Meaningful Maps, Global Brain Singularity, and Real Speculations (Part III)
The Logic of Hegel on Religion and Absolute Knowing, Peterson and Last
VI
On Real Speculations, Cadell writes:
‘[the book] contains three sections organized by three major thinkers that have structured work at Philosophy Portal: Hegel, Nietzsche, and Lacan. Hegel represents the starting point of post-Enlightenment thought, which is necessary for rethinking contemporary politics (the inevitability of madness and war); Nietzsche represents the conjoining moment between philosophy and psychoanalysis, which is necessary to think spiritual becoming and a living education (the difficulty of learning processes inclusive of the unconscious mind); and Lacan represents the moment that psychoanalysis finds an expression with immanent social, theological, and political implications exploding outside of the clinic. All of these sections are tired together in a type of triad that will bring us towards a conclusion struggling with contemporary philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s most recent work on Christian Atheism, which as stated, ultimately holds a potential resolution to the history of Western belief, as well as its capacity to affirm a scientific and rational future, in truth.’⁸⁸
We have discussed Peterson in light of Hegel and Lacan, but now we will consider him through Nietzsche according to Last, to see if further differences between Peterson and Last emerge, further helping frame the stakes of the importance of negating/sublating Religion into Absolute Knowing. ‘[S]ingular universities can literally change the course of history,’ Cadell writes, and Peterson expresses similar sentiments when he stresses how big of an impact we can have on the world through ‘the little choices we make, every day, between good and evil.’⁸⁹ ⁹⁰ But whereas Cadell’s “singular universality” is located on Absolute Knowing and A/B, Peterson’s “hero” is in Religion and A/A, where the “hero” can be overdetermined by Religion and/or Capital. Peterson’s “hero” then bravely faces “chaos” by telling everyone through evangelism to convert to Christianity (for example), warning others of hell and sin. Perhaps the Christian is right in this warning, but under Global Pluralism the Christian might cause others who disagree not to necessarily become angry, but to nod and quietly drift away, back to people like them (“the drifting” is the great threat, for apart, people can become monstrous toward the un-connected). People under A/A who are different can gradually separate, and to meditate the differences between people of Pluralism, Capital can move in and “do our Pluralistic relations for us” (which is better than nothing if we cannot handle Pluralism, lease note). But if Capital itself is a problem leading to global self-effacement, this will not suffice, but that leaves the only option on the table a negation/sublation into A/B and Absolute Knowing, which is what Cadell invites us to think.
The Christian of Religion might try to address “chaos” through evangelizing and conversion, while the Christian of Absolute Knowing might speak of “a lack in God” which creates an “opening” of Christ crucified. So similar differences might be traced out in all worldviews — Islam, Atheism, Communism, Hinduism, etc. — and it really matters on what stage of the Phenomenological Journey we define our “hero,” for values and “right action” will change accordingly (“truth organizes values,” as The Conflict of Mind discusses). The danger that this invites into “ever-pluralizing worldviews” with “ever-different heroes” makes it understandable why thinkers like Pinker and Dawkins stay in Reason, but I agree with Cadell that ‘ ‘spirit cannot live on science and pragmaticism alone’: one must defend a concrete space for speculative cognition’ (Peterson seems to agree).91 At the same time, to take seriously the concerns of Dawkins in Reason, the key is that we situate our understanding of the Absolute as primarily in the business of forcing us to confront our lack and wrongness: “the heroic” in Cadell is a facing of the “chaos” in hero-ness itself, while in Peterson “the heroic” is more a facing of a “chaos” opposed to the hero versus imminent to it. There is a dialectic in Peterson but not a Hegelian dialectic of becoming-other, which suggests Peterson lacks dialectical logic, for ‘[t]o take on board dialectical logic is to build in real difference in your mental models so that they can actually move with the real of sociohistorical processes as sublation (that is a canceling and lifting to a higher level).’⁹²
Cadell also writes that:
‘Dialectical logic is not related to supporting this or that thinker, or this or that proposition. Dialectical logic is how sociohistorical thought moves, at least in part. To take on board dialectical logic is to shed the tendency to look for perfect self-similarity that would no longer have to tarry with real difference.’⁹³
This being the case, it makes sense then that a lack of dialectical logic in Peterson leads to a failure to move from Religion to Absolute Knowing, or to tarry with the negativities of Global Capital, Global Pluralism, and the Global Brain Singularity.⁹⁴ For Cadell, if Peterson did this, his Religion would move away from a ‘completed mind of God’ to a ‘mind of God [that] was itself incomplete, absolute only insofar as it was properly constrained by the positionality of historical subjectivity’ (a God made man/historic, per se).⁹⁵ Is this better for our historic moment? As one needing a realization of Absolute Knowing, which is to say ‘a sublation of liberal capitalism as opposed [to] simply repressing it for some regressive illiberal or pre-liberal structure,’ easily yes, and this move would necessitate also a movement of “chaos” into the “hero” his or her self (A/B).⁹⁶ “Real difference” in a hero is when the hero in hero-ness entails a dragon — that’s the stakes of Hegelian thought. The other is us. We are that which we are not, “lacking,” as those we are not are not what they are to us as other. All the same, we ‘need to see this lack in the Other as the very opening towards the condition of possibility for new forms of collectives, or better, new forms of networks.’⁹⁷ The hero is not to be against the dragon but to identify with the dragon and “become-other” as dragon, while the dragon “becomes-other” as the hero: anything short of this is invites self-effacement.
Cadell’s “hero” gets better at being wrong — an orientation of humility versus tolerance that would help Global Pluralism, as discussed with A.C. Conyers in Part I — and ‘[t]he only way to get better at being wrong is to become a scientist of spirit.’⁹⁸ Cadell’s “hero” is humbled but not humiliated, and Cadell’s “hero” comes to enjoy and identify with this process of encountering limitation and learning to tarry with it. This kind of subject is embodied well in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, and considering the differences between Last and Peterson on Nietzsche would be fruitful here to better grasp how “the heroic” shifts between them. Cadell writes:
‘The genius of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is that he is an ordinary consciousness who makes the journey up the mountain to a withdrawal into a mystical consciousness, only to realize that the truth of the mystical consciousness is only found in returning back down the mountain and engaging in the arduous journey of finding out the meaning of his mystical consciousness in the ordinary.’⁹⁹
Zarathustra is not a story of enlightenment, but a story of what happens after we realize no permanent enlightenment is possible (‘[e]nlightenment does not exist […] Our realizations and awakenings show us the reality of the world, and they bring transformation, but they pass’).¹⁰⁰ After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield (which Michael Deklerk told me about) could be associated with Zarathustra, which we might think of as pointing to a need for a movement from Reason to Spirit to Religion to Absolute Knowing, with Zarathustra mostly starting in Spirit and trying to move to Religion after the Utterly Transcendent God of Christendom. Kornfield’s book might be seen as focusing on the struggle of moving from Spirit to Religion, aligning with Peterson and so with some movements of Zarathustra, though ultimately Last’s “Hegelian Zarathustra” is what need to think.
