Jordan Peterson's definition of "God"

'Public intellectual' Jordan Peterson - whose field of expertise is psychology - does not believe in God but he admires the power of religion ~ indeed, he often talks about how religion is essential for a functioning society.

A friend of mine recently, in a sustained bout of curiosity triggered by some conversations we'd had, consumed a load of Jordan Peterson stuff on youtube - hours and hours of it - and came up with this personal summary of Peterson's definition of "God" which he texted to me:

"God" the father is a representation of the internal cognitive structure that gives rise to consciousness so that we can perceive the world and put form to things, to bring order out of chaos. You need to have an apriori structure i.e. a body to make sense of the world ( In 1700s, Kant maintained you can’t make sense out of sense data without an apriori structure to perceive the world e.g. your body).

"God" is truthful speech that rectifies pathological hierarchies. It confronts chaos and generates habitable order, a transcendent reality that iterates over the longest of timeframes.

"God" is how we imaginatively and collectively represent the existence and action of consciousness across time, as the most real aspects of existence manifest themselves across the longest of timeframes but are not necessarily apprehended as objects in the here and now.

"God" is that which eternally dies and is reborn in the pursuit of higher being and truth.

"God" is what calls and what responds in the eternal call to adventure.

"God" is the voice of conscience

"God" is the source of judgement and mercy in guilt

"God" is the future to which we make sacrifices.

I can subscribe to the ideas he is itemizing here [indeed, I have been talking along these lines on this forum for years], although it is - of course - taking a large measure of poetic licence with the name/term "God".

His use of the word "God" - while, I think, being acceptable to theists - essentially describes what non-believers see [and he is a non-believer, remember] as being metaphysical attributes and capacities that have evolved in human beings as a result of their social nature and their need to find ways to make communal living function successfully.

According to my friend's telling of it, he makes the eight aforementioned assertions about what he says "God" is, and yet ~ according to my telling of it ~ not one of them need there to actually be a God that exists in the conventional sense.

In the past, before he admitted that he did not believe in God, Peterson had made a lot of mileage out of suggesting that, without belief in God [and I mean God in, say, the theist/Christian sense, and not "God" in the Jordan Peterson sense], morality has no foundation.

Shouldn't he now back peddle on this in a spirit of full and honest disclosure?

If he does not believe in God then, like it or not, he is an atheist of some persuasion [I suspect he'd be more an implicit atheist, like me, than an explicit atheist]. But if he thinks that believing 'God is real' works for the masses [a.k.a. society] but he himself doesn't need to believe it [and he'll just go as far as admiring religion], then doesn't he need to stop being a hypocrite about atheism?

@fmf said
'Public intellectual' Jordan Peterson - whose field of expertise is psychology - does not believe in God but he admires the power of religion ~ indeed, he often talks about how religion is essential for a functioning society.

A friend of mine recently, in a sustained bout of curiosity triggered by some conversations we'd had, consumed a load of Jordan Peterson stuff on youtub ...[text shortened]... just go as far as admiring religion], then doesn't he need to stop being a hypocrite about atheism?

Peterson probably realises that it is brand favourable for him to intellectualise the need of many people to believe in a God, rather than lazily dismiss it as delusion as in fact many atheists in this forum do. His explanations are intellectually appealing on some levels, but inevitably spiritually sterile.

As for being a hypocrite, did he ever state that he believed in a conventional God? I have no idea, just asking. I’m not sure that’s a fair accusation as he is, as you say, being very obviously free with his definition of “God”. On the other hand perhaps like you he was once sincere in his convention theism and has since lost his faith and now rationalises it in this way.

@divegeester said
As for being a hypocrite, did he ever state that he believed in a conventional God?

He used to claim to be a Christian and also espoused presuppositionalism - which is the idea that only someone who believes in the Christian God can understand logic, morality, science, and consciousness.

In 2018 he admitted that he did not believe in God [and started calling himself a "Cultural Christian" instead, which is, I suppose, what I am]. He went from basically believing that only people who believe in God can have morality, to being a non-believer who defines "God" in a way that a non-believer like me can more or less sign up to.

