Christianity and Metaphysics - Jordan Peterson interviews Jonathan Pageau

[Eugene I]

I do not see any reason why finding the Judeo-Christian tradition to be the most meaningful is any more "exclusive" than finding all traditions to be equally meaningful. They are both precise intellectual claims which exclude other possibilities.

You are a good lawyer Any intellectual claim typically excludes other intellectual claims. But some claims may also exclude other subjects of the claims (such as other traditions), while some other claims may not. There is a difference between exclusivity towards other claims and exclusivity towards the subjects of the claims.

E.g. take two claims:
1. "White people are superior to black"
2 "White and black people are equal"

Are you saying that there is no difference between them in terms of their exclusivity? Surely, as claims, they both equally exclude each other. But the first claim also excludes the black people, while the second does not.

[AshvinP]

I do not see any reason why finding the Judeo-Christian tradition to be the most meaningful is any more "exclusive" than finding all traditions to be equally meaningful. They are both precise intellectual claims which exclude other possibilities.

You are a good lawyer Any intellectual claim typically excludes other intellectual claims. But some claims may also exclude other subjects of the claims (such as other traditions), while some other claims may not. There is a difference between exclusivity towards other claims and exclusivity towards the subjects of the claims.

E.g. take two claims:
1. "White people are superior to black"
2 "White and black people are equal"

Are you saying that there is no difference between them in terms of their exclusivity? Surely, as claims, they both equally exclude each other. But the first claim also excludes the black people, while the second does not.

Thanks

Clearly we are talking about the exclusivity of the claims' truth-value, not the content of the claims. The latter would require us to define what we mean by "exclusive" content and present evidence. Another more relevant example may help:

1. Idealism is the most accurate ontology.
2. All ontologies are equally accurate.

Both claims exclude the other from being true. And that's the point - it is a self-evident statement about the claims which does not address the substantive content of either claim. For the latter, we would need to start precisely defining terms and presenting evidence for our arguments in favor of #1 and #2.

[Eugene I]

For the latter, we would need to start precisely defining terms and presenting evidence for our arguments in favor of #1 and #2.

Exactly. So, what are the arguments or evidences supporting the claim that "Judeo-Christianity is the most meaningful, wise, and adaptively competent religious trajectory that's emerged from life on this planet", as compared to a large variety of other religious trajectories that have emerged on this planet?

[AshvinP]

For the latter, we would need to start precisely defining terms and presenting evidence for our arguments in favor of #1 and #2.

Exactly. So, what are the arguments or evidences supporting the claim that "Judeo-Christianity is the most meaningful, wise, and adaptively competent religious trajectory that's emerged from life on this planet", as compared to a large variety of other religious trajectories that have emerged on this planet?

That has been the topic of voluminous philosophical/metaphysical commentaries on Christian spirituality over centuries, so it's kind of hard to sum up in a few posts. Sticking with the 20th century, one piece of evidence would be the essay I linked to by Owen Barfield on Philology and the Incarnation, as well as his book Saving the Appearances. Another would be Gebser's The Ever-Present Origin and Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man. A bunch of writings by Rudolf Steiner and Martin Heidegger. A bunch of writings from the American pragmatists, such as CS Pierce and Williams James. Many essays by Carl Jung, who viewed Christ as the archetype of individuation. You get the idea. I realize that I am just referencing people and titles here, but we can go into the actual arguments if you like - most of them center around the incarnation of Christ as a natural and pivotal evolutionary development of human consciousness.

[Eugene I]

Well, that's good for the Christianity, but I can throw in as many other titles supporting meaningfulness, wisdom and adaptability of Buddhist, Advaitic or indigenous traditions.

[AshvinP]

Well, that's good for the Christianity, but I can throw in as many other titles supporting meaningfulness, wisdom and adaptability of Buddhist, Advaitic or indigenous traditions.

Some of the people I mentioned also wrote about the wisdom of Eastern traditions, Jung probably doing the most to bring them within the purview of Western thought in the 20th century. Does that mean all the traditions cancel each other out in terms of meaningfulness and adaptability? I just find that to be an extremely silly claim, one that is generally only used when approaching religious or political topics but certainly not historical or scientific ones. What is the reason for the double-standard?

[Eugene I]

Does that mean all the traditions cancel each other out in terms of meaningfulness and adaptability?

Absolutely not, they complement each other and represent a variety of paths that people with different predispositions can take. Together they represent a variety of ways by which the realm of consciousness can be traversed in the directions of the progressing development towards more advanced levels, however, their directions and destinations may be different from each other and they may lead to different worldviews, perceptions of reality and states of consciousness. Judeo-Christian apotheosis and union with God in love is a direction and spiritual destination different from Buddhist Nirvana or Advaitic Sahaja Samadhi, but all of them are advanced, liberating and practically efficient states of consciousness. Now, if one wants to claim that one of those paths/states is superior to others, on which ground would such claim be made and by which criteria they can be compared and measured in order to support such claim (taking into account that the very criteria for "goodness" or practical efficiency may be very different between those paths)?