What does a Westerner’s journey look like in the midst of a complex society?’ — Kornfield’s question is like Nietzsche’s.¹⁰¹ Kornfield describes returning to daily life and “the laundry” as entailing a ‘reveal[ing] [of] contradiction,’ and it could be argued that spiritual separation could make facing these contradictions more difficult, because we have a memory of the sweetness and tranquility we had before, now gone (like God can be torture to those who feel separated from God).¹⁰² Because we have enjoyed Spirit, Religion could cause us suffering; because we have enjoyed Religion, Absolute Knowing could cause us suffering — every negation/sublation could be harder because of the elevation of the last (hence why we must always accepting “tarrying with negativity”). Kornfield discusses how ‘[e]mptiness of self opens us to the experience of the void itself, the dynamic emptiness out of which all things are born,’ and we might think of this as a truth of Spirit (negated/sublated Reason), but bringing this truth to Religion is difficult, and arguably Peterson accomplishes this in making “the void” become “the chaos” (“the dragon”), but Last says “the void-chaos” then needs to be negated/sublated into “essential lack” (and “lack is not nothing,” as Jockin and I stress).¹⁰³
‘After the ecstasy of spiritual awakening there is the day-to-day fulfillment in the laundry room of our sustained practice,’ Kornfield writes, and we can see Zarathustra as not only facing this reality alone while cleaning the dishes, but in the midst of others who mock and scorn him.¹⁰⁴ This is the challenge of the Social, required for us today, for ‘[t]he birth of tolerance and acceptance is most truly won close to home’ and in the streets, and there is indeed something “heroic” about it, but what are the differences between “the hero” of Peterson vs Last?¹⁰⁵ In Nietzsche’s Overman, Cadell stresses that ‘we do not have a field of perspectives organized by an other-worldly God, but a field of perspectives organized by the potentiality of the overman. The overman is […] framed as a process of self-overcoming via the striving for greatness, a form of beyond or inhuman greatness, which pushes or expands the very limits of what we consider human.’¹⁰⁶ We might associate this with the focus on Biblical transfigurations found at the start of We Who Wrestle With God by Peterson, which encountering say in Elijah helps us ‘perceive the nature of being […] more clearly, and more directly and personally.’¹⁰⁷ Both Last and Peterson discuss Nietzsche, in who they see a profound potential for human transformation, but both also understand what Kornfield teaches and the need to “return to the laundry.” Peterson notes that it makes sense ‘transmutations of psyche occur on mountaintops,’ but what next, after the mountain top (which Oswald Chambers warned could be a temptation to forever stay on)?¹⁰⁸
Last sees Zarathustra as exploring that critical question, and Peterson is also concerned about it, writing books like 12 Rules for Life to help people figure out how to live out what they have learned (on say the roles of both order and chaos, which managing to walk the line between is ‘the path of life, the divine way. / And that’s much better than [just] happiness’).109 As Norman Doidge puts it on Peterson’s thinking, ‘the foremost rule is that you must take responsibility for your own life. Period.’¹¹⁰ And this must be done in and with people, not isolated. I completely agree, for we must realize Religion — the problem is that this alone is necessary for Absolute Knowing but not sufficient. To look ahead, the problem is that Peterson’s rules can easily just make us good employees for Global Capital, which might be perfectly fine if Capitalism didn’t destroy our timenergy (as McKerracher discusses), lead to our Disablement (Illich), threaten intrinsic motivation, present us with the AI-Causer, hurl us into radical diversity, etc. — which is all to say if our historic moment did not need us to realize Absolute Knowing more than Religion (historic conditions have changed). Also, Peterson is right that people ‘will fight to maintain the match between what they expect and how everyone is acting,’ but problematically our age is one where our expectations on one another might be that they give up their deepest held belief and become like us.¹¹¹ Would it be “heroic” then to try to convert them to Christianity, interactions which could cause them to “drift” away from us and other Christians, into an isolationism where it is easier to imagine us dehumanized, as we at the same time “drift” and confirm amongst ourselves how stubborn nonbelievers can be, rationalizing acquiring greater government force and power to save people from hell. What do we do if this is what somehow follows from how people in a Religion believe they realize ‘the balance between order […] the possibility of illumination or enlightenment itself — with the natural world, signifying the seamless integration of the divine will with material world’?¹¹²
12 Rules for Life is written like a teacher working with students (so that they might be heroes against dragons), while Zarathustra is about the teacher himself realizing his own internal problems (hero/dragon). But Zarathustra starts ‘reconciled with himself. His problem does not seem internal, so much as external: he wrestles with ‘the people,’ or what he will often call: ‘the rabble’ ’ — so what do we mean?¹¹³ What is there about Zarathustra that needs to be developed? Well, we could say that Zarathustra is developed well in terms of Spirit but must now develop Religion, but ‘he quickly discovers that he does not know the method by which [his] superabundance (or excess) can be taught, or better, by which the superabundance (excess) can be perceived as an ideal orientation point of the overcoming of humanity itself.’¹¹⁴ We might argue that Peterson himself has worked to figure this out, though how well exactly others can decide, and generally there might be more overlap between Peterson and Zarathustra in Part I of Thus Spoke Zarathustra than less.¹¹⁵ But Zarathustra does something very interesting right before the Second Part of the book : he tells his follows to ‘go away from [him] and guard yourselves against Zarathustra!’¹¹⁶ Zarathustra undermines his reputation and role as a teacher, and he returns to isolation. Abyssal Arrows, published by Philosophy Portal, goes into much greater detail on all this, but this move of Zarathustra helps us think Nietzsche with Hegel (after he ‘look[s] in the mirror […] a Devil’s grimace […]’ (hero/dragon), which means we can also think him not just with Religion but Absolute Knowing.¹¹⁷ ¹¹⁸ It is here that distinctions between Zarathustra and Peterson might really arise, but I would stress that we must move through Part I before we make it to Part II, so again Peterson is necessary, and it is also in Part I that we can find ‘a metaphor that becomes a major structuring moment of the work as a whole,’ the famous ‘triad of spiritual transformation’ of camel, lion, and child.119 Peterson could help us work through the personal development of camel to lion to child (that is my impression of 12 Rules for Life), but I question if we can stay at child faced with Pluralism, Capital, and Technology, without A/B (and in that sense we do not actually negate/sublate into Childhood without A/B). Staying a Child, faced without our historic moment — that is the challenge to which Last directs us.
