Lecture 01: Present or Absent We Wrestle with God

Stories Shape Human Perception and Organization of Reality Through Value Hierarchies Rather Than Just Objective Facts

Jordan Peterson asserts that human beings perceive and organize reality not only through objective facts but through stories that describe hierarchies of value. Perception itself is driven by values rather than passive observation; every conscious act requires prioritization, focusing attention on what matters rather than evenly distributing awareness across all facts. For example, when on a date, the decision of what to notice or ignore—such as a partner’s words versus peripheral distractions—demonstrates that attention always follows what one values.

Peterson highlights that fictional narratives are crucial: they help people interpret the world, practice emotional responses, and rehearse moral decision-making. By identifying with protagonists, audiences experience emotions and moral dilemmas vicariously, making stories an important simulation space for navigating real life. Even within fiction, quality varies; some narratives are shallow entertainment, while others move audiences to tears or spark transformation, revealing a natural hierarchy based on depth of meaning.

Peterson remarks that mythology embodies deep truth-telling by weaving generational stories into archetypal narratives that capture recurring human experiences and moral struggles. Humans, he argues, are essentially narrative creatures: we understand meaning and make decisions through the interpretive lens of story, not just by collecting facts.

Peterson contrasts this with the postmodern view, which emerged prominently in 1970s France, holding that all narratives are fundamentally expressions of power dynamics. While postmodernists are correct to emphasize humanity’s dependence on story, he says their core conclusion—that stories are only about power—is a cynical misunderstanding. Power often emerges when institutions degenerate, but cooperation and shared meaning, not domination, are what sustain functional societies.

Narrative Quality Varies, Reflecting Higher Truth and Wisdom In Some Stories vs. Fiction as Opposite of Fact

Peterson points out the human instinct to distinguish quality in fiction: some stories are light and momentary diversions, while others evoke deep emotions and can change a person’s life. This demonstrates that fiction is not simply the opposite of fact; instead, some fictions abstract and communicate higher truths about how to be, what to pursue, and how to deal with suffering.

He notes that society invests heavily in realistic fictional simulations—such as immersive films, video games, and literature—because such fiction matters for navigating moral and existential landscapes. Deep fiction abstracts human values, distilling patterns of meaning across cultures and centuries. Mythology, according to Peterson, is the aggregation of the most compe ...

Jordan Peterson explores biblical archetypes, drawing connections between the Genesis creation account, the concept of sacrifice, and the everlasting conflict between good and evil as core patterns in myth and human psychology. His interpretation articulates how individuals must confront chaos, make meaningful sacrifices, and battle destructive forces to produce purpose and order in both their lives and the world.

Genesis Creation Account As a Metaphysical and Psychological Depiction of Consciousness Transforming Formless Potential Into Ordered Reality Through Creativity

Hebrew "Tohu Vabohu": Earth "Without Form and Void," Potential Needing Consciousness For Manifestation

Peterson explains that the Genesis creation narrative begins with the earth as "tohu vabohu," translated from Hebrew as "without form and void," or more precisely, formless potential. This chaos encompasses everything that could ever possibly be offered to an individual if only they knew how to seize it. Such potential is terrifying and full of anxiety—the messes not yet handled, the opportunities not taken, the unresolved issues saturating everyday life. Peterson asserts that consciousness is the faculty bestowed upon humanity specifically to confront this field of potential and cast it into tangible reality.

Spirit of God Transforming Chaos Into Ordered Good Through Love and Wisdom

In the Genesis account, Peterson points out, the Spirit of God does not merely bring order but order that is repeatedly described as good. The spirit battles and differentiates formless chaos into the manifest structures of the world. Peterson emphasizes that the metaphor of water—dark, deep, mysterious, bountiful, and potentially deadly—serves as an effective symbol for this primordial chaos.

Peterson goes further to claim that the ultimate ordering spirit, as depicted in Judeo-Christian thought, is a spirit acting in accordance with the highest dictates of love. To love someone, as he describes in the context of parenting, is to strive continually to bring about good order in their circumstances. This, he claims, reflects the spirit at the base of reality itself: ordering chaos with love.

