Jordan Peterson and Mormon Transhumanism
I recently came to the surprising realization that there are important commonalities between the religious principles of Jordan Peterson and those of the Mormon Transhumanists. Surprising to me, at least, because I really like Jordan Peterson and find Mormon Transhumanism repellent.
The readers of this blog probably need no introduction to Prof. Peterson, everyone’s favorite Canadian psychologist.* The aspect of his ideas that I want to address is the fact that he clearly subscribes to the teachings of the Bible, as explicated at length in his excellent Bible lectures, but is not a “believer” in the traditional sense. In the video above, he professes agnosticism as to the literal truth of Christ’s resurrection, but makes a powerful case for the “truth” of Christian doctrine as the guide to a reality higher, perhaps, than reality itself. It’s a Christianity that can withstand the objections of a purely materialist worldview, because its “truth” does not rise or fall on material evidence. In this I hear echoes of Dostoevsky: “If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.”
But there are other echoes as well. “What does it really mean for something to be ‘true?’” is a refrain we’ve heard many times, from those inside the Church who seek to destroy belief in the entirety of our religion. I am therefore predisposed not to trust it.
The Mormon Transhumanists, like Peterson, have propounded beliefs that can co-exist with a materialist worldview. While Peterson bypasses the factual truth of scripture to focus on its metaphorical or explanatory power, the MTs edit out the mysterious and the “supernatural” in Mormonism by providing materialist mechanisms for everything, including resurrection and exaltation. But the effect is the same, to permit religious belief, such as it is, within a materialist universe. It is telling that in the above video, Peterson speaks of Christ’s spirit as a “pattern of being,” and notes that such patterns can be reproduced in “multiple substrates…vinyl, electronic impulses….” That sounds an awful lot like the Singularity-as-Exaltation theories favored by the MTs.
In both cases, you see a response to a particular faith crisis of our time, the notion that as more and more of the mechanisms of the universe are deciphered by man, there is less and less need for God to fill in the gaps of our understanding. Of course, the typical atheist who believes he is simply too smart to believe in God doesn’t actually possess any scientific knowledge more profound than what can be gleaned from watching an episode or two of “NOVA.” But by now the thing has acquired its own social momentum.
In that sense, it is healthy for religious thinkers to construct fallback positions of faith. For one who simply cannot bring himself to believe the literal truth of Christ, we hope that he at least be able to hold onto some portion of the truth. One statement I hear often from reactionary types on the Internet is that they really wish they could believe in Mormonism because of its obvious benefits for mankind. Prof. Peterson provides a philosophical structure in which those who truly believe in the goodness of Christianity can also believe in its truth, in a non-literal sense. And we can always hope that this limited belief will eventually lead them to say, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
I used to think this would be true of the Mormon Transhumanists, that the Mormons who were simply too big-brained to believe in the resurrection as traditionally understood would at least have the Nerd Rapture as a fallback, and would therefore not lead their families out of the Church. Hopefully it does that for some. But my sense is that, rather than merely accommodating their view of material reality to Mormonism, they are conforming Mormonism to their very weird (to my mind horrifying) and not-at-all scriptural view of material reality. It seems to be a way station on the way out of Mormonism, not into it.
In either case, these fallback positions can’t possibly serve as anything more than a transitory state. People ultimately act on what they believe is true. Amidst the secular tide, a firm conviction of the truth of the Gospel is what is required to remain meaningfully Christian/Mormon. Adults who boast of having advanced from the naive faith of childhood to a more mature and subtle faith of adulthood often find it difficult to transmit that more subtle (and less spiritually compelling) faith to their children, or to their friends and neighbors.
But I still find reason to applaud Prof. Peterson’s project. He helps non-believers see the beauty in Christ’s teachings, and where beauty is, truth is never far away.
P.S. If you are unfamiliar with Prof. Peterson’s ouevre and would like to know more, this Twitter thread by JG friend T. Greer is a good place to start: https://twitter.com/Scholars_Stage/status/972400010426896385
*I was going to say “mild-mannered Canadian psychologist” but avoided the redundancy.
Filed under: Deseret Review | Tags: Jordan Peterson, testimony, transhumanism
Bruce Charlton
March 12, 2018
I had views much like Jordan Peterson for more than 20 years before I became a real Christian.
On the one hand, these non-realist views did not in-the-end block my conversion – but on the other hand, they didn’t exactly hasten it, and it was all-too-possible that I would have died an ‘spiritual-but-not-religious’ atheist but for Tolkien and Lewis on the one hand, and the dilemma-sharpening rise of political correctness on the other hand.
The fact is that non-realist Christianity isn’t enough even to justify ‘good-resistance’ to oneself – leave aside explain it to anyone else.
In 2008 there was an international media firestorm against me for something I wrote about intelligence and social class. The upshot was that even when I knew I was right, and was backed up by the science, I had no reason to resist the mass consensus of evil power unless there was more to life than I was prepared to acknowledge.
Rodney Stark helped make clear that my rejection of Christianity was based on metaphysical assumptions, and not on evidence.
