Many religions have myths about gods who die and rise again. Critics therefore say Christianity is just one more version of an older mythic pattern. Jordan Peterson accepts that there is a mythic pattern, but says Christ is different because Christianity claims that the mythic pattern entered history in the form of an actual person.
His claim is that human beings do not live only in the objective world. We live inside stories of meaning: good and evil, sacrifice, betrayal, heroism, guilt, redemption, duty, love. These stories guide action. They are not “objective” in the same way that stones and tables are objective, but they are real in human life.
He is not giving a clean theological statement. He is struggling aloud with the possibility that Christianity may be more than psychology and more than history: that it may be the place where moral myth and historical fact meet.
He is not merely saying, “Christ is a useful psychological symbol.” He is troubled by the possibility that Christian dogma may be rooted in actual historical events.
That is why he sounds unsettled. If Christ is only a symbol, one can admire the psychology and remain safe. If Christ is only a historical teacher, one can analyse him like any other figure. But if the central Christian myth is also somehow historically true, then the implications are much more serious.
My objection would be: we do not know how historical the Gospel portrait is. But Jordan Peterson does not clearly define what he means here by “true”. Does he mean the resurrection literally happened? Or that the Gospel story is historically rooted but mythically expanded? Or that Christ is the point at which human beings experience moral meaning as if it had objective force?
The idea I find most interesting is Peterson’s suggestion that we live not only in the objective world, but also inside stories of meaning. This is close to what I have been saying for some time: satisfaction and direction in life depend on the narrative by which we live. But that raises a further question: what makes a narrative “right”?
If “right” simply means “makes one happy,” the matter becomes more complicated than it would at first seem. A narrative may make a person happy without being true. Christianity may not be true in a literal historical sense, yet there is no doubt that it has given meaning, consolation, discipline, and hope to millions. Existentialism may be true in the sense that there is no external God with moral expectations, but one may reasonably ask how many people it has made happy.
The same test could be applied to any philosophy or religion. A narrative can empower or disempower. It can reconcile a person to life, or estrange him from it. It can produce courage, gratitude, discipline, and compassion; or it can produce fear, resentment, superiority, and despair.
The incontrovertible point is that the stories we tell ourselves give direction to life. Human beings do not live by facts alone. They live by facts interpreted through a narrative: a story about who they are, what matters, what is expected of them, and what kind of world they inhabit.
My own hope is that whatever narrative a person lives by should be conducive to the good of all. It need not be the same for everyone. But it should enlarge life rather than diminish it. It should make a person more honest, more humane, more useful, and less cruel.
Conclusion:
Peterson seems intellectually fascinated by Christianity, emotionally drawn to it, psychologically dependent on its moral seriousness, but unable or unwilling to say plainly what kind of truth he thinks it has. Perhaps that is his position, but many people find themselves in the same dilemma. I certainly have.
Something a friend once said still echoes: one is not fit for action before one has sorted out one’s theology. There is truth in that, but only up to a point. In ordinary life, even believers do not constantly refer back to Christian doctrine before acting. They rely more often on intuition: on an immediate sense of what is kind, fair, honest, cowardly, cruel, or generous. Paul seems to recognise something similar in Philippians 4:4–8, where he urges his readers to attend to whatever is true, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and worthy of praise. In other words, our stated beliefs about right and wrong are often less influential than our intuitive knowledge of the same.
The danger is that narratives can become corrosive distractions. Religious, political, philosophical, or psychological systems may promise meaning while pulling us away from our own moral centre. The most dangerous narratives do not deepen conscience; they train people to silence it. Terrorists and ideological extremists are not necessarily without knowledge of right and wrong. They may be overriding that knowledge. Ordinary moral intuition says that one should not kill the innocent, terrorise strangers, or destroy families. The extremist narrative requires a conscious effort to suppress that intuition, recasting violence as duty, sacrifice, purification, revenge, or obedience.
Orthodox Christianity can also become corrosive when obedience to doctrine becomes more important than truthfulness, mercy, courage, and right dealing. So can any system. The problem is not narrative itself, because human beings need narratives. The problem is the narrative that estranges us from the source of our own goodness.
Here the argument comes full circle. Peterson seems troubled by the possibility that Christian dogma may be historically true and thus entail some from of commitment and responsibility. But perhaps the deeper question is not whether the historical and theological claims can finally be solved. Jesus did not present truth chiefly as a doctrine to be mastered. He presented it as a life to be entered: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
What Jesus taught was not systemic, as orthodox religion later became. It was endemic and holistic: a way of being rooted in life itself. His truth lay not only in what he said, but in what he was — not as a static identity, but as a dynamic one, the embodiment of mercy, courage, inward freedom, compassion, and right dealing. The Word made flesh.
Relief, when it comes, lies in finding that source of goodness within ourselves and following it as best we can.