Human Beings, Reflecting the Creative Spirit, Must Transform the Potential of Their Circumstances Into Good Order

Peterson asserts that humans are made in the image of God—endowed with consciousness that actively co-creates reality. To act as a conscious, moral agent means to take the raw, formless potential of one’s own life—family, relationships, choices—and transform it into the kind of good order found in the Genesis narrative. The challenge is for each person to recognize their capacity and responsibility to wrestle with chaos, and through love and creativity, bring forth order that is good.

Sacrifice in the Bible: Trading Present Comfort For Future Flourishing

Work and Sacrifice: Trading Present Value for Future Returns

Peterson draws a direct parallel between the biblical idea of sacrifice and the concept of work. He notes that sacrifice is fundamentally the act of giving up something of value in the present to secure greater benefits in the future. Work, then, is a form of sacrifice—a bargain struck with the spirit of the future. In labor, people forego immediate entertainment or comfort so that their future selves—or their families' futures—may flourish.

Labor and Toil As Part of Human Existence

After the fall in Eden, Peterson recounts, God declares that humanity will now toil as part of their existence. To work is human destiny; it stems from awareness of the future and the necessity to strive and prepare for what is not yet here, distinguishing humans from other animals.

The Quality of Sacrifice: Genuine Submission or Resentful Self-Preservation Determines Life's Flourishing or Deterioration

He references the story of Cain and Abel, emphasizing two types of sacrifice: Abel’s, accepted and rewarded, and Cain’s, rejected, leading to resentment, violence, and catastrophe. The narrative illustrates that the quality of one’s sacrifice—whether offered in genuine submission or out of resentful self-preservation—determines whether life flourishes or descends into suffering and destruction.

Chaos to Order: Archetypal Struggle Defining ...

Jordan Peterson argues that consciousness is the deepest and most undeniable fact of reality and critiques materialism for failing to explain the crucial link between subjective experience and the matter that supposedly generates it. He extends this line of thinking to the relationship between personality, consciousness, and reality, and finally contends that science itself is inseparable from morality, intuition, and intrinsic values.

Consciousness Is the Most Fundamental Fact of Existence, and Materialist Claims That It Reduces To Neurological Function CanNot Explain the Link Between Subjective Experience and Matter

"Consciousness as Undeniable Reality"

Peterson anchors his discussion in the assertion that the brute fact of individual awareness is the most undeniable reality humans possess, echoing Descartes’ insight: “I think, therefore I am.” In contemporary terms, Peterson insists that consciousness, or direct awareness, is a brute and inescapable fact.

No Clear Distinction Exists Between Neurological Processes Generating Consciousness and Those Lacking It, Making Materialist Reduction of Mind to Brain Inadequate

He challenges materialist reduction of consciousness to neurological activity by pointing out that much of the brain’s function does not elicit consciousness. Given that nobody can reliably distinguish between neurological processes that are conscious and those that are not—even when both are equally complex—Peterson claims that materialism cannot account for the emergence of subjective experience from matter.

Materialism's Circularity: Consciousness Needed to Evaluate Its Primacy

Peterson furthers his critique of materialism by arguing that any account of reality, including a materialist one, presupposes consciousness. One must be conscious to even consider or evaluate the primacy of matter, leaving materialism in a circular position. Peterson notes that no materialist has answered how matter can be said to be “primary” when consciousness is required to even entertain this proposition.

Personality and Consciousness Relate to Reality, Suggesting Consciousness Helps Constitute Reality

Organism as Microcosm Reflects Cosmic Order

Drawing upon a correspondence with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Peterson recalls a thought experiment: if an alien scientist examined a bird, it could infer many facts about Earth from that bird’s physiology. The bird serves as a microcosm of its environment, reflecting the broader cosmic order. Peterson links this to a medieval Christian teaching—that the human soul is a microcosm, a reflection of the entire cosmos.