VII
‘To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open’ — Peterson writes and encourages that which Nietzsche and Last would agree with (‘accept the terrible burden of the World, [and perhaps] find joy’), but the problem is that correct notions without the right underlying logic (A/B versus A/A) will ultimately prove insufficient and even self-effacing.¹²⁰ ¹²¹ ¹²² However, I want to stress again, this does not mean Peterson doesn’t dramatically help people and isn’t a necessary step in the Phenomenological Journey: the issue is only treating him, at this historic moment, as the end of the (dialectical) process. He is not, and, if Last is right, the stakes of thinking he is the end point are dire. It is also important to understand that Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is not so much a philosophy as it is an exploration and elaboration on “the coming to be of a philosopher,” which is to say it is an inquiry into the question of how a philosopher (as Last puts it) comes to be a philosophical consciousness. Hegel’s claim is that everyone is “always already” philosophical, but not everyone realizes this, and not every historic age needs to realize this fully or in the same way. Last is suggesting our age is one where were all need to realize, more than not, Absolute Knowing, which means the average subject needs to be more philosophical than not. How a subject is philosophical is another question — there’s space for Conservative, Communistic, Capitalistic, Liberal, etc. modes of philosophical consciousness — but that we need to be philosophical as subject is what our moment calls for (“the spread of Childhood,” as discussed in Belonging Again). Why we note this here is because we need to think of Peterson as a mode of subjectivity on the way to philosophical subjectivity, and that is why we can be universally helpful, even if we don’t agree with his politics or conservatism (the same can be said of Dawkins and Harris). Furthermore, Last is not saying we all need to be Hegelian; he is saying we all need the philosophical consciousness that Hegel describes, which requires a Hegelian logical form (A/B), but this no more means we must be Hegelian than using Aristotle’s logic hast meant we must be Aristotelian. Those are different questions, to be asked at another time, for a Heideggerian can employ Hegelian logic just as much as a Muslim, Christian, Federalist, and so on.
Anyway, critically, as of Part II, Zarathustra separates himself because he has work to do: he must ‘be in touch with [his] depth of motivation, inclusive of all its potential evil, in order to become the overman.’¹²³ ‘We eternally inhabit order,’ Peterson writes, ‘surrounded by chaos. We eternally occupy known territory, surrounded by the unknown.’¹²⁴ In Religion, yes, but in Absolute Knowing we are not just “surrounded by the unknown” (A and B); we are “(un)known” (A/B), and this is what Zarathustra goes to confront. But doesn’t Peterson all the time warn that we can be monstrous? That a mother because of her love can become a devouring mother? That a father because of his strength can become a tyrant? Yes, and in that way, we could say there is something dialectical about Peterson, but Hegel’s dialectic is a “becoming-other” that is distinct. What Peterson describes means there are “good mothers and bad mothers,” which is true, but the radical claim of Hegel is that a genuinely good mother, by Peterson’s own standards, could become in her very goodness bad (notably in encounters with Pluralism, Capital, or Technology). Hegel would warn we can be monstrous in genuinely being a “hero”: it is not a clean choice between “hero or monster.” In Peterson, from my reading, if we are a hero, we will not be a dragon; in Hegel, we could be a dragon precisely because we are a hero (a traumatic and overwhelming realization — “The Real”). This is a key point that we can see Zarathustra coming to accept, and it is radically difficult to accept — but we must to move from Religion to Absolute Knowing to not be self-effaced by our historic moment.
Peterson warns that ‘[a]pparently, the proper relationship with God is not easily established while we are comfortably ensconced in the lap of luxury,’ and so similarly we might say, following Zarathustra, that it is improbable to undergo that which makes us genuinely believe “we ourselves entail chaos” (A/B) until we go into the (pluralistic) social where we face social negativity (to “do the laundry”).¹²⁵ As discussed in Logic for the Global Brain, following Leibniz’s “shock of difference,” it is literally impossible to fully understand how we are different (from others and ourselves) until we encounter people in Pluralism we think are like us but turn out to be different, and yet we couldn’t tell until we were in their presence. For Leibniz, as taught by Anthony Morely, things are similar if we can’t tell them apart unless they are together, and since nothing is actually “the same” (or else there would only be one thing), all acts of bringing together similarity entail “a shock of difference.” This creates a challenge since we naturally gravitate toward those who are intelligible to us, which means they are similar enough to us that they make sense to us, and as we come closer to those similar people, we increasingly find out they are different somehow. This can be very difficult to realize and encounter, and the act also can bring a surprise in and to ourselves when we realize that we can be so wrong about others “being just like us.” “The shock of difference” brings with it a surprise in our/human inabilities to perceive the world and its people around us, and that can be a traumatic realization that makes us (want to) withdraw from social life and interaction. We can then atomize, or else to try to avoid “the shock of difference” from happening again, we can seek people that “must be like us,” which means we’re going to move away from pluralism and difference (as much as humanly possible) toward the conditions in which tribalism and extremism are more likely. With time, the compound effects of this can be dire.
If we naturally gravitate toward people “like us” (in part because we require intelligibility to function), then in Pluralism we will tend toward people who we know are different but nevertheless those we conclude in their difference are more like us than not. When we inevitably encounter “the shock of difference,” we might take this as evidence not “that all relationships entil this shock because ‘sameness’ doesn’t exist,” but instead conclude this is evidence that Global Pluralism is bad and should be reversed (when it cannot be without grave consequence). If we are in Religion versus Absolute Knowing, the chance of this conclusion is much higher, and if “the shock of difference” is inevitable, then the consequences for failing to move from Religion to Absolute Knowing are also inevitable. Of course, even if we try to reverse Pluralism, we will still encounter “the shock of difference” with people we think are not different from us, which could be further traumatizing for us and make us conclude pluralistic thought has even “infected” people we thought were safe, and/or we might withdraw from social life entirely. My claim would be that the more embedded in Religion we are versus Absolute Knowing, the higher the chance we experience “the shock of difference” in manner that makes us withdraw from the Pluralistic Social entirely. If this though is practically impossible, at the very least because we are still using the internet that exposes us to Global Pluralism, then this is recipe for pathology.