Eventually I realised that my basic assumptions concerning the nature of reality were the problem, and that – once made explicit – I didn’t actually believe them.
Clearly JP is a very long way from that insight at present – and his public engagement, and the ‘movement’ gathering behind him, will make it harder and harder for him to find the unstructured time, and the solitude, really to think-through these matters in the way that is necessary.
Unfortunately, JP is not really helping with addressing the core issues of our time. By advocating a pseudo-middle ground (that is actually incoherent) he is more likely to block what is needed.
He is indeed a kind of throwback to a position that was obsolete a generation ago – which is to equate spirituality with psychology and religion with psychotherapy (specifically with some variant of Jungian psychology).
In reality this is not what is needed at all – as the history of the Jungians (and New Age) shows clearly – since these are among the most deluded of the politically correct.
What helps most now is a *simple* recognition of the clear dichotomy that faces us – a power appreciation of the truly-insane situation we inhabit – and the fact that this is self-inflicted – those on the wrong side are all significantly complicit – have invited evil into their hearts, which is the one absolutely fatal thing to do (unless repented).
Leo
March 12, 2018
Yes, listening to JP, who is really quite impressive in his own way, I get the feeling that he is essentially a Jungian, and that will only get you so far. The movement behind JP might be awakened to greater things by his use of Christian art, but Jungianism is not going to sweep the world. Its time has passed, and its appeal was to intellectual adepts trying to save Christianity in the face of the popularity of Freudianism. JP will even have trouble slowing the PC movement in Canada, but, I say, more power to him in standing against political correctness.
Carter Craft
March 12, 2018
“In both cases, you see a response to a particular faith crisis of our time, the notion that as more and more of the mechanisms of the universe are deciphered by man, there is less and less need for God to fill in the gaps of our understanding”
What almost no one outside the really religious understand is that religion does not *really* engage with scientific questions. It’s not an older method of figuring out how the universe works in physical terms. Similarly, science cannot engage with religious questions, and cannot describe how life works in non-physical terms
-which is the great irony of modern times, since most people are not scientists and don’t do any science, only benefiting from science indirectly. Science is largely irrelevant to everyday life. Religion on the other hand deals with life directly, and provides answers to the problems people face every day, yet so many people are vigorously opposed not just to the answers religion provides but to acknowledging life’s questions at all.
People live their lives primarily in a religious, non-physical world of moral decisions and human relationships, yet refuse to accept this obvious fact and only consider religious ideas in the most provisional uncommitted way possible.
brucecharlton
March 12, 2018
@Carter – those last two paragraphs made a telling point that I haven’t really noticed before.
Leo
March 14, 2018
I’ve been thinking about what it means to “do science.” Almost all of my admittedly modest scientific work was more “doing technology” or playing with technology, i.e. using the technological tools science has given us to explore a few ideas or interests and learning a discipline in the process. Modern science is based on a huge body of accumulated knowledge that is used to discover other knowledge, but typically the advance of science is on such a broad front and often inside large organizations that most scientists only explore a very, very limited area in front of them. That can, if one is both good and fortunate, be very useful and even fulfilling, e.g. being part of a team that discovers a new medical cure or healing drug, but life’s serious questions aren’t addressed by that.
Wm Jas
March 15, 2018
“Mormon Transhumanists,” eh? This is the first I’ve heard such people existed.
T. Greer
March 15, 2018
Thanks for highlighting the twitter thread.
Carter’s last two paragraphs are actually one of Peterson’s central theses. The difference is that Peterson takes 300 pages to make the same point that you’ve summarized in two paragraphs. Good job!
Dr. Paul Armstrong
March 15, 2018
Dinner was delicious, honey. Keep cooking like that and I won’t even be able to move, let alone do science.
MC
March 16, 2018
Wm Jas,
You can find some familiar names arguing with them here:
https://www.millennialstar.org/the-mormon-transhumanist-association/
I took note of them because an old friend of mine was one of the early leaders of it. They get a lot of media coverage relative to to their actual influence.
G.
March 16, 2018
Dang, that’s some fine writing. I’m happier now that I’ve given up my sideline as an internet controversialist, but I can’t help but feeling I’ve also lost a bit of verve.
Andrew M.
March 16, 2018
Jordan Peterson’s talks remind me of the end of letter 23 of the Screwtape Letters:
“The ‘Historical Jesus’ then, however dangerous he may seem to be to us at some particular point, is
always to be encouraged. About the general connection between Christianity and politics, our position is more delicate. Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster. On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that “only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new
civilisations”. You see the little rift? “Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.”
That’s the game,
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
Although, for Jordan Peterson in this passage, I would replace “Historical Jesus” for “Psychological Jesus,” “social justice” for “purposeful living.” Some of Peterson’s ideas are interesting, but psychological evolutionary archetypes and intentional living in most cases will not lead to faith in the Father of our spirits or the Son sent by Him.
T. Greer
April 4, 2018
Not to rehash an old post, but I thought you gents might find this take from a friend of mine on Peterson and Christianity interesting. He maintains that Peterson is about as Christian as Augustine was, and that’s nice company to keep.