Sadly, sound, and echoing Paul of Tarsus in Ep. Rom, Ch 1:19 - 32. Lessons we have forgotten.
I suggest, though, that there are two levels of being "Christian," first of course having a repentant commitment of discipleship. Second, being part of a cultural movement, moment or flow that is influenced strongly by the gospel of Jesus, its integral ethics (esp. Sermon on the Mount, Mt 5 - 7), and the underlying Hebraic-Christian Ethical Theism. For, Disciples are preservative -- sometimes, stinging -- salt in an insipid, often decaying world, and points, lighthouses or even cities of light in the face of present darkness and lost-ness: wheat and tares are so entangled that they must be left together in the field till harvest, lest the wheat be also uprooted.
Hence, too, Augustine's famous City of God Against the Pagans.
That is, even a Peterson or a Dawkins can now sense the fading of the light of our civilisation, and can sense the Rom 1 chaos of encroaching, all too rapidly advancing darkness. Or, in another metaphor, we have slid so far down the slippery slope that we are at the crumbling edge of the cliff and many are desperate to get back to safe ground.
That is actually a point of hope.
I do not know if we can avert collapse of the edge, and another painful collision with the rocks below, as in 1914 and 1939. But, at least, we can identify a way forward.
Let us at least acknowledge that we are rational, responsible, significantly free, morally governed creatures. Creatures, with branch on which we all sit, first duties: to truth, to right reason, to warrant and wider prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, so too to fairness and to justice. (If you doubt this, try to deny without implicitly appealing to these same Ciceronian first duties, teased out of De Legibus. Yes, these first duties and first built in laws of our nature are self evident. Another forgotten first principle.)
So, we unify is and ought in the core of our being, and must turn to the only place such can be founded, the root of reality. Where, there is but one serious candidate -- just try to propose another, while being factually adequate, coherent and neither ad hoc nor simplistic.
Namely, the inherently good, utterly wise Creator God, a necessary and maximally great, Supreme Being. One, worthy of our respect, fealty and doing the good that accords with our evident nature.
Peterson and Dawkins position feels a lot to me like if I were to place a large bet on the Colorado Avalanche to win the Stanley Cup simply because I like the way they handle the forecheck. I don't like the Avs. I don't want them to win the Cup. Yet, I place a wager on them simply because I like some aspects of how they play the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=621LzO0qWnU
It really goes to show that neither man really grocks Christianity. That despite their academic pedigrees, and their obvious intellectual capacities, in the end, they just completely miss the point. The point they miss is the difference between legality and morality. You can't have the morality without bending the knee.
They want to have morality but atheism is wholly unable to provide it. Notions of good and evil are really just a difference between what I like and what I don't like under atheist philosophy. In this context, I define morality as good behavior enforced from within. I don't steal not because I fear the consequence of stealing, but because I know it to be wrong from within. Would matter if the state were to declare theft of any kind to be punishable by death or decriminalize it entirely. God has written on my heart that it is wrong. Atheism can lay no such claim to a kind of morality that can transcend the individual moral actor. Two atheists may agree that stealing is wrong, but differ on the amount the item is worth before it becomes wrong (e.g. a candy bar vs. people's life savings). Such a discussion can never come to a resolution in any meaningful sense (i.e. not "let's just agree to disagree").
Legality is all atheism really has then. In this context, legality being good behavior enforced from without. While at times legality is necessary, it can't hold a candle to morality in terms of effectively curbing human behavior. Here Darwin reigns supreme. The strongest make the laws and force them upon those who aren't quite as strong.
Under what Dawkins and Peterson have brought about is cutting the rode that allows us to be anchored to something solid, namely God. Add to that decades of both moral relativism and standpoint epistemology and you get a culture that is both simultaneously bereft of any sense of common coherent morality and also entirely unable to consider how we might actually create one other than to battle it out every four years in the latest "most important election of our lives". The levers of morality are largely gone and few are interested in finding them. The levers of power though...those are easy to see and sadly all too easy for the worst actors among us to lay their hands on.
Could Peterson be posturing just to make his ideas more accepting when he finally acknowledges that there is a God?
He is obviously extremely bright but maybe he is saying what he does is just to artificially feign doubt. For example, to question whether the Resurrection is true or not because he could not see how it could be done is a stupid remark. And he is not stupid. If a creator exists, then this creator has the power and knowledge to cause the Resurrection. So questioning the Resurrection is questioning that there is a creator.
So would eventually acknowledging that there is a creator, make this final acquiescence a source for the truth of all he has questioned? Peterson is not stupid so he must know the evidence and logic are against atheism but he acts like atheists who have no basis for their beliefs. So why?
Is his current tour."Wrestling with God," a ploy for getting attention and it is getting attention? Would finally acknowledging Christianity as his wife and constant companion did end his usefulness? I don't know. He did acknowledge that Stephen Meyer's book, "Return of the God Hypothesis" opened his eyes for a lot of things.