If he no longer believes that morals are given as instructions to humans by a supernatural lawgiver but still wants to insist that atheists have no foundation for morality [because he is a conservative admirer of religion and apparently sells heaps of books to right-wing American Christians] ~ AND he lays out a sketch of how morality is an evolved attribute of humans onto which he slaps the label "God" ~ then that seems hypocritical to me.

But... "Although Peterson frequently makes morally questionable claims and engages in pseudoscience, his statements are notoriously ambiguous, which allows him to handwave criticism as mere misrepresentations of his views." [rationalwiki]

@fmf said
If he no longer believes that morals are given as instructions to humans by a supernatural lawgiver but still wants to insist that atheists have no foundation for morality [because he is a conservative admirer of religion and apparently sells heaps of books to right-wing American Christians] ~ AND he lays out a sketch of how morality is an evolved attribute of humans onto which he slaps the label "God" ~ then that seems hypocritical to me.

If this is factual, and I’m not saying it isn’t, then he is indeed being hypocritical.

It’s a curious juxtaposition to me when I consider myself being a theist but I am a vociferous critic of religion, and he is an atheist and yet an admirer of religion.

@divegeester

It’s a curious juxtaposition to me when I consider myself being a theist but I am a vociferous critic of religion, and he is an atheist and yet an admirer of religion.

You are a vociferous critic of religion who should understand something. Just because you can be a vociferous critic of others doesn't necessarily make you one bit better then they.

"I can criticize. Therefore I am better" doesn't necessarily automatically hold.

@sonship said
@divegeester

It’s a curious juxtaposition to me when I consider myself being a theist but I am a vociferous critic of religion, and he is an atheist and yet an admirer of religion.

You are a vociferous critic of religion who should understand something. Just because you can be a vociferous critic of others doesn't necessarily make you one bit ...[text shortened]... then they.

"I can criticize. Therefore I am better" doesn't necessarily automatically hold.

Religion is not a “they” sonship, try to relax.

@sonship said
You are a vociferous critic of religion who should understand something. Just because you can be a vociferous critic of others doesn't necessarily make you one bit better then they.

Religion = Benny Hinn, Witness Lee, Pope so-and-so, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robinson, corporate churches, political donations, ostracization, discrimination, Mike Pence, etc. etc.

Religion = Christian faith, concepts of "sin", "forgiveness", "salvation", love for Jesus etc.

Which sense of the word "religion" do you think divegeester has in mind?

@fmf said
Religion = Benny Hinn, Witness Lee, Pope so-and-so, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robinson, corporate churches, political donations, ostracization, discrimination, Mike Pence, etc. etc.

Religion = Christian faith, concepts of "sin", "forgiveness", "salvation", love for Jesus etc.

Which sense of the word "religion" do you think divegeester has in mind?

Amoral incomprehensible genocidal dogmas of fear and death, bleeding funds from the laity, child sacrifice, big business corporations, vicars and “fathers” in place of christ, American televangelists, all of them, church state politicisation of grace and truth, spiritual elitists and salvation exclusivists, cults, child sex abuse and the covering of it up, the sneering crucifix twiddling bishop of Southwark etc etc

“...the sneering crucifix twiddling bishop of Southwark”

Yes and pretty much everything he said in that famous interview with Cleese and Palin, and everything about religion which the Life of Brian so brilliantly lampooned.

@divegeester said
Amoral incomprehensible genocidal dogmas of fear and death, bleeding funds from the laity, child sacrifice, big business corporations, vicars and “fathers” in place of christ, American televangelists, all of them, church state politicisation of grace and truth, spiritual elitists and salvation exclusivists, cults, child sex abuse and the covering of it up, the sneering crucifix twiddling bishop of Southwark etc etc

And Mike Pence. Don't forget Mike Pence. He's "Religion".

@sonship said
"I can criticize. Therefore I am better" doesn't necessarily automatically hold.

What do you make of Jordan Peterson's definition of "God"?

@fmf said
What do you make of Jordan Peterson's definition of "God"?

Nothing.

Except maybe "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal".