If Leibniz is right that it is only in relation that a person can find out how he or she is similar/different from other people, then we require the social to experience both the reality of ourselves and others, and that revelation must be surprising, precisely because it cannot be identified but in relation (and a difference we could predict ahead of time is arguably not even a real “difference”). Thus, to encounter the reality of ourselves and others, we must be like Zarathustra and come “down from the mountaintop,” and we will only be able to handle this revelation to the degree we can encounter “surprising encounters” that unveil “similarity/difference” for which by definition we couldn’t be prepared. In this way, we actually can’t really “encounter” the truth of ourselves and others unless we can handle “surprise,” encountering others, and the resulting “shock of difference,” and in this way a Religion that makes us too fragile or too ill-equipped to “handle otherness” will also retard our capacity for understanding ourselves. Lacking this knowledge, we might be more likely to think in terms of “heroes versus dragons” (Peterson, A/A) versus “heroes/dragons” (Hegel, A/B), precisely because learning this truth requires handling “the shock of difference/otherness” that Religion less equips us for, compared to Absolute Knowing. In this way, Religion self-encloses itself (“the problem of internally consistent systems”), because moving beyond it seems to require the Absolute Knowing (capacity for “the shock of difference”) of which one is easily in Religion because they lack. Without Absolute Knowing, we might not be “shocked by difference” in a way that we interpret as evidence that we need to negate/sublate “us and others” (A/A) into “becoming-other” (A/B), but instead we might interpret the difficulty as evidence that we need to identify more with our Religion (“us and/from others”) and keep our interactions more exclusive (if we come down from the mountain of Christian revelation, we should walk straight to and stay in a Christian church, per se). But don’t we have “a chicken and egg problem” then? We have “an indestructible map,” yes, which “addressing,” will require an infrastructure that better facilitates “faithful presence” alongside “a social coordination mechanism”—but all this is to be discussed in II.2.
Also, as in the social we encounter “the shock of difference” in those we thought we were like, it is also possible to encounter “the surprise of similarity” in those we thought were different from us: “the surprise” can go both ways. When we find out people we thought we were different from are more like us than we thought, this can help humanize others and help us resist tendencies to isolate with people (we think are) only like us. However, “the shock of difference” can then come into play, for though we can move people toward greater similarity, that will just create the condition in which “a shock of difference” can now arise—hence why I might emphasize “the shock of difference” over “the surprise of similarity” (because ultimately I think it is that shock which will be the great test for us). There is a test in us initially interacting with people we don’t think are like us, yes, but this is expected: I do think “the deeper test” comes (later) when we are surprised (for we are easily less ready and less in control). In my view, the question of Global Pluralism will not so much come down to “the surprise of similarity,” which is a challenge on the onset but still only a first step; rather, it will come down to “the shock of difference” which arises in similarity, which is a hardstep and could cause a much deeper wound. We might say that Reason, Spirit, and Religion can help us move into places where we can be “surprised by similarity,” for they can encourage us to see potential for commonality with people who seem like we don’t share anything in common with—the American and the Chinese can agree to the rational (Reason), or agree to meditative pursuits (Spirit), or both be Christian (Religion)—but Absolute Knowing is what we need to handle “the shock of difference” when the American Christian and the Chinese Christian find their Christ distinct on the issue of drone warfare (as an example). A critical “shock of difference” we are encountering today after Fukuyama’s “end of history” is that the humanity we thought was all “essentially the same” (the legacy of multiculturalism, according to Dr. James Hunter) actually entails “deep difference” (as exemplified by someone like Dugin), and suffering this shock, the Global Order as of 2025 seems very fragile and in jeopardy. Last would argue that Absolute Knowing is needed to handle this situation, and a critical mass of people do not have it.
To review, if Absolute Knowing equips us for handling otherness and “surprising encounters” in more possible situations than does Religion, than Absolute Knowing can enable us for more self-understanding and understanding of others than just Religion — hence the stakes of the move Last is stressing. In Zarathustra, we see how this capacity of Absolute Knowing is gained in the social for the social, which means we gain what we need for the social amid the social before we have what we need for the social — which means mistake, pain, and error our inevitable. In Zarathustra, we see a process of coming, going, withdrawing, and reengaging as he works through this difficulty, “tarrying with negativity” (a necessary process I would argue “the social coordination mechanism” helps makes more seamless and less logically burdensome today), and we should expect the same of ourselves as we develop. But would Peterson really disagree with this notion? Not exactly, but this is where slight distinctions make a big difference (and we should expect the distinctions between Religion and Absolute Knowing to be slighter than say between Reason and Absolute Knowing). Peterson rightly sees danger in the social and collective, noting how ‘[m]uch of what we consider healthy mental function is the result of our ability to use the reactions of others to keep our complex selves functional. We outsource the problem of our sanity.’¹²⁶ This is not inherently bad, and inevitably ‘boundaries of our selves […] expand to include other people — family members, lovers and friends,’ but it does mean we can use community to avoid working on ourselves like we should, and Peterson is right to warn of this possibility.¹²⁷ However, there is also a danger in not being around others in a way that results in us never being “shocked by difference,” which we need to undergo if there is a part of our internal development that we are not avoiding and putting off (there is a risk of “outsourcing” but also “avoiding”). Zarathustra models a subject that doesn’t skip these challenges, and these are the challenges of developing Absolute Knowing.
Peterson wonders: ‘Is it too much of a stretch to assume that it is in the very act of considering the fringe that the wisdom of the center is remembered?’128 Similarly, is it possible that it is in encountering difference that we recognize what’s similar, even in ourselves to ourselves? Similarity generates intelligibility and so identity, and yet every similarity entails an excess of “difference,” or else “similarity” would be “sameness” and there would be no relation, only “a blob of oneness.” Where there is no difference, there is “a great mush of being,” of which in Hegel at the start of Science of Logic we famously learn would be nothing at all. Hence, the difference imminent in all things that are similar enough to relate (into a Korzybskian “situation”), which at the same time keeps things distinct and not “the same,” is precisely why we have being that isn’t oblivion, but oddly this suggests we can exist as ourselves because we can “surprisingly encounter” difference which can make life feel unintelligible and “like oblivion” (“The Real”). We “are” because it can feel like nothing makes sense, and for Cadell we must think this if we are ‘to think through belonging in a world of artificial intelligence, unregulated global capital, bioengineer, and cultural pluralism.’129 “Belonging” is an important concept in O.G. Rose, and we cannot “belong again” where we cannot handle “the shock of difference”—the work and possibility of moving from Religion to Absolute Knowing.