Humans Reflect and Adapt Only To Their Compatible Environments

Peterson observes that Dawkins, from a modern biological perspective, arrives at a position similar to the medieval one: organisms, including humans, can only adapt to environments of which they are microcosmic replicas. Being “in tune with the structure of reality” is necessary for survival.

Consciousness As Fundamental to Reality

Peterson suggests that our awareness is integrally bound up with existence. The being of consciousness, he argues, gives rise to the world and helps constitute reality, making consciousness not merely a byproduct of material complexity but an essential constituent of existence itself. This implies that the deepest way to conceptualize our relationship to being is as a kind of covenant or ongoing relationship between conscious beings and reality—radically different from the notion of isolated, alienated mind within a cold, indifferent universe.

Science Tied To Morality & Intuition, Merging Consciousness, Value, & Knowledge

Scientists Discover Research Hypotheses Through Intuitive Insight, Then Fabricate Post-Hoc Rational Justifications

Peterson contends that scientific discovery begins not with cold rationality but with intuition. He recounts how scientists, including his students, generate hypotheses through creative insight or intuition, but must then construct post-hoc logical explanations for methodological purposes. Scientists routinely invent stories in their papers to fit intuitive breakthroughs into logically regimented forms. Peterson likens this process to prayer, in the sense that the call ...

Ivan Karamazov's Challenge—how a Moral God Tolerates Innocent Children's Suffering—Captures the Problem of Evil, Compelling Even Atheists to Wrestle With It Emotionally

Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s "The Brothers Karamazov" mounts one of the most powerful literary arguments against belief in God, and does so on fundamentally moral grounds. Ivan recounts a real-life story—drawn from a Russian newspaper—about a four-year-old girl with brutal, psychopathic parents who, as punishment, was locked outside in an outhouse during a forty-below Russian night. She froze to death, her screams ignored. This event was a national scandal, its horror self-evident, and Ivan uses it to highlight what he calls the inequity of existence: the tortured death of a wholly innocent child is, for him, proof that no benevolent deity could exist or, if such a god exists, deserves neither worship nor allegiance.

Ivan challenges his brother Alyosha directly: given your belief in a moral God, would you ever be willing, even to save the world, to torture a single innocent child to death? Alyosha, shaken to his core, finds himself unable to respond, as Ivan presses that the God Alyosha reveres not only could, but apparently does, tolerate such suffering. Ivan thus claims the best moral argument for atheism—if evil exists in such manifest ways, especially when it befalls innocents, how can one justify faith in a good God?

Dostoevsky, though, shifts the ground in his treatment of Alyosha. Despite Ivan’s intellectual victories and rhetorical prowess, the novel presents Alyosha as morally superior; his empathy, compassion, and lived goodness surpass the sharpness of Ivan's logic. This dramatization makes clear a distinction: winning an argument, especially a verbal or intellectual battle, is not the same as being truly right or good. True ethical depth and humility may lie with those who lose the argument but live with greater moral wisdom. In debates about ultimate meaning, this recognition—that being verbally triumphant does not equate with possessing truth or righteousness—is cast as a profound moral insight.

Moral Outrage at God, Even by Atheists, Reveals an Implicit Human Relationship With the Transcendent

Moral outrage at suffering, especially when expressed as anger at God, reveals something essential about the human response to evil and pain. Stephen Fry, for instance, exhibits not just disbelief but a moral fury at the idea of a God who allows the suffering of children, using the example of children stricken with bone cancer. Fry’s emotional protest echoes Ivan’s: he is indignant that a world so rife with innocent agony could be the design or even the oversight of a transcendent good.

This outrage, even from atheists, implicitly addresses Someone—Fry, as with Ivan, is not shaking his fist at impersonal nature, but toward the sky, as if God were there to receive complaint. Peterson notes that such anger, especially when expressed so viscerally, signals a kind of unconscious relationship with the transcendent: anger is addressed, not to rocks and molecules, but to a Person, even if only a conceptual one. The persistence of moral emotion—indignation, grief, accusation—toward God (even when denying God’s reality) suggests that the problem of suffering is not solely rational but deeply relational and emotive.