[AshvinP]

Does that mean all the traditions cancel each other out in terms of meaningfulness and adaptability?

Absolutely not, they complement each other and represent a variety of paths that people with different predispositions can take. Together they represent a variety of ways by which the realm of consciousness can be traversed in the directions of the progressing development towards more advanced levels, however, their directions and destinations may be different from each other and they may lead to different worldviews, perceptions of reality and states of consciousness. Judeo-Christian apotheosis and union with God in love is a direction and spiritual destination different from Buddhist Nirvana or Advaitic Sahaja Samadhi, but all of them are advanced, liberating and practically efficient states of consciousness. Now, if one wants to claim that one of those paths/states is superior to others, on which ground would such claim be made and by which criteria they can be compared and measured in order to support such claim (taking into account that the very criteria for "goodness" or practical efficiency may be very different between those paths)?

That's why we must start with a philosophical/metaphysical axiom before determining which criteria can serve as the most accurate measure. Otherwise we are first developing the conclusions we want to reach and fitting the data points to that 'curve'. I start with idealism and pragmatic Darwinism. We are necessarily assuming some Darwinian perspective when discussing progressive development and "adaptability". I would go even further and say we are assuming a Darwinian perspective when evaluating anything which involves a hierarchy of concepts.

Suppose we have five tribes which each develop unique and efficient strategies of tracking and killing animals for food. Then we have another tribe which observes all five tribes and incorporates those strategies into a meta-strategy. My argument is that Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition is akin to the latter tribe, although that is obviously a very crude and quick description. I like the way A. Bettik puts it in this article, Is Hunting the Ancestor of Religion?:

Did the human capacities for religious, transcendent, and numinous experiences and behaviors evolve as attempted means of simultaneously escaping and preying on the structures and dynamics of existence itself?

Did religions evolve as a predatory means of bringing down and assimilating the dominant evolutionary operants, the fundamental data of existence, the tendencies for existence to be structured in certain ways, the deepest patterning influences that guide the expression of nature in its own creative totality — the archetypes that shape and steer the elemental form and flow of reality?

If this was true, then the deepest aim of any given “religious trajectory” would be to hunt the structure and process of existence itself.

[Eugene I]

Suppose we have five tribes which each develop unique and efficient strategies of tracking and killing animals for food. Then we have another tribe which observes all five tribes and incorporates those strategies into a meta-strategy. My argument is that Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition is akin to the latter tribe, although that is obviously a very crude and quick description. I like the way A. Bettik puts it in this article, Is Hunting the Ancestor of Religion:

Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition cannot be akin to the latter tribe because it is clearly missing the insight into the non-dual fundamental nature of Consciousness that was achieved in Advaitic and Buddhist traditions, or spiritual insights of the indigenous traditions. Historically in the past it never interacted with those traditions and never had a chance to incorporate the Advaitic, Buddhist and indigenous strategies and practices. Anyone familiar with practical sides of those traditions can clearly see the crucial differences between them (myself being familiar with them, except for indigenous ones, I can assure that). Christian tradition did meet with indigenous ones during the conquest of Americas, but mostly ignored them and did not incorporate anything from them. It's only in the very recent times when Christian practitioners became open to other traditions, mostly through the works of Thomas Merton and his followers.

[AshvinP]

Suppose we have five tribes which each develop unique and efficient strategies of tracking and killing animals for food. Then we have another tribe which observes all five tribes and incorporates those strategies into a meta-strategy. My argument is that Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition is akin to the latter tribe, although that is obviously a very crude and quick description. I like the way A. Bettik puts it in this article, Is Hunting the Ancestor of Religion:

Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition cannot be akin to the latter tribe because it is clearly missing the insight into the non-dual fundamental nature of Consciousness that was achieved in Advaitic and Buddhist traditions, or spiritual insights of the indigenous traditions. Historically in the past it never interacted with those traditions and never had a chance to incorporate the Advaitic and Buddhist strategies and practices. Anyone familiar with practical sides of those traditions can clearly see the crucial differences between them (myself being familiar with both I can assure that). Christian tradition did meet with indigenous ones during the conquest of Americas, but mostly ignored them and did not incorporate anything from them. It's only in the very recent times when Christian practitioners became open to other traditions, mostly through the works of Thomas Merton and his followers.

That's simply not true, and it's kind of the whole point of this post - JP is fed up with people pretending Judeo-Christian tradition is the rigid post-Reformation ideology most modern self-proclaimed Christians make it out to be, and I share his frustration. There is nothing in the ancient tradition that necessitates a dualist ontology. And under idealism, there is no need for explicit interaction with Eastern traditions to incorporate and build off of their wisdom (although it is reasonably debatable whether there was such interaction). That is what Jung may term acausal synchronicity, which BK does a great job explaining in his book. We are starting with unnecessary a priori assumptions if we treat Western religious tradition as only being the way it is represented by its least common denominators, religious fundamentalists and crusading atheists.