too because you know people think that. Attempting to clarify the meaning of words is an attempt to escape from the question. When it's actually an attempt to specify the question I mean is what you believe what you say or what you act out.

Yes. The answer is Yes, you know. What you believe is what you say and what you act out. All right, James chapter 2 says faith by itself if it does not have works is dead. Your belief is everything it shapes what you say what you do what you don't say what you don't do.

It touches on everything some degree.

It's both but if push comes to shove as far as I'm concerned What you believe is what you act out not what you say and then you know. And if you're an integrated person then what you act out and what you say are the same thing.

And then you're a person whose word can be trusted right because what you say and what you do are isomorphic they're the same thing, but belief is instantiated in action, so I have also suggested that I act as if I believe in God or to the best of my ability and people aren't very happy with that either, but and then the third is that I'm Afraid that he might exist which I think is the most comical of the three answers and perhaps the most accurate one, but then.

But then I was thinking about this today when I was thinking about what I might talk to you guys about and I thought well Let's go into this a little bit more. Let's say you say you do believe in God.

Say I believe in God. It's like Okay, well that's Hypothetically pretty impressive. I would say it's like you believe that there's a divine power that Oversees everything that is fundamentally ethical.

That's watching everything you do and and you believe that and so. Well, what effect does that have on your behavior if you believe it?

Well, it's everything. There's something here. So already I'm starting to hear a clue That is leading me to believe that Jordan Peterson does not under. He's not looking at this question the way that the Bible Answers it just put it that way.

I think I think we might have some time to circle back around on that. Let me just let him keep going here. Does that mean that you're.

Well, are you full. Are you all in on your beliefs? Are you? Sacrificing everything to this transcendent entity that you proclaim belief in. Have you Cleansed yourself of all your sin. Let's say are you making all the sacrifices that you need to make like have you taken the moat out of your eye?

No, or.

Are you in the same situation? Let's say that the Catholic Church seems to be in right now. Just out of curiosity a good time to bring that up since the Pope seems to be concerned with what's been happening With the Catholic Church given the endless pedophilic scandals Let's say which seem rather serious in my estimation and might have been something that was cleaned up perhaps 100 Or a thousand years ago, and it's being taken seriously Perhaps now and perhaps not because it's not so easy to determine exactly what it would mean to take that.

Seriously and you might say well, okay, so it's it's interesting because I kind of sort of did the same thing here in a previous video and This is the nature of these videos. I said whatever came to my head.

Right, which Jordan Peterson did the same thing and I I think the critique for Peterson is well, you know Protestants Also do the same thing. This is not a Catholic problem. It's a human being problem.

Whatever it is that Jordan Peterson is trying to get at here. You know, that's not exactly just a Catholic issue so I got taken to task for mentioning only Catholic history when it comes to some of the Atrocities have been taking place in the past.

And so I'll just go ahead and be even-handed on this one and say yeah Protestants That's also their problem, too.

Are all the people who are committing these highness actions and then covering them up or if you ask them? Well, do you believe in God? What are they gonna say? Well, you'd think the answer would be yes given that they're like Priests.

And and yet and yet and yet. What's the evidence?

Well, the evidence isn't exactly so clear. So dr. Peterson is making an interesting point here but I just I wonder if He's missing a biblical principle that would shine some light on this for him. I mean, so again, I mentioned James, you know, the Epistle of James talks about being a Consistent person of faith.

All right, if you say you have faith, but your actions do not back it up. Well, then what you say you have isn't real. It's dead. All right there's a there's a whole section at the end of chapter 2 and James where the author talks about Abraham and Isaac and and Rahab all these people who exhibited their faith their belief in the God of the Bible through their actions.

But what's interesting about that is it did Abraham completely cleanse himself of his sins.

No.

Did Rahab? No. So what is dr. Peterson getting at here? Is he suggesting that if you take your faith seriously? Your actions will provide evidence of that faith. Okay, great. I affirm that and so does the Bible.

But is he maybe also suggesting that your actions need to perfectly follow the biblical commands without any deviation without any like falling short in any way shape or form because that's impossible and The Bible does not expect that of you when Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount and he listed the Beatitudes for example.

And then he says You are to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. You're supposed to read that and say to yourself I can't achieve that standard. I'll never make it. Okay, you're supposed to feel the weight of the burden of being perfect and realize that you can't hack it.

Nobody can you need the Lord to intervene? You need Jesus to stand in the gap for you and bring you to the father so that you can have real relationship and be Restored in that relational sense with God.

So if dr. Peterson sees a real tension there with the idea of being perfect Then good. Okay, he's on his way to understanding God's grace and why it's so necessary for us all the mere statement.

Let's say or the mere acting out of the ritual. Let's say. And and I'm not trying to denigrate the statement or the ritual, but I'm pointing out that that's no indication of Your right to say that you believe because you got.

