You said:
it seems to me that Jordan Peterson’s god is similar to Paul Tillich’s that god is your ultimate concern. evaluate
ChatGPT said:
You’re right to draw a parallel between Jordan Peterson’s conception of God and Paul Tillich’s idea of God as “ultimate concern.” Both thinkers approach theology in a way that overlaps with existential philosophy and psychology, but they differ in emphasis and underlying commitments. Let’s break this down and evaluate the comparison:
Paul Tillich: God as Ultimate Concern
- Key Idea: For Tillich, “God” is not a being among beings, but the ground of being itself—what one is ultimately concerned with.
- Ultimate Concern: Whatever you treat as the source of ultimate meaning, the object of your deepest commitment (whether it’s God, nation, love, power, etc.), is effectively your “God.”
- Existential: He reframes theology in existential and symbolic terms; religious language is symbolic and points beyond itself to transcendent truths.
- Non-literalist: God is not a literal supernatural entity. Atheism, for Tillich, often rejects a false image of God, not God in his sense.
Jordan Peterson: God as Psychological Reality
- Key Idea: Peterson often resists defining God dogmatically but treats “God” as a psychological and symbolic idea rooted in deep patterns of human behavior and mythology.
- Functional and Archetypal: God is the highest ideal, the summation of the highest good you aim at. He talks about God as a functional necessity—something like the moral compass or archetype that orients individuals.
- Narrative-Based: He draws from Jung, myths, and biblical stories, emphasizing how religious stories encode evolved wisdom about navigating reality.
- Non-metaphysical (with tension): While he sometimes flirts with metaphysical claims, his framing is usually pragmatic or existential, not doctrinal or strictly theological.
Similarities
- Non-literalism: Both reject the idea of God as a man-in-the-sky figure. They explore God as a symbolic, psychological, or existential reality.
- Concern with Meaning: For both, God represents that which gives life ultimate meaning and direction.
- Deep Roots in Myth/Symbolism: Both emphasize the symbolic and mythopoetic dimensions of religion.
- Overlap with Existentialism: Both are influenced by existential thought—Tillich by Heidegger and Kierkegaard, Peterson by Jung and Nietzsche.
Differences
| Aspect | Tillich | Peterson |
|---|---|---|
| Philosophical Base | Ontological/existential theology | Jungian psychology, pragmatism |
| Religious Commitment | Rooted in Christian theology | Culturally Christian, personally ambiguous |
| Ultimate Concern | Ground of being (not just psychological) | Psychological aim or moral ideal |
| Symbolism | Deeply theological and metaphysical | Primarily narrative, psychological, and evolutionary |
Evaluation
The comparison holds up in structure and function: both treat God as what orients your life toward meaning and purpose. However, Tillich is more ontological and theological, while Peterson is more psychological and pragmatic. In essence, Peterson may be seen as a kind of secular Tillich, who translates religious ideas into terms palatable to modern psychology and scientific sensibilities.
So yes—Peterson’s “God” is similar to Tillich’s in that both are about what you are ultimately committed to. But Tillich intends to preserve a place for the transcendent and the sacred, whereas Peterson might repackage it as functionally transcendent, rooted in human evolution and behavior, not necessarily in an actual metaphysical being.