Contending For The Faith---Part 35

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month.  This is the next installment.

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.

What You Need to Know About Dr. Jordan Peterson

This past April, a colleague of my wife gave her two tickets to see the enigmatic Dr. Jordan Peterson at Radio City Music Hall. Peterson's website has this to say:

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is an author, psychologist, online educator, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. The Jordan B Peterson podcast frequently tops the charts in the Education category. He has written three books, Maps of Meaning, an academic work, presenting a new scientifically-grounded theory of religious and political belief, and the bestselling 12 Rules for Life, and Beyond Order, which have sold more than seven million copies.

With his wife, Tammy, Dr. Peterson’s international lecture tours have sold out more than 400 venues, providing live insight into the structure of mythology and narrative to hundreds of thousands of people.

For twenty years, he taught some of the most highly regarded courses at Harvard and the University of Toronto, while publishing more than a hundred well-cited scientific papers with his students and co-authors.

Dr. Peterson’s online programs, selfauthoring.com and understandmyself.com have helped tens of thousands of people inquire deeply into the structure of their personalities, develop a vision for their future, and sort out the details of their pasts. He maintained an active clinical and consulting practice during this period, helping individuals across the full spectrum of ability and temperament deal with the complexities of their lives and situations.

In conjunction with the Daily Wire Plus, Dr. Peterson recently led and released a 17-part seminar on the biblical book of Exodus, as the continuation of his critically and publicly acclaimed lectures on Genesis.

Peterson, a top-tier academic, became famous nine years ago for his opposition to Canadian Bill C-16, which was passed in 2017. The bill was meant to give special protection to mentally disturbed "trans" people.  As a university professor, he was accused of  hate speech by a "trans student" as he repeatedly refused to use "preferred pronouns." He argues that the requirement to use “made up words” as pronouns is equivalent to “compelled speech.” He has also criticized the notion of the patriarchy, identity politics, white privilege, and the gender pay gap. This made him a darling of conservatives.

His wife developed a very rare form of cancer, and against all odds, she beat it. During her sickness she prayed the Rosary and converted to the Vatican II sect. Dr. Peterson does not commit to believing in any religion. He once stated, "I don't know if God exists, but I'm afraid He might." 

His speaking tour was a promotion for his book, We Who Wrestle With God, released on November 19, 2024. Here's what the publisher says about the book:

In We Who Wrestle with God, Dr. Peterson guides us through the ancient, foundational stories of the Western world. In riveting detail, he analyzes the Biblical accounts of rebellion, sacrifice, suffering, and triumph that stabilize, inspire, and unite us culturally and psychologically. Adam and Eve and the eternal fall of mankind; the resentful and ultimately murderous war of Cain and Abel; the cataclysmic flood of Noah; the spectacular collapse of the Tower of Babel; Abraham’s terrible adventure; and the epic of Moses and the Israelites.  What could such stories possibly mean? What force wrote and assembled them over the long centuries? How did they bring our spirits and the world together, and point us in the same direction?  

It is time for us to understand such things, scientifically and spiritually; to become conscious of the structure of our souls and our societies; and to see ourselves and others as if for the first time.   Join Elijah as he discovers the Voice of God in the dictates of his own conscience and Jonah confronting hell itself in the belly of the whale because he failed to listen and act. Set yourself straight in intent, aim, and purpose as you begin to more deeply understand the structure of your society and your soul. Journey with Dr. Peterson through the greatest stories ever told.  

Dare to wrestle with God.

My wife was fascinated by Peterson, and his brave stand against many of the WOKE issues. We went, and the seats were right up in front, close to where the doctor would be speaking.  I was amazed at the number of young men coming in, almost all of whom were wearing suits. Many of the women were wearing fashionable dresses one would expect to see at a formal dinner. Sitting over in the section next to us were three Vatican II sect "priests." (They were talking about "Pope" Francis as they were coming in, and about how Dr. Peterson inspired them). Two of them looked to be in their 40s and were wearing their clerical garb and Roman collars. One was in his 70s and was dressed like a slob. 

Dr. Peterson came out exactly on time. The stage had props to make it seem like you were hanging out with him in his living room. The doctor (b. 1962) was impeccably dressed and looks very distinguished in person. He paced back and forth in front of the stage and performed a ninety minute soliloquy about the ideas contained in the Bible. He used no notes, made direct eye contact with audience members, no teleprompter, and would often speak thinking with his eyes closed. He held the audiences attention the whole time before taking his bow, and leaving to a standing ovation. 

