“Wherever you look you will find it is always true that the most significant part of something is the least conspicuous … And the most important of all of these is the furthest removed from our senses. God, the unique source of all things, can be neither imagined nor understood.
—Erasmus “The Sileni of Alcibiades”
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
— Matthew 7:21
Jordan Peterson is in hot water yet again for refusing to give a pat answer to a profound question.
When recently pressed by Richard Dawkins on whether he believes in the Resurrection of Christ, Peterson would not provide a simple yes or no.
This approach is nothing new for Peterson. Since his rise to public prominence, theists and atheists alike have strangely found themselves in common cause in their frequent frustration with Peterson’s reluctance to answer their questions about belief in a literal, conspicuous manner.
For example, the basic question, “Do you believe in God?” has often irked Peterson into providing irksome answers to his inquisitors. You would think it easy for him to say a simple yes or no. But he just won’t do it.
Personally, I’m not troubled by this whatsoever. In fact, I find one of Peterson’s many “evasive” answers to the question of God’s existence – i.e. “I’m afraid that He might exist” – hilariously true in a way only laughter at a well-crafted joke can reveal.
Indeed, I find Peterson’s whole approach to wrestling with God and Scripture much more engaging than that of most theists or atheists — who think they have God pinned down to earth with pat answers and personal confessions of faith or a lack thereof.
On the surface, confessions of belief or disbelief may seem honest and true in their simplicity. However, literal appearances can be downright deceiving, even to the point of shouting, “Lord, Lord!” in self-deception. A man’s reputation for piety doesn’t necessarily show the truth of his hidden heart. What a man prays on the street corner tells you little about him. What he prays alone may very well reveal the depths of his soul.
Yet beyond the words he shouts from the rooftops or prayers he quietly whispers to himself, what a man does, day by day, subtly sows the seeds of his faith in the least conspicuous way.
So, in answering Dawkins' question about his belief in the Resurrection of Christ, what did Peterson actually do?
Peterson chose to wrestle with the question by offering studied reasons for believing in Christ’s Resurrection – reasons quite compelling, much more compelling than any simple yes or no.
Much like honest laughter evoked from a well-crafted joke, listening to Peterson’s reasons for belief in the Resurrection left me experiencing a spirit of wonder and awe.
“Let me tell you a story that I believe bears on the Resurrection,” Peterson told Dawkins. “You tell me what you think about it.”
Peterson continued:
So there's a strange scene in the gospels where Christ tells his followers that unless he's lifted up like the bronze serpent — there can be no hope for the redemption of mankind unless he's lifted up like the bronze serpent in the desert. Okay? This is a very strange thing for someone to say, so you need to know what the story of the bronze serpent in the desert was….
… So there's a scene in Exodus, in the Exodus story, where the Israelites are doing their usual fractious foolishness and whining about the fact that they're lost and bemoaning the loss of their privileges under the pharaoh and complaining about the power dynamics of their leadership, and just generally being followers of Cain, let's say.
And God … decides to send among his suffering subjects poisonous snakes to bite them….
So they're being bitten by these poisonous snakes and the leaders of the people who've wandered from God go to Moses and they say, ‘Look, we know you've got a pipeline to God, and you know, there's a lot of snakes, and they're doing a lot of biting, and maybe you could just ask him to you know call off the serpents.’
And so Moses … decides that he'll go talk to God – and God says something very strange. He doesn't say, ‘To hell with the Israelites, more snakes is what they need,’ and He doesn't say, ‘Well I produced the snakes so I'll get rid of them.’ He says something very, very peculiar.
He says have the Israelites gather together all their bronze and make a giant stake and put a serpent on it, a bronze serpent…. And then he says put it up where the Israelites can see it and if they go look at it, then the serpents’ poison won't harm them. …
And so what God tells the Israelites, essentially in this dramatic endeavor, is that it's better for them to face the terrors that confront them than to be shielded from the terrors or for them to hide from them – that they'll be better people if they face what's right in front of them even if it's poisonous. …
But then there's this additional weird twist which is Christ identifies with that bronze serpent. You think, okay that's a very peculiar thing for anyone to do. What exactly does that mean?’
So then you might say well, what's the most poisonous thing that you could possibly face if you dramatize the idea of poison itself? If you wanted people to face what was worst so that they could become strongest?
And the answer to that is the most unjust possible painful death and the ultimate confrontation with malevolence – and that's what's dramatized in the passion story.
Now does that redeem everyone?
Maybe, maybe – maybe the idea is that if we were courageous enough to look death in the face unflinchingly and if we spent our time putting our finger on the source of evil itself it would revitalize ourselves to a degree that would be unimaginable.
Rather than give a literal answer, an answer atheists and theists alike seem to expect, Peterson chose to chronicle – to one of the world’s most renowned atheists for millions of people to watch online for years to come – the case for John 3:14-16:
‘Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.’
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
I think that’s better than a simple yes or no.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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