VIII
Peterson discusses Jonah, and aligning Jonah with the challenges of Pluralism, Peterson writes that ‘’Jonah’s dilemma is reminiscent of that confronted by a great man of an entirely different culture.’¹³⁰ I agree, but the lessons Peterson takes from Jonah’s story might be an interpretation from the orientation of Religion, while I think Jonah can be understood complimentarily but differently from Absolute Knowing. Peterson writes: ‘What is the moral of the story of Jonah? That each man is called upon to say his piece, lest the world suffer in the absence of that singular and unique truth.’¹³¹ There is truth to this, from the standpoint of Religion, and Peterson interprets Jonah’s time in the belly of the whale as punishment for being unwilling to say his piece in a world of Pluralism and difference (an emphasis though I fear could contribute to “the drift” problem). However, what if actually the lesson of Jonah is that we must first encounter “lack” and “The Real” before we can handle Pluralism? What if instead Jonah models what basically everyone is prone to do when they are called to encounter alien civilizations and people who they don’t easily understand, which is to flee or put it off? The lesson could be that this avoidance of Pluralism eventually leads to negativity and a disaster, but the grace is that this very disaster (and “subjective destitution”) is a precondition for handling diversity and eventual “shock of difference”?
Peterson tells us that ‘[i]t is no coincidence that thee three days that Jonah spends in the belly of the whale are symbolically paralleled to the hell that Christ Himself harrows in the aftermath of his crucifixion,’ a point with which I agree (and that could align Jonah with Žižek’s “Christian Atheism,” as Cadell has taught on).¹³² Peterson though suggests that Jonah’s punishment for fleeing is suffering hell, but from Absolute Knowing, “suffering hell” could be necessary for being the kind of subject who can handle the contradictions of Global Pluralism, Global Capital, and the Global Brain. Yes, for Religion, this is a kind of punishment, but there is Christian theology which suggests punishments of God are tied to God’s grace (Flannery O’Connor comes to mind), and furthermore today I would argue ‘there are no easy roads left.’¹³³ Without “subjective destitution,” it is not possible for us to ‘create [our] belonging-origin as a continuous process of becoming other,’ as Absolute Knowing requires, which means we will not be able to handle “the shock of difference” (or “leave Plato’s Cave on our own,” as discussed in II.1).¹³⁴ We must realize fully Hegel’s ‘philosophical manual for creating philosophers, or rather, for creating oneself as philosophical mind,’ or else the consequences will be dire.¹³⁵ ‘[T]he true is non-rational,’ and how this manifests in Pluralism, only Absolute Knowing can handle.¹³⁶ In un-sublated Religion, we will not find hope for a ‘universal intelligibility and singular difference.’¹³⁷ ‘We can certainly create hell alone. What could we do if we were instead aligned with the highest we could imagine?’ — a great question from Peterson, but the horrifying irony is that alignment with “the highest” from Religion could also create hell (hero/dragon).¹³⁸ It must be from Absolute Knowing, but then “the highest” is a lack. What then? (Is it a River-Hole, discussed in II.1?)
Peterson also discusses Moses, who for him is an exemplary figure of the highest caliber, and yet ultimately Moses fails:
‘At this crucial moment — right on the very cusp of his potentially highest success; right when he most truly has the opportunity to become the new man in the new world that he has been constantly called to be — Moses succumbs, as does his brother, to the spirit of the prideful usurper, taking to himself in the Luciferian manner the right to establish the moral order […] This is a psychological and social catastrophe […]’¹³⁹
When Moses hits the rock instead of speak to it, Moses does what he thinks is right versus what God commands of him, and so Moses cannot enter the Promised Land. ‘Moses employs force and compulsion when persuasion and invitation would serve. As a result, he finds himself barred by the intractable hand of God from entering the promised land, despite his decades of faithful service.’¹⁴⁰ A fair interpretation, but first I would argue that “force and compulsion” are inevitable if we are stuck in Religion in Pluralism (to maintain our “map” and enclosure), and second I would argue that if we do not transition from Religion to Absolute Knowing, we as humanity will end up like Moses, right on the cusp of our greatest victory in history and Spirit, only to ultimately fail before “a new man” (of Holy Spirit and Geopadia) could emerge. For Peterson, the mistake of Moses is that he abandoned “the true moral order of being itself” realized in Religion, while I would say that, even if that is true, we can still end up like Moses if we don’t face the negativity and “Real” that God could have told someone else, perhaps at a different time, to hit the rock, that “the absolute moral order of being” could be negated/sublated — was it not in Christ?¹⁴¹
To not end up like Moses, we must be like Jonah, but from the standpoint of Absolute Knowing versus just un-sublated Religion. How do we do that? Well, I think it requires an “Absolute Choice,” as discussed through O.G. Rose, where we choose to put ourselves in the midst of Pluralism while also standing for something. This requires an active choice beyond just the choice of belief in God or not, for even if we believe in God — and critically if we must believe in a God (of Deism, Christianity, Hinduism, Christian Atheism, etc.) — we still have to choose how we will hold ourselves and interact with others, which means we will have to decide how we are to prepare ourselves for “shock of difference” (if we will be active about it or more passive, for example). On this point, I think we can see another difference with Peterson that can help us understand further why he stays in un-sublated Religion, mainly in that he doesn’t see “living as if God doesn’t exist” as even possible. When it comes to God, based on how Peterson understands “God,” there is no choice: we all must live as if God exists, which means we all must be in Religion. Hegel in a way agrees with this, for we are “always already” Religious (hence why for Žižek we need Christian Atheism or what I might describe as Atheistic Christianity, as described by the “Rosey Cross II Conference” at Philosophy Portal); however, Hegel doesn’t stop our “journey of realizing the always already” there, but rather necessarily ends it at Absolute Knowing (which is where the Science of Logic starts, please note), and I say “necessarily” in the sense that if we don’t there are consequences (which follow from “un-sublated libido,” for example).
