On 26 January 2018, the University of Toronto hosted a dialogue on the meaning of life featuring philosopher William Lane Craig, psychology professor Dr Jordan Peterson, and philosopher and author Dr Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. Canadian journalist, author and editor Karen Stiller moderated the dialogue.
During the dialogue, Stiller posed a "Why do so many people then tussle with the question of ‘do I matter’? Why do so many of us struggle with the meaning of life then?"
Dr Jordan Peterson, in the context of his response to Stiller's question, shared and reflected on a very fascinating dream that he once had (at 1:33:28 of the video):
I had a dream once – and I’m speaking psychologically here, not theologically – I had a dream once.
I was in the cemetery of an old church, an old cathedral surrounded by the graves, and there were indentations in the grounds where all the graves were. And all of a sudden, the graves started to open and it was a graveyard where great people, great men of the past, had been buried.
And so [a] grave opened and an armed king stood up, and then another grave opened and another armed king stood up and just happened all around me.
And these were very formidable figures; they were the great heroes of the past. And after a number of them appeared on the scene, they looked around and saw each other and, being warrior-types, they immediately started to fight and the question is: What stops the great kings of the past from fighting?
And I had a revelation after the dream, I can’t remember if it was part of it… but, yes, it was part of the dream. They all bowed down to the figure of Christ and then I woke up and I thought, what in the world does that dream mean? What in the world could that possibly mean?
And then I understood it. I understood that, if you have twenty kings, let’s say, and you took the thing that was most king-like about each of them and then you combined it into a single figure, then you’d get a single figure of transcendent heroism, of transcendent Good and it’s a tenet of the Union School of Psychology.
Let’s say that that figure of transcendent Good is symbolised by the image of Christ and the purpose of that image is so that even the tyrannical king has someone to bend his knee to, and that’s absolutely vital.
I mean it does. You don’t have to approach it from a religious perspective, although you inevitably do, because when you speak of things at this level that’s what happens. But you need an image of the transcendent embodied Good to serve as something that unites the great tyrants of the past.
It’s something like that. It’s an emergent vision of embodied unity and it’s a psychological necessity, it’s a sociological necessity, and I think it bears very strongly on your question about why is it that people matter. It’s the classic Western answer to that. The Judaeo-Christian answer to that is because you have a spark of divinity within you and that divinity is a reflection of this transcendent Good and it’s obligatory for me to recognise that in you and vice versa if we’re going to inhabit the same territory without mayhem, peacefully, and with the ability to cooperate.
Now, you might say, “Well, the mere fact that a transcendent image is necessary as a uniting figure doesn’t prove the reality of that image.”
But I would say, well yes, but it doesn’t disprove it and it strongly hints at something more profound especially when you also ally it with the observation that the encounter with something truly admirable produces the instinct of awe. And that’s not a rational instinct, it’s an irrational instinct, but it’s a marker that you’re in the presence of something greater than yourself and it’s not something that you have voluntary control over. It’s something that overtakes you and it could easily be a reflection of the truth.
Now, you can make a biologically reductionistic argument about that, but it starts to become extraordinarily difficult because you enter into the realm where these transcendent experiences of religious significance and awe are phenomenological and psychological reality and it’s not easy to explain why that’s the case.
Although Dr Peterson was clear that he was speaking psychologically, there is a great deal of truth to Dr Peterson's dream (or vision) of the image of Jesus Christ, from a Biblical perspective.
Paul tells us that Christ is the "image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Colossians 1:15), and:
For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.
(Colossians 1:19-20)
Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 20:16), and "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth" (Philippians 2:10).
More than an image (or statue) upon whom all the greatest king-like qualities are ascribed, Jesus Christ truly came as the Word made Flesh, died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day, and made various appearances to His disciples (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).
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