Sadly, sound, and echoing Paul of Tarsus in Ep. Rom, Ch 1:19 - 32. Lessons we have forgotten.
I suggest, though, that there are two levels of being "Christian," first of course having a repentant commitment of discipleship. Second, being part of a cultural movement, moment or flow that is influenced strongly by the gospel of Jesus, its integral ethics (esp. Sermon on the Mount, Mt 5 - 7), and the underlying Hebraic-Christian Ethical Theism. For, Disciples are preservative -- sometimes, stinging -- salt in an insipid, often decaying world, and points, lighthouses or even cities of light in the face of present darkness and lost-ness: wheat and tares are so entangled that they must be left together in the field till harvest, lest the wheat be also uprooted.
Hence, too, Augustine's famous City of God Against the Pagans.
That is, even a Peterson or a Dawkins can now sense the fading of the light of our civilisation, and can sense the Rom 1 chaos of encroaching, all too rapidly advancing darkness. Or, in another metaphor, we have slid so far down the slippery slope that we are at the crumbling edge of the cliff and many are desperate to get back to safe ground.
That is actually a point of hope.
I do not know if we can avert collapse of the edge, and another painful collision with the rocks below, as in 1914 and 1939. But, at least, we can identify a way forward.
Let us at least acknowledge that we are rational, responsible, significantly free, morally governed creatures. Creatures, with branch on which we all sit, first duties: to truth, to right reason, to warrant and wider prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, so too to fairness and to justice. (If you doubt this, try to deny without implicitly appealing to these same Ciceronian first duties, teased out of De Legibus. Yes, these first duties and first built in laws of our nature are self evident. Another forgotten first principle.)
So, we unify is and ought in the core of our being, and must turn to the only place such can be founded, the root of reality. Where, there is but one serious candidate -- just try to propose another, while being factually adequate, coherent and neither ad hoc nor simplistic.
Namely, the inherently good, utterly wise Creator God, a necessary and maximally great, Supreme Being. One, worthy of our respect, fealty and doing the good that accords with our evident nature.
So, reformation can begin.
Peterson and Dawkins position feels a lot to me like if I were to place a large bet on the Colorado Avalanche to win the Stanley Cup simply because I like the way they handle the forecheck. I don't like the Avs. I don't want them to win the Cup. Yet, I place a wager on them simply because I like some aspects of how they play the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=621LzO0qWnU
It really goes to show that neither man really grocks Christianity. That despite their academic pedigrees, and their obvious intellectual capacities, in the end, they just completely miss the point. The point they miss is the difference between legality and morality. You can't have the morality without bending the knee.
They want to have morality but atheism is wholly unable to provide it. Notions of good and evil are really just a difference between what I like and what I don't like under atheist philosophy. In this context, I define morality as good behavior enforced from within. I don't steal not because I fear the consequence of stealing, but because I know it to be wrong from within. Would matter if the state were to declare theft of any kind to be punishable by death or decriminalize it entirely. God has written on my heart that it is wrong. Atheism can lay no such claim to a kind of morality that can transcend the individual moral actor. Two atheists may agree that stealing is wrong, but differ on the amount the item is worth before it becomes wrong (e.g. a candy bar vs. people's life savings). Such a discussion can never come to a resolution in any meaningful sense (i.e. not "let's just agree to disagree").
Legality is all atheism really has then. In this context, legality being good behavior enforced from without. While at times legality is necessary, it can't hold a candle to morality in terms of effectively curbing human behavior. Here Darwin reigns supreme. The strongest make the laws and force them upon those who aren't quite as strong.
Under what Dawkins and Peterson have brought about is cutting the rode that allows us to be anchored to something solid, namely God. Add to that decades of both moral relativism and standpoint epistemology and you get a culture that is both simultaneously bereft of any sense of common coherent morality and also entirely unable to consider how we might actually create one other than to battle it out every four years in the latest "most important election of our lives". The levers of morality are largely gone and few are interested in finding them. The levers of power though...those are easy to see and sadly all too easy for the worst actors among us to lay their hands on.
Could Peterson be posturing just to make his ideas more accepting when he finally acknowledges that there is a God?
He is obviously extremely bright but maybe he is saying what he does is just to artificially feign doubt. For example, to question whether the Resurrection is true or not because he could not see how it could be done is a stupid remark. And he is not stupid. If a creator exists, then this creator has the power and knowledge to cause the Resurrection. So questioning the Resurrection is questioning that there is a creator.
So would eventually acknowledging that there is a creator, make this final acquiescence a source for the truth of all he has questioned? Peterson is not stupid so he must know the evidence and logic are against atheism but he acts like atheists who have no basis for their beliefs. So why?
Is his current tour."Wrestling with God," a ploy for getting attention and it is getting attention? Would finally acknowledging Christianity as his wife and constant companion did end his usefulness? I don't know. He did acknowledge that Stephen Meyer's book, "Return of the God Hypothesis" opened his eyes for a lot of things.
I think the jury is out on Jordan Peterson.