Review: Book by Jordan Peterson is a critical mirror for Christians
06-03-2025
Opinion
Prof. Maarten Kater, RD
A depiction of Gustav Doré's Jacob Wrestling with the Angel along with the book, We Who Wrestle With God by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Photo X, Pavel Macek
Opinion
This book by the well-known conservative influencer is very different from what you might expect based on the title. It is really surprising and alienating. That is what the book, subtitled Perceptions of the Divine, has in store for you.
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When a psychologist opens the Bible, it can lead to surprising insights. At the same time, it often seems that for the author of We Who Wrestle With God, the Bible is nothing more than a collection of the experiences –even primal experiences– that people have with God.
“God” reveals less of who He is than who we are. So, in addition to surprises, there are moments of alienation when reading it as a Reformed Christian. Based on these moments of surprise and alienation, I will now discuss what this book offers.
You might expect that this book is about Jacob. That was the man who wrestled with God. But that is not the case.
The book begins with a portrayal of history –a story, according to the author– of the prophet Elijah. For the author, Elijah is the prototype of the transformation of the “caterpillar to butterfly”. That is also how he sees Elijah’s ascension to heaven. This is an example of such a moment of alienation.
Voice from within
After the chapters on “Adam, Eve, pride, self-doubt and the fall into sin” and a chapter on “Cain, Abel and sacrifice”, the book continues to show that the writer sees ‘God’ more as the voice from within us as humans than the God who breaks into a person’s life from the outside with His Word.
Peterson discusses the following topics: God as the call to prepare ourselves (Noah), God versus tyranny and pride (Tower of Babel), God as an inspired call to adventure (Abraham) and God as the terrible spirit of freedom (Moses).
After a reflection on hedonism and infantile temptation in which Peterson refers to the worship of the golden calf at Horeb, the book ends with a description of “Jonah and the eternal abyss”.
Bestseller
The author, Dr Jordan B. Peterson, is a cultural critic and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Toronto. One of his earlier books, 12 Rules for Life, became a worldwide bestseller.
No doubt, this book will also find its way to people’s bookshelves. Although it is tiring to read a book that occasionally makes you feel uncomfortable as a Reformed Christian, Peterson makes many apt observations as a cultural critic. For example, he is critical of the arrogance that he believes is so often expressed in the natural sciences.
He even draws a parallel between the religious practice of prayer and the practice of science. It is about bowing down, knowing your place, knowing you are overwhelmed and realising that everything you study is much greater than anything you will ever know. At first glance, it seems strange to compare bowing down before God with the practice of science. Yet, it is a moment of surprise.
The writer refers to “God” as “the divine”, even though he uses words that you would use when speaking about a person.
While reading, the question repeatedly arises: does the writer refer to a person, but does he keep it vague in order to be heard within his science, in which ‘God’ is interpreted psychologically? I was left with that question. Another moment of alienation.
Food for thought
All of this is constantly alternated with surprising passages that give food for thought. Let’s look, for example, at the story of Moses at the burning bush, which is about holy ground. “The sacred is what moves us when we encounter it; what inspires awe in understanding it; what illuminates, cuts and burns away, and transforms.”
Critically processing literature also means exercising self-criticism. What in our Reformed theology, our churches, are so holy?! And what to think of the following sentence: “The transforming power of the depths is identical to the Logos that broods in the depths, separates the wheat from the chaff and the sheep from the goats and turns in all directions as the gatekeeper of Eden.” Processing such sentences gives us plenty to think about.”
In his book, Peterson devotes much attention to the conscience and its function as an “inner voice” that calls us. Fighting with God appears to be fighting against yourself.
Jonah
In the last chapter, the reader will find deep, existential thoughts about our “Jonah-like attempts to hide” from what we are called to do. No, Jonah is not called by “the divine” but by God Himself. But that does not free us from our calling; quite the contrary.
I will close this discussion with the parallel Peterson draws between the grave in this history and the path of Christ: “He became the man who sought and found the light in the darkness. He became the man who learned deeply what he should and should not fear: the deep blue sea, hell and God Himself, not his own ease and comfort, and not his fellow man. He has become a man with a depth of suffering that has made his words irresistible, even to those who sin deeply themselves.”
While reading this book, I often thought of the nineteenth-century scientist Wilhelm Dilthey: “Every understanding implies a recreation in my psyche.”
This article is a translation of a review published earlier in Dutch in Reformatorisch Daglad.
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