And I think this is why it's bothered me to answer this question. It's like what right do I have to say that to make that claim? I believe in God. Well, what's the claim? Is that the claim that I'm a good person somehow?

Because you'd think that if you believed in God.

Actually.

Like like seriously that you'd be a good person like right now because well. Well for obvious reasons.

Mm-hmm. No, you wouldn't. Okay, boy, it seems like dr. Peterson is missing a large chunk of the New Testament here. Which really goes back to the gospel. I mean Colossians 2 13 says. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh God made alive together with him.

How did that happen? Did we perfectly obey his commands after having told everyone that we believe in God? No, this is how it happened. God forgave us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside nailing it to the cross. You want to know what it means to believe in God. You have to understand his gospel. See you and I were made to be in relationship with God. That's the the picture of humanity.

If you go all the way back to Genesis chapter 1 and you read about what was going on in the Garden of Eden. But our sin separated us from that relationship. It separated us so much that Romans 3 tells us there is no one who is good.

No, not one. No one is righteous. No one understands. No one seeks for God, but then Jesus came to earth. He lived a sinless life and he died on the cross for our sins and he rose again on the third day so that we Could have eternal life.

You see the gospel is a rescue operation by God. It's not a thing where it's like, oh you say you believe in God. Okay perfectly do what he says.

That's not it. So that you're the best person you could possibly imagine being on an ongoing basis and then terrified of Deviating from that path in a serious manner. Then I don't see why you have the right to say that you believe in God.

You know one of the things Nietzsche said about Christianity. He was a great critic of Christianity. Although also a great friend in a very peculiar way. In that sometimes your best friend is the one who points out your weakest Properties.

Let's say he said as far as he was concerned there was only one Christian and he died on the cross. And and that's that's a you know, perhaps an extreme state. What?

The word Christian refers to little Christ's which is a reference to Jesus followers. So Jesus was the Christ and also he was his own follower.

The Cross, the Gospel, and the Meaning of Christian Faith

But one worth giving some consideration to it's like well, then you look at what what are you called upon? Let's say if you're going to proclaim yourself as a believer, you know. And I thought about this a lot as I've gone through the Old Testament I did a bunch of lectures last year.

And so what are you called upon? Well, you're called upon initially to Act out the spark of divinity that's within you by confronting potential with the logos that's within you which means to Take the opportunities that are in front of you The potential future and to transform it into the present in the best possible way using truth and courage and careful articulation as your as your as your as your.

As your guide, so that's the first thing you're called on to do that. That's a major deal there. That's a tough one. And then the second is to make the proper sacrifices. That's the Cain and Abel story is like you you want something you genuinely want it.

Do you want to set the world straight then you let go of what's necessary and you pursue you let go of what isn't? Necessary no matter what it is no matter what it is and then you pursue what's necessary.

And then maybe you sacrifice your children to God that that was the story. That's the one of the next stories that comes up, of course, and you think well that's pretty damn barbaric and the way the story is laid out, of course it is but That isn't exactly what it means.

It means that what you try to do when you raise children is that you try to do everything you can to impress upon them. By imitation and by instruction and by love and by encouragement that they are crucial beings in the world whose Ethical decisions play an important role in shaping the structure of reality itself and that they have the moral Responsibility to do that and you get your arc in order.

That's your family let's say so that when the storms come you can stay above water for the 40 days of flooding and you're capable of Leading your people through the desert when the desert makes itself manifest and you can escape from tyranny properly because you're wise enough to see it and You take the full burden of being on yourself all the suffering that's that's part and parcel of that you accept that voluntarily.

Let's say and you do everything you can to confront the malevolence. That's part of you and that's part of the state and that's part of the world and you you you make a garden around you. That's the paradise a walled garden.

It's a walled well-watered place. So the forces of nature and society exist together in harmony and you place your family in that so that they can live properly and you treat your enemy as if he's yourself and the same with your brother and Mmm, well, then you can say.

So.

The reason I Was quiet through that was I was trying to listen out for the gospel. Did you hear it? I.

Didn't.

Where was the gospel in that accounting of the Bible? Where is the notion of relationship with God? Genesis referred to it as walking with God in the garden. Where is that? Where is glorifying God in dr. Peterson's account.

He didn't mention these things so this is a.

Very.

Interesting way of using biblical pieces to create some kind of a structure but without the cornerstone, which is Jesus Christ there is no cornerstone in dr. Peterson's understanding and Without it. I I can see why he has trouble with this question then maybe you can say.

Maybe then you have the right to say That you believe in God. Otherwise, maybe You should think twice about it because.

You know.

There's a line in the New Testament that Christ himself says two of them. I should read them too because they're very relevant to this. All right, I guess I could paraphrase and paraphrase them. A rich man comes up to Christ and says and and says Good good leader good Lord, and he asked him a question about how it is.

That he should be a good person and Christ says don't call me good. There's no one that's good. But God and you know That's worth thinking about. I mean the one person That in principle In our ancient stories had the right to make some direct connection between himself and the divine.