Peterson is one of the most gifted public speakers I have seen. Were he a lawyer, his oratorical prowess would put him in the top 1% of the profession. As I was listening to him (and after reading his 500 plus page book in late autumn) it becomes obvious that Dr. Jordan Peterson draws his ideas from two people: Paul Tillich, and Carl Jung. (N.B. I have culled much information about Peterson from many sources both online as well as books. In addition to reading his book and attending his tour, a great amount of my information comes from a plethora of sources, too numerous to mention. What follows is not my original work, but a compilation of sources that together will give a terse and concise exposition of the dangers inherent in Jordan Peterson's works. ---Introibo). 

Jordan Peterson: Ideas from Dangerous Ideologies

Peterson is commendable for standing strong against "trans-insanity" and the PC/Woke agenda. However, I wince when I see clergy going to his book tour and trying to learn "theological truths" from this man. It's another indication of the sorry state of affairs that is the Vatican II sect. To understand his "profound insights" as his fans call his ideas, you must understand from whence they originate.

Paul Tillich (1886-1965)

Paul Tillich was  a Lutheran minister and philosopher. His first wife committed adultery and bore a child fathered by her lover. She promptly divorced Tillich. He met Hannah Werner-Gottschow, a married woman who was pregnant, and convinced her to leave her husband and marry him in 1924. They had an "open marriage" whereby each could have lovers, but they remain living together. They stayed together this way. 

Tillich belongs to that liberal school of Protestantism that dissolves dogmas into vague religious experiences. Tillich is convinced that God is not discovered through rational reflection on the cosmos. Discursive reason for him never arrives at God. That is why natural theology is a sterile occupation. There is no dialectical ladder reaching from earth to Heaven, from man to God.

Rational, discursive, supernatural, historically accurate, object-like awareness of God is simply beyond man’s powers. Thus, for Tillich, belief in God is brought down from a level of superior knowledge by the light of faith to the natural level of normal knowledge by concern for moral seriousness. God and faith are the fruit of crisis situations.

Tillich calls God, "the ground of Being," whatever that means. He is a "death of God" theologian for which God is not personal. When you become aware of the ground of being in your personal experience, Tillich calls this the "New Being." Now, the New Being is attained in Jesus. However, Tillich places the true message of the New Being not in humanity's unquestioning acceptance of the New Testament as the historical Word of God but in Man’s acceptance of the symbolic meaning of the historical Jesus, who merely manifests in Himself, or is the occasion for, the manifestation of the New Being in other people. 

In de-supernaturalizing the New Testament and accommodating its message to man’s problematic, existential, modern situation, Tillich drained Christian mysteries of their divine substance, secularizing them all along the line. In his hands, belief in God and Christ, as handed down by thousands of years of Judeo-Christian written and living tradition, is evacuated of all historical, supernatural substance or content. Man’s fall is diluted to mean his creatureliness; sin, the mystery of iniquity, the offense against the infinitely good God is attenuated to mean merely existential estrangement.

All the classic, traditional truths — creation, the Fall, Reconciliation, Salvation, the Cross, the Resurrection, the Kingdom of God, the Trinity — all of them are mere symbols. They have permanent value, and Tillich would hate to part with them, but they must all undergo radical reinterpretation if they are to become acceptable to the modern world. (See Paul Tillich, Ultimate Concern, [1965]).

Carl Jung (1875-1961)

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychoanalyst who abandoned the Lutheran sect of his parents for the occult. Jung’s entire life and work were motivated by his hatred of Catholicism, the Faith and Morals of which he considered to be the source of all the neuroses in the world.  Jung’s mentor was psychoanalyst Otto Gross (1877-1920). He was particularly drawn to Gross's ideas about the "life-enhancing value of eroticism" and his concept of "free love." Jung wrote with approval of Gross’s use of sex orgies to promote pagan spirituality, as he did when he wrote: "The existence of a phallic or orgiastic cult does not indicate eo ipso a particularly lascivious life any more than the ascetic symbolism of Christianity means an especially moral life." Jung, absorbed by eroticism and entranced by the occult, sought to provide a holy merger of the two, which is now popularly know as "Jungianism". In 1912, at the age of 37,  he declared that he could no longer be a Christian, and that only the "new" science of psychoanalysis—as he defined it through "Jungianism"—could offer personal and societal rebirth. 