"God" is a real being, and as the creator of everything else in existence it is incumbent on us, the created, to hear God's definition of Himself if we are to know Him. And believe it.

Or you can believe another man. Kinda makes one a sycophant listening to a mere mortal and following his definitions.

@secondson said
"God" is a real being, and as the creator of everything else in existence it is incumbent on us, the created, to hear God's definition of Himself if we are to know Him. And believe it.

Jordan Peterson is an atheist who thinks it is good for "society" if people like you believe what you do.

@fmf said
Jordan Peterson is an atheist who thinks it is good for "society" if people like you believe what you do.

Secondjosephson believes I’m an ashole (he said so), a heretic, a Christian basher, a fake Christian, a pinhead and a host of other abusive adjectives.

Are you trying to say that Jordan Peterson agrees with him!?

@divegeester said
Peterson probably realises that it is brand favourable for him to intellectualise the need of many people to believe in a God, rather than lazily dismiss it as delusion as in fact many atheists in this forum do. His explanations are intellectually appealing on some levels, but inevitably spiritually sterile.

As for being a hypocrite, did he ever state that he believe ...[text shortened]... e sincere in his convention theism and has since lost his faith and now rationalises it in this way.

I've watched the first two of his series on the psychological meaning of scripture. Firstly, I think FMF's friend has Petersen's position more or less right. Secondly, I really do not think that you can dismiss this as spiritually sterile, and he is certainly not doing it on the basis that it is "brand favourable". These talks are each between one and a half and two and a half hours long. He goes through the Bible line by line. There is considerable depth. Frankly, he's paid more attention to scripture than half the Christians on this forum.

If you look at the Lord's Prayer, it's interesting to think about the meaning of the words in these psychological terms. I was thinking of starting a thread, but this one will do. I need to work out my ideas a little and make a post hopefully tomorrow, I'm visiting friends in London today. It doesn't matter whether one believes in the existence of God in the sense that a physicist, say, understands existence, or not. In psychology, there is a concept, I don't know how universally accepted it is, called self-transcendence [1], which is an end in itself for an atheist. For a Christian it might be considered a state of preparation for death and suitability to meet one's maker.

When someone says: "I believe in God." it has a dual meaning. If I said: "I believe in James." (a friend of mine), I would clearly not be making a statement about his existence, but a statement about trust and how good a friend he is - which he is. So when someone says "I believe in God." they are saying that they trust God and think, roughly speaking, that God is on their side.

However, the sentence also can make a statement about existence. "I think that an entity exists which has the properties associated with God.", but existence is a tricky concept. When a mathematician talks about the existence of a circle they are making a statement along the lines that there exists an object, which is logically possible, in Plato's World of Ideas. A physicist, at least an experimental physicist, would want something they can make measurements on. A theoretical physicist would require that the object have some physical influence, even if not directly measurable itself, such as the Higgs ground state. As an example from Physics the divide between the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and the Many Worlds interpretation is a question about the reality of the wavefunction. Both sides accept the mathematical existence of the wavefunction, but the Copenhagenists insist that it has no reality and is just a device for calculating correlation functions, the Many World's crowd think it does have physical reality. God certainly exists in the mathematical sense. An experimental physicist can't do an experiment so they wouldn't think God exists. A theoretical physicist might be more open to the idea. I'm speaking of the professional approach, rather than personal belief here, before any Christian believers who are also experimental physicists complain.

This leaves us with the interesting notion that it is possible to say "I believe in God", in the sense of believing in the power and usefulness of the religious imagery, without believing in the actual existence, in the physics sense, of God. Roughly where I am now - I'm agnostic with regard to the existence question. This is a large move from the crude atheism I expressed about 15 years ago when I first came to these forums.

Returning to the OP, I don't think we can conclude that Petersen is completely atheistic. Based on some of his statements in the OP he appears to concede the possibility that the cosmos itself is conscious in some way. He makes a few disparaging comments about Marxism, Feminism and Postmodernism, in the first one but stops doing that by the second one. Based on the first two I'd recommend them to anyone interested in this. They are on his own YouTube channel "Jordan B. Petersen.".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-transcendence