Was unwilling to do it when challenged and so it might be reasonable to us. Is that what happened there?

When Jesus asked the question Why do you call me good? He was trying to break the connection between himself and the divine. That's how we're supposed to understand that. Nope. What Jesus was doing was he was shocking the leader and this was very often Jesus style of ministry.

He would say shocking Controversial things to grab attention and this comes out a lot in his parables if you just pay attention to the parables and you understand The historical context, you know, whenever a Gentile shows up in the story.

Everybody's everybody's supposed to go. Oh my goodness. You know, the prodigal son goes to work for a Gentile and he feeds pigs. Oh, you know, that's a that's a that's double uncleanliness. That's a double whammy.

All right, so Jesus was no stranger to shock and you know Controversy saying things any good teacher in the classroom knows, you know that sometimes you say things to catch the attention of Your audience.

Okay. So in other words Jesus is saying Don't throw flattering terms around at people as if to glorify men focus on the one who is good. Which is God. Jesus was not denying that he is God he's reorienting the man's focus to where it should go and he's doing it in a.

Shocking way to get his attention. Assume that each of us could be much more cautious about Making that sort of statement bluntly when we're asked. And then the other line is Not all those who say Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven got that about right, which means something approximating.

Just because you make a claim.

To.

Moral virtue, let's say wait. Wait. What did he just say? Let me back that up to moral virtue.

Just because you make a claim to moral virtue. Isn't that interesting? Did you catch that? See, this is why it's so important to know your scripture when someone quotes a Bible verse. Okay, they throw it out there.

It doesn't automatically follow that. They know what it means and this is a perfect example. Let's go to Matthew chapter 7 for a second and I'll show you dr. Peterson's mistake in verse 21. This is what Jesus says not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Okay, stop. What is the will of God? What is it and we thought about that? How does that defined. Jesus defines the will of God? This is what he says.

This is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the Sun and Believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. This is exactly the point that Jesus is making if you continue to read the passage here in Matthew that dr. Peterson cited.

Okay, look with me look at verse 22. Look, this is what it says verse 22 on that day. Many will say to me Lord Lord. Did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare to them. Here's what it is. I Never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you by the way. This is not any old knowledge that Jesus is referring to as if Jesus is trying to say at the end of all time I'm gonna go.

What was your name? I never quite met you. No, what he's saying is he's referring to the kind of intimate relational knowledge that husbands have with their wives. Okay, that's why the Bible says that Adam knew Eve and they had children together.

It's that kind of close intimate Relational knowledge that Jesus is referring to that is the basis of entering into heaven. It's a relationship with Jesus which gives us eternal life. And what is that relationship based on belief?

It's based on faith. You believe in his name you believe in what he has accomplished. And and what he has done on the cross and that he rose again. That's the gospel and Jordan Peterson seems to have missed that entirely.

Jordan Peterson, Christianity, and the Question of Eternal Life

Look friends. I'm a fan of Jordan Peterson. He's done a lot to get people thinking about God and the Bible in ways that I think are helpful to Christianity. I think in a conversation I even went so far as to say that dr Peterson may not be far from the kingdom with some of the things that he said.

But then he expounds on the question of believing in God and it just makes me stop and wonder. Maybe what's going on is when dr. Peterson. Here's the question. Do you believe in God? He understands it to be really asking.

Do you believe that God exists? That was one of the first thoughts that I had when he first started talking about this is Do you believe in God is really referring to? Belief that God exists because if you believe that God exists and He communicates these commandments for you to follow.

Well, then you better follow them perfectly, right? And so if dr Peterson is right then I can understand the Trepidation in answering such a question. Okay, but wait a sec. That's not how the Bible treats this question.

That's not how Christianity understands this question for Christians. The question of do you believe in God is really asking do you believe in Jesus for salvation from your own sins? Do you believe in Jesus so that you can have eternal life, which Jesus says John 17 3.

Jesus says eternal life is to know God. That's a much deeper enterprise than just acknowledging God exists. That's that's a restored relationship with God's relational knowledge and you can have that even as a broken sinner in the here and now and That is only offered to you by God's grace.

That's why Jesus is necessary. That's why he came to earth and why you need him and you need his finished work on the cross. That's the gospel message and that I'm afraid is missing in dr. Peterson's analysis of this question.

What do you think about Jordan Peterson's comments here? Does he really understand the question of belief in God is is he really not far from the kingdom? Let me know in the comments below and if you like this video I have a couple of other reactions to Jordan Peterson that you should definitely check out.

We've had a lot of fun looking at Jordan Peterson videos. Like I said, he's a really smart guy. He's been doing a lot of work to get us thinking about God and about the Bible. The links to those are in the notes below.

Definitely check it out. I'm off to Colorado for about a week. But when I return you and I have a lot of videos to catch up on so stay tuned friends things are about to get very interesting.