 Many of the apostate clergy in the wake of Vatican II became disciples of Jung, and were eager to spread his errors. As a result, Jungianism has become a great money-maker in the Vatican II sect, by promoting books and seminars on such topics as "analysis of dreams," "archetypes," "Enneagram personality types," and "discovering the god within you."  God, for Jungians, must be both male and female--incorporating the Eastern pagan notion of "ying and yang." The Mass is a "communal celebration" (sound familiar?) and the Real Presence in the Eucharist is denied since we all have "god within," a form of pantheism. According to Robert Noll's book, The Jung Cult, "...for literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of individuals in our culture, Jung and his ideas are the basis of a personal religion that either supplants their participation in traditional organized Judeo-Christian religion or accompanies it."  

Jordan Peterson's Fake Christianity

Based on Tillich and Jung, you will be able to see how Peterson's ideas are far from "new," "conservative," or "Christian." 

Peterson: Jesus is an "Archetype" of a Hero

Jordan Peterson frequently describes Jesus as a powerful archetypal figure within the broader human story of meaning, struggle, and redemption. Drawing heavily from Carl Jung’s psychological theories and the concept of the hero’s journey, Peterson interprets Jesus as the ultimate example of an individual who faces suffering, confronts chaos, and emerges victorious. In this framework, Jesus’ life and death are seen as symbolic representations of the universal human experience of confronting one’s fears, accepting responsibility, and bearing the weight of existence. Peterson views the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as profound metaphors for the psychological processes of transformation and renewal. He argues that, just as Jesus takes up His cross and suffers for the sins of the world, individuals must also face their personal suffering, bear responsibility, and find meaning in the midst of chaos.

Jesus is a mere man in Peterson's philosophical theology.

Peterson: God is an "Archetype:"

In Peterson’s framework, God is often described as an archetype—a powerful symbolic representation of the highest human ideals and moral values. Drawing from the psychological theories of Carl Jung, Peterson views God as an image that represents order, meaning, and the ultimate good. In this sense, God is not necessarily a personal being or a transcendent Creator, but rather a conceptual framework that helps people organize their lives, find meaning in suffering, and strive for higher moral standards.

 Peterson frequently refers to biblical stories as archetypal narratives that convey profound psychological truths. For example, he interprets the story of Adam and Eve as a symbolic exploration of human consciousness and moral responsibility rather than a literal account of humanity’s origins. Similarly, he views the crucifixion of Christ as a powerful metaphor for the necessity of accepting suffering and taking responsibility in the face of chaos. While Peterson acknowledges the deep cultural and psychological significance of the biblical God, he stops short of affirming the Christian doctrine of God as a personal, omnipotent, and transcendent being who is actively involved in human history. For Peterson, God is more of a guiding principle—a symbolic representation of the highest possible good that individuals should strive to emulate.

Peterson: Morality as Pragmatism and leading to Relativism:

One of the key ethical errors in Peterson’s framework is his reliance on pragmatism as a basis for moral reasoning. Pragmatism emphasizes the outcomes of actions and how they help individuals or societies navigate life’s chaos. While practical considerations are certainly important, the problem arises when pragmatism becomes the primary or sole criterion for determining what is right or wrong. In Peterson’s framework, actions are often judged based on their utility—whether they help individuals assume responsibility, create order, or manage suffering—rather than on intrinsic moral principles.

Peterson often speaks about the psychological benefits of living truthfully, acting responsibly, and confronting challenges head-on. While these behaviors are undeniably valuable, his justification for them is often framed in pragmatic terms: they help the individual thrive, maintain stability, and avoid chaos. This approach risks reducing morality to a function of personal and societal well-being, with little regard for absolute moral truths or principles that transcend mere utility.

While pragmatism can guide practical decisions, it cannot serve as a sufficient foundation for ethics. Morality is about more than just what works or what achieves certain outcomes; it is also about what is intrinsically right or wrong, regardless of the consequences. A purely pragmatic ethic runs the risk of endorsing morally questionable behaviors if they yield desirable results, leading to moral relativism. This undermines the objective moral standards of God, and even leads to a complete rejection of the Ten Commandments.

Conclusion

Dr. Jordan Peterson is a dynamic speaker who writes well. He has taken morally correct stances against PC/Woke nonsense. Yet, many are taken in by him as some sort of "Christian guru." Peterson peddles the "God as symbolic" teachings of Paul Tillich, and the occultic psychobabble of Carl Jung with his "archetypes." 

Don't waste your time or money on Peterson's books. The next time your hear some Vatican II sect "priest" spouting nonsense about Christian truths being "metaphors of a truth we experience," he may very well have been reading Dr. Jordan Peterson.