Further, many objections to God are not coldly rational or materialist. Instead, they are suffused with the emotional residue of personal wounds, often inflicted by religious people or institutions. These wounds leave many "ex-believers" not with calm skepticism but with embittered resentment—out ...

Jordan Peterson explores the path to genuine transformation and flourishing as rooted in reorienting one's aims from lower desires toward the highest good, emphasizing faith, engagement with suffering, and a courageous love that embraces growth over comfort.

Transformation and Flourishing Arise By Redirecting One's Aim From Lower Desires To the Highest Good, Not By Seeking Comfort or Avoiding Suffering

Peterson emphasizes that real change comes not from seeking comfort or the absence of suffering, but from deliberately aiming at what is highest and most meaningful. He explains that self-examination with "well-aimed questions" redirects focus from immediate self-interest—such as asking, "How can I take advantage of this situation for myself and to hell with everyone else?"—to pursuing what is optimally good. This process is a form of critical, creative thinking and is essential to character development and destiny.

Self-Examination for Higher Aims Reshapes Character and Destiny

Peterson notes that when individuals wrestle with themselves or feel miserable, it is often because their thoughts and desires have become self-centered and disconnected from higher aims. Even in grief and loss, like the experience his wife Tammy faced after her father's death, a transformation occurs when one recognizes the need to realign their aim towards the highest good, away from bitterness and resentment. When suffering is partly due to one's own misplaced aims, the antidote is to "look up"—to strive for a renewed relationship with the transcendent good.

Engaging With Brokenness as Opportunity Leads To Transformative Improvement

Problems, when approached comprehensively, are opportunities for immense growth. Peterson invokes the archetype where "the dragon hoards the gold," meaning the deeper and more painful the problem, the greater the opportunity it presents. The act of confronting one’s brokenness or false life is the price for reorienting aims and awakening to a more truthful path.

A Lifelong Cycle of Reorientation and Self-Correction Creates a Heaven-Like Existence Where All Improves

Transformation is not a one-time event, but a continual, lifelong process of recognizing when one's trajectory is false, and then reorienting towards a higher aim. Peterson encourages asking oneself before every action or word, "Am I in relationship to what is highest?" Practiced consistently, this orientation towards the good becomes a self-correcting cycle that steadily brings forth order, abundance, and the possibility of "the kingdom of heaven" emerging in one's life.

Faith as an Existential Stance: Moving Forward Amid Ignorance, Making Commitments and Taking Risks Despite Uncertainty

Peterson frames faith as essential to the human condition—an existential attitude required to move forward in the face of ignorance and unpredictability. Decisions about marriage, work, and relationships are all actions of faith, as certainty about outcomes is never truly attainable.

Key Human Decisions Rely On Faith, Not Certainty

Major commitments in life always involve risk and are not supported by complete facts; instead, one must "stake your soul on your bet" and navigate uncertainty with faith.

Faith in Comprehensible Truth and Its World-Improving Power Essential for Scientific Thinking

Peterson argues that faith underlies even scientific pursuits, where the axiom is that the pursuit of comprehensible truth will make the world a better place. He insists that, "If your aim is true, there's nothing that won't be revealed to you, even in the agonies of your misery." This faith fuels hope and action.

Tarot's Fool: Advancing Toward the Future By Looking Upwards

Drawing on the symbolism of the Tarot’s Fool, Peterson describes faith as advancing into the unknown while "looking up." Every upward-oriented step becomes firm and foundational, establishing the possibility for transformative impact in each moment.

Suffering, When Spiritually Oriented, Offers More Value and Opportunity Than Comfort, Fueling Meaningful Adventure

Peterson argues that seeking comfort at all costs leads not to fulfillment, but to chaos and unhappiness. He quotes Dostoevsky, who recognized that without meaningful struggle, people create trouble out of boredom. Struggle is therefore essential for flourishing, meaning, and adventure.

Dostoevsky: Humans Create Chaos Without Meaning, Proving Struggle Essential For Flourishing

Peterson observes that if people are given only comfort—“sweet cakes and bubbling pools”—they soon become destructive, highlighting the need for meaning ...