I make this claim of Peterson based on how he describes Noah (who Peterson might see himself in), and Peterson writes that ‘God is for Noah by definition what guides him, what seizes him, as he makes his way forward, no matter what he decides to do.’¹⁴² Peterson suggests here the possibility of being say a Christian without ever deciding to be a Christian, or at least a follower of God, as further suggested when he writes of Noah that ‘[a]ll his choices must […] be properly constructed as decisions and acts of faith, because he does not and cannot truly know what is coming.’¹⁴³ We all must have faith because none of us can act knowing what is coming, which is true, and we must thus make those choices relative toward some end that is not reducible to our immediacy, a point which I think suggests Religion. Peterson writes:
‘Because Noah must elevate something to the highest place (something that therefore is functionally equivalent to “God”) so that every other choice has been sacrificed and forgone, that which now guides established as fundamental or superordinate, and movement forward made possible. The fact that this uniting spirit is ‘God’ would remain true even if Noah explicitly disavowed any so-called ‘religious’ belief.’¹⁴⁴
That last sentence I would like to draw attention to, for it suggests that we can disown, identify with, or not identify with a religious tradition all we like, and we will still live according to “God.” ‘We are […] by necessity those who wrestle with God,’ Peterson says, and that’s true in a way, but we do not by necessity suffer the “social negativity” that follows from explicit identification with a theological position — the Atheist will never be President; the Christian is mocked at college; the Muslim suffers xenophobia, etc. — and I think “social negativity” is necessary for Absolute Knowing, as Zarathustra suffers; otherwise, there will be un-sublated libido, as Cadell warns about, which leads to trouble, often in sex and/or rage.¹⁴⁵
The stakes are high.
Jordan Peterson reminds me of Paul Tillich, though more a “Secular Tillich” who makes up for a lack of explicit identification with Christianity by rethinking Christianity with his Jung and mythology more generally, which nevertheless allows Peterson to employ Christianity like Tillich (so they end up very similar). Perhaps Peterson has risen because we have not properly thought Tillich? Perhaps. Both Peterson and Tillich strike me as “Theist Existentialists,” with a distinctly Christian flavor. Tillich like Peterson is a thinker of Religion, not just Reason or Spirit, and I don’t think it’s by chance that Tillich’s name is coming up in Christian circles these days, similar to how Peterson’s name is manifesting. But as Peterson is problematic without Absolute Knowing, so is Tillich. Still, Tillich like Peterson helps us understand that we cannot take “being” seriously unless we realize Religion, and this is a move that requires courage (“the courage to be”), as we’ve seen in Peterson (arguably a reason for his rise to fame). Note the profound similarities with Peterson when Tillich — who might “collapse together the beautiful and the good,” which Jockin warn against — writes elegantly:
‘Courage is the affirmation of one’s essential nature, one’s inner aim or entelechy, but it is an affirmation which has in itself the character of ‘in spite of.’ It includes the possible and, in some cases, the unavoidable sacrifice of elements which also belong to one’s being but which, if not sacrificed, would prevent us from reaching our actual fulfillment. This sacrifice may include pleasure, happiness, even one’s own existence. In any case it is praiseworthy, because in the act of courage the most essential part of our being prevails against the less essential. It is the beauty and goodness of courage that the good and the beautiful are actualized in it. Therefore it is noble.’¹⁴⁶
Perhaps because Tillich is a truth of Religion, as is Peterson, and so there is overlap. The truth of Religion requires courage, which is emphasized throughout O.G. Rose, (even ontological courage), but “the courage of Religion” ultimately cannot sustain itself unless it is negated/sublated into “the courage of Absolute Knowing” (we must go all the way or we will not go on). ‘Courage is the power of life to affirm itself in spite of […] ambiguity,’ Tillich writes, sounding like Peterson, but “the ambiguity of Religion” is not “the essential lack of Absolute Knowing”¹⁴⁷ We might say Tillich and Peterson are existentialists then metaphysicians (arranging them from the start for individualism), while Hegel and Žižek are phenomenologists then existentialists (making less individualism possible), and we might see both Tillich and Peterson as orbiting the question of the individual faced with an unknown, an unknown which we might think with Heidegger as ultimately death itself. As Dr. Johannas Niederhauser teaches on, Heidegger focused on death, which is important for the individual’s being in Religion to be realized. But I think “facing social negativity” can be harder or as hard as facing death, and facing that is required for our being in Absolute Knowing (for otherwise even if we know reality is “lacking,” we will not feel it throughout ourselves; ‘[o]ne canot remove anxiety by arguing it away,’ Tillich writes).¹⁴⁸ The Late Heidegger of “clearings” and “letting” that Thomas Winn teaches on is “toward” Absolute Knowing, but the Early Heidegger might be more in Religion (which makes sense if he is a theological thinker like Dr. Samuel Loncar discusses). Tillich and Peterson might end up similar to the Late Heidegger, “toward” Absolute Knowing, even if the movement is not finished, but I’ll let others decide.
Both Tillich and Peterson for me encourage of us a ‘[c]ourage as grace [that] is a result and a question,’ and I think both would agree that ‘individualization expresses itself in the religious experience as a personal encounter with God.’¹⁴⁹ ¹⁵⁰ Both seem to agree philosophy inevitably leads to theology (as would Hegel, in a way), and I also see My Search for Absolutes by Tillich as making some arguments that appear here and there in Peterson, and both agree that ‘the encounter with [“God” is not] restricted to experiences within what traditionally is called ‘religion.’’¹⁵¹ “God” is for all, but this very statement is one that is best made within a particular religion, and both seem to see Christianity as uniquely capable of making this claim (‘even this statement, that God cannot be caught in any particular religion, could have been made only on the basis of a particular religion, a religion able to transcend its own particularity and, because it can do this, having perhaps a critical power in religion to others religions’) — which is fine (and some selection is even inevitably) if that doesn’t mean we never sublate Religion into Absolute Knowing — but that requires the resources of Cadell Last.¹⁵²
Dynamics of Faith by Paul Tillich might be the easiest to see alongside Jordan Peterson’s work, and the opening sentence is easy to imagine Peterson himself saying: ‘Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of man’s ultimate concern.’¹⁵³ Peterson’s “God” is like the “God of Tillich’s ultimate concern,” which is a “God” that all must have, for all are “always already” Religious (as Hegel has taught), and to the degree we accept the role of faith in our lives is to the degree we can own ‘[an] act of the total personality,’ without which we cannot properly develop.¹⁵⁴ We can see in Tillich an emphasis on community for faith and understanding of Reason’s need for Religion (‘faith is the act in which reason reaches ecstatically beyond itself’) — so what’s the problem?¹⁵⁵ Tillich lacks Absolute Knowing because he lacks “essential lack,” Jockin’s Beauty, and psychoanalysis, and so he ends up with a (non)relation to a Big Other, as I fear might Peterson (notably in economics, politics, and the libidinal), which is arguably the fate of all who do not go through “Christian Atheism” as described by Žižek and Last.¹⁵⁶
I find the overlap of Peterson and Tillich profound, and I do not mean this necessarily as a bad thing (it’s contingent): there is a lot of Tillich in my thinking, and I strongly connect “faith” and “courage” as does he; Tillich writes wonderfully:
‘We have defined courage as the self-affirmation of being in spite of nonbeing. The power of this self-affirmation is the power of being which is effective in every act of courage. Faith is the experience of this power.’¹⁵⁷
Absolutely, and this sets the subject up for “(be)coming” which is foundational for Hegel’s Science of Logic — but without “social negativity” we cannot take this journey for which we have the foundation, leading to trouble. And if we do not stress “social negativity” and overly-emphasize the inevitably of Religion and “ultimate concern,” we may “just happen” to always avoid it. And then we will go un-sublated, and then we will be vulnerable. Vulnerable to what? Un-sublated libido can lead to rage and sexual problems, for one, the latter of which Paul Tillich fell into, horrifically.
