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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sm0gy-q8SI
Peter Kopa, 16.8.2020
Wikipedie: Jordan Bernt Peterson (born 12 June 1962) is a Canadian clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He began to receive widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues.
Born and raised in Alberta, Peterson obtained bachelor’s degrees in political science and psychology from the University of Alberta and a PhD in clinical psychology from McGill University. After teaching and researching at Harvard University, he returned to Canada in 1998 to join the faculty of psychology at the University of Toronto. In 1999, he published his first book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, which became the basis for many of his subsequent lectures. The book combined information from psychology, mythology, religion, literature, philosophy, and neuroscience to analyze systems of belief and meaning.
In 2016, Peterson released a series of YouTube videos criticizing the Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (Bill C-16), passed by the Parliament of Canada to introduce “gender identity and expression” as a prohibited grounds of discrimination.[a] He argued that the bill would make the use of certain gender pronouns into compelled speech, and related this argument to a general critique of political correctness and identity politics. He subsequently received significant media coverage, attracting both support and criticism.
In the wake of the controversy, Peterson’s lectures and debates—propagated also through podcasts and YouTube—gradually gathered millions of views. He put his clinical practice and teaching duties on hold by 2018, when he published his second book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Promoted with a world tour, it became a bestseller in several countries.
Peterson tackles head-on the deepest questions of human life, from the scientific perspective, as Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Toronto: the meaning of life, happiness and suffering, love and hate, truth and lies, and most especially moral evil. The parallelism of his expositions with Christian doctrine is not really something new, because already at the beginning of the Christian era, the Fathers of the Church were able to support themselves and consummate a very successful synthesis between the teachings of the Greek philosophers (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) and Christian doctrine. And this is logical, because at heart man’s nature, before the gift of faith, is naturally open, for example, to the Ten Commandments, which at heart are the expression of the intrinsic logic of the free rational being, thanks to his capacity to reason and to will. It is also open to divine mercy, which helps the moral weakness of man, who so often wants to behave well, but does not succeed.
Then there are many more scientific authorities who have reflected on this, seeing in the symbiosis of reason and faith one of the basic pillars of the greatness of the Christian Westworld, which allowed the development of a unique civilization in the history of humanity. One of its manifestations has been the flourishing of science and technology, which has fertilized man’s life throughout the world, bringing him out of ancient barbarism, hunger and ignorance.
Specifically, let us see what J. Peterson tells us live in some of his videos, which have reached more than 150,000,000 visitors worldwide:
Jordan Peterson: 10´ of rational wisdom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDDZIqPeHxc
It is enough to see the first 5 minutes of this speech, in which J. Peterson says that God has to exist and the difference of the small gods of polytheism and idolatry, which are the gods that the individual creates when he pursues an end that is not the real God.
He then affirms the existence of the moral law, that when it is not taken seriously, the person and society fall into chaos. He distinguishes the moral law from the Old and the New Testament, where it is stressed that the immediate object of salvation is the individual, and only afterwards society, provided that upright men ensure the moral order by means of good laws.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHKIaFjxGPY – 6.41 minutos
In this vibrant talk, J. Peterson strongly affirms the importance of faith, whose principles are indispensable for forming one’s character, which also requires study and facing the criticisms that come from our social environment. Quoting Solzhenitsin, he strongly maintains that each man is the center of the world, in constant struggle against his moral vulnerability, that when he succeeds in alienating the principles of faith, the chaos of personal and social tragedy appears.
These affirmations made from the viewpoint Psychology only confirm what every Christian knows through faith: that immorality or grave sin opens up abysses of misery and vices, which are always corrosive to society. Thus, the great majority of wars have been and will be the final result of immorality, or, in other words, of the sin of pride, envy and hatred that they engender, justified by an ideology full of lies. It is enough to look at Nazism and Communism.
Here we touch upon the great theme of Cain and Abel, as presented to us in the Old Testament. J. Peterson says that Cain’s immoral disposition, which leads him to suffer seeing his brother happy to offer the best of his animals to God. This causes him to be so envious that he ends up killing his brother, whom he loved and admired.
I am surprised by J. Peterson’s capacity for synthesis and deepening when he analyses the importance of good works, which he says, have a value in themselves, and which have the virtue of ensuring a reward in the future. He says that in this way the good man can negotiate in the present his own better future. And then he adds a very striking discourse on how a man who is not very capable by nature (he refers to modest works) can reach a high degree of fulfillment, which is far higher and beyond the social rules of democracy.
The Christian resonances are evident. It is a call to every person who thinks that he is doing an unimportant job, or that he considers himself unjustly treated, or that he has been made poor, or sick, or abandoned, etc. Liberation from these limitations is possible inwardly, by offering God this situation every day. However, because J. Petersen does not yet believe in God as a father who loves him and waits for him for all eternity, his statements do not offer the optimal solution to the problem. It is only in the religious sphere that man can be healed, forgiven, consoled and exalted in his infinite dignity as a child of God.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G3MsDh2ci8
This 12-minute video I’m leaving you with no comment. I would onnly point out how difficult it is for those who do not have a living, daily relationship with God to get it right about how to talk about faith. And this without putting in doubt the good faith of those who are talking about it. Even theologians have difficulties when their theology is horizontal, leaving aside the vertical line of the cross.