As Richard Fox writes on, Tillich’s sexual assaults on students devastated Reinhold Niebuhr, who had originally been elated that Tillich would join the same faculty as him and who ‘impelled Niebuhr toward deeper immersion in theology.’¹⁵⁸ ‘Niebuhr and Tillich had been the best of friends in the 1930s, and continued to work closely together during the war in German relief and political affairs. But their relations were cooling even during the war and in the postwar years became increasingly strained’ (is friendship doomed with Absolute Knowing?).¹⁵⁹ And gradually Tillich’s work emphasized the sensual ‘and at times resembled a kind of nature worship; his ethics stressed not sin and responsibility, but establishing wholeness, experiencing the fullness of being,’ which can be fine and even necessary from a standpoint of Absolute Knowing, but from Religion?¹⁶⁰ No, and so the outcome which Last warns about can come to pass (seemingly inevitable in some form):
‘Tillich had for years been engaged in a succession of sexual escapades. He was not just unfaithful to his wife, Hannah; he was exuberantly, compulsively promiscuous. Niebuhr once sent one of his female students to see Tillich during his office hours. He welcomed her warmly, closed the door, and began fondling her. She reported the episode of Niebuhr, who never forgave Tillich.’¹⁶¹
This devastated me personally when I read this and learned the truth about Tillich, for I had liked Tillich so much and integrated him deeply into my thinking. It opened a question: what in Tillich’s thinking and its “internal consistency” allowed him to rationalize this behavior and see it as aligned with Christianity? I didn’t have the language then, but now I would say that Tillich did not sublate Religion to Absolute Knowing, and I have learned from Last that this is what we can expect where we do not think sexual difference and libido, say in psychoanalysis.
I in no way whatsoever think Jordan Peterson will end up like Paul Tillich — absolutely not. He went through hell as did his wife Tammy when she was diagnosed with a very deadly cancer, and along with his own “subjective destitution” between 2019 and 2020, I believe Peterson has gone through the purgatory necessary for a marriage bond that addresses libido in that way. Let that be clear. My concern is not promiscuity for Peterson but rage, which is connected to un-sublimated libido (as libido eventually must be without Absolute Knowing, A/B). Anger is not inherently bad at all though — we have learned this from Aspasia Karageorge and discussed at “The Net,” and anger can even be virtue — but when it becomes rage and spills into violence, as I think is more likely where we discuss “the hero and the dragon” versus “the hero/dragon,” which is structurally essentially to Peterson’s thinking, then we have a deep problem. Cadell warns that Peterson is currently stuck running in circles, unable to sublate Religion to Absolute Knowing, and that is a state in which anger easily becomes rage. This is what Peterson is at risk of — as are we without Absolute Knowing, possibly leading Global Pluralism to Global War.
When it comes to libidinal trouble like we see in Tillich, I am concerned about anyone who stuck in Religion, whether the followers of Peterson’s thinking, isolated mystics, those who have not thought sexuality in the Church, or so on. In Real Speculations, Cadell Last draws attention to trends in pornography around the world, and the amount of sexual frustration, confusion, repression, and lack of artfulness in the world seems dangerously high. The concern is that though Peterson himself is not at risk of this in my mind at all, all thinking which is an “un-sublated Religion” risks this great danger (as is also the case with un-sublated Reason and Spirit). If it is only like Tillich’s, however great and necessary some of his thinking might be, the work and possible address will fail and even fail horrifically.
“Ultimate concern” and “the courage to be” are necessary steps of Religion, but they are not sufficient for Absolute Knowing or by extension Žižek’s Holy Spirit. The inevitably of Paul Tillich’s “ultimate concern” and unavoidability of Peterson’s “God,” if taken seriously, is enough to move us into Religion, and we might say that Peterson’s genius is that he has provided a possibility for a Nontheist to be Religiously embedded. But Cadell’s work suggests that Peterson’s Noah, like Jonah, will end up like Moses without Cadell. Indeed, perhaps we must live for a “God,” but we don’t necessarily have to live for Holy Spirit, Beauty, or Geopadia, and Cadell suggests that everything regarding the fate of Global Pluralism rests on the question of if we can cultivate the capacity for Holy Spirit as subjects. Peterson understands “God” in a way where no definitive choice must be made: we are “always already” following “God”; the question is only if we realize this and accept it, and in that sense a choice has to be made, but not so much regarding the existence of “God.” Sure, but I believe Absolute Knowing requires a choice, and the choices we make must generate the conditions in which Holy Spirit are possible. We might have to live for “God,” but we don’t have to live in a way that can handle the negativity of Global Pluralism, enabling Holy Spirit. And how we react will be tied to our Religion, no doubt, but that means it matters how we identify “God”—if we are dealing with Christ or instead just something more like an existential necessity, “God”—and it is unpredictable what might emerge between people who define “God” differently (perhaps war and “drifting”). We’ll have to make active choices then, and it will not be enough to say it is existentially necessary to follow “God.” That might be necessary for us to think, but it won’t be sufficient.
Perhaps we cannot help but have an “ultimate concern” for which we stand, some “God,” but we do still choose if we put ourselves among Pluralism in a manner that can contribute to “drift,” while being clearly seen as believing something (“appearing heretical”), and in a way that contributes to Holy Spirit or not. Thie second step is what I fear Peterson’s emphasis on the inevitably of “ultimate concern” avoids, and we should not assume that the inevitably of Religion (as even Hegel understood) necessitates the skillfulness of Absolute Knowing to handle Global Pluralism, Global Capitalism, and the Global Brain. It does not, and when that “surprise” is encountered by the one in Religion, trained by Peterson and un-sublated, the response could be pathological and contribute to disaster. Let us not be “like Tillich.” Let us go “like Christ” into Absolute Knowing.
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Notes
⁸⁸Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 37.
⁸⁹Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 123.
⁹⁰90Peterson, Jordan B. Maps of Meaning. New York, NY: Routledge, 1999: 456.
⁹¹Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 131.
⁹²Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 171.
⁹³Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 171.
⁹⁴…which require of us a ‘unity of the mystical ineffable and the metaphysical conceptual so that we can given philosophy its soul and give soul its reason.’¹
¹Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 177.
⁹⁵Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 196.
⁹⁶Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 206.
⁹⁷Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 271.
⁹⁸Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 142.
⁹⁹Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 120.
¹⁰⁰Kornfield, Jack. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. New York, NY: Bantom Trade Paperback Edition, 2001: xiii.
¹⁰¹Kornfield, Jack. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. New York, NY: Bantom Trade Paperback Edition, 2001: xxi.
¹⁰²Kornfield, Jack. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. New York, NY: Bantom Trade Paperback Edition, 2001: 35.
¹⁰³Kornfield, Jack. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. New York, NY: Bantom Trade Paperback Edition, 2001: 76.
¹⁰⁴Kornfield, Jack. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. New York, NY: Bantom Trade Paperback Edition, 2001: 221.
¹⁰⁵Kornfield, Jack. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. New York, NY: Bantom Trade Paperback Edition, 2001: 223.
¹⁰⁶Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 305.
¹⁰⁷Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: xxv.
¹⁰⁸Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: xvii.
¹⁰⁹Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: xxviii.
¹¹⁰Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: xxii.
¹¹¹Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: xxx.
¹¹²Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 183.
¹¹³Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 315.
¹¹⁴Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 315.
¹¹⁵Though Zarathustra says “God is dead,” and though Peterson might not like this this, practically they are similar, for Peterson’s “God” is at least not the God who Nietzsche’s madman laments.
¹¹⁶Nietzsche, Fredrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008: 68.
¹¹⁷Nietzsche, Fredrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008: 71.
¹¹⁸I read Nietzsche as a critique of “Bestow Centrism,” which again is expanded on in Abyssal Arrows, but for our purposes here it means Nietzsche is deconstructing “Big Others” (Lacan) — which problematically a teacher like Peterson can function as without deconstruction like we see in Zarathustra. However, we could argue that Peterson did undergo deconstruction between 2018–2020 during his wife’s canceR, and I don’t want to belittle that — we can just say that without Hegel’s A/B, we cannot finish the work of deconstruction and subjective destitution; we will fall back into some A/A.
¹¹⁹Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 316–317.
¹²⁰Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: 27.
¹²¹Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: 28.
¹²²Peterson in Religion is remarkably close to Absolute Knowing, and there are even suggestions that his thinking is more of “The Absolute” (Hegel) (“the truth is everything that is the case plus us”) than “The True” (Wittgenstein) (“the truth is everything that is the case”), a distinction I’ve spoken to Cadell about. Taken when he writes: ‘What if it was the case that the world revealed whatever goodness it contain[ed] in precise proportion to your desire for the best?’¹ I think this aligns with Hegel, my Conditionalism, or even Owen Barfield, so what’s wrong? Well, even if the ontology of Peterson is possibly Hegelian, without the logic of A/B, he “falls back.”
¹Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: 101.
¹²³Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 320.
¹²⁴Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: 43.
¹²⁵Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 246.
¹²⁶Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: 250.
¹²⁷Peterson, Jordan. 12 Rules for Life. Toronto, Canada: Random House Canada, 2018: 263.
¹²⁸Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 437.
¹²⁹Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 380.
¹³⁰Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 466.
¹³¹Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 502.
¹³²Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 473.
¹³³Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 382.
¹³⁴134Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 385.
¹³⁵Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 389.
¹³⁶Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 397.
¹³⁷Last, Cadell. Real Speculations. Philosophy Portal Books, 2025: 398.
¹³⁸Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 479.
¹³⁹Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 443.
¹⁴⁰Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 501.
¹⁴¹Christ is Beauty(/(order/chaos)) and of Holy Spirit(/(hero/dragon)) — at the time, as we need to remember (Plato).
¹⁴²Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 172.
¹⁴³Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 172.
¹⁴⁴Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 172.
¹⁴⁵Peterson, Jordan. We Who Wrestle With God. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2024: 504.
¹⁴⁶Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. Clinton, Mass: Yale University Press, 1952: 4–5.
¹⁴⁷Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. Clinton, Mass: Yale University Press, 1952: 27.
¹⁴⁸Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. Clinton, Mass: Yale University Press, 1952: 13.
¹⁴⁹Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. Clinton, Mass: Yale University Press, 1952: 85.
¹⁵⁰Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. Clinton, Mass: Yale University Press, 1952: 160.
¹⁵¹Tillich, Paul. My Search for Absolutes. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1967: 130.
¹⁵²Tillich, Paul. My Search for Absolutes. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1967: 132.
¹⁵³Tillich, Paul. Dynamics of Faith. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics Editions, 2001: 1.
¹⁵⁴Tillich, Paul. Dynamics of Faith. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics Editions, 2001: 5.
¹⁵⁵Tillich, Paul. Dynamics of Faith. New York, NY: First Perennial Classics Editions, 2001: 87.
¹⁵⁶It would require a lot more to justify, but I think both Tillich and Karl Barth (despite Tillich’s differences from Barth) end up in a similar place, which leads to trouble in the realm of sex. Last warns we should expect libidinal trouble where Absolute Knowing isn’t present, and I would say theology might be destined for such a mistake without how I understand Austin Farrer, who works to keep Reason and Revelation together through a defense of “the analogy of being.” Farrer tried to keep Aquinas and Farrer together, an effort that would have also helped Tillich.
¹⁵⁷Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. Clinton, Mass: Yale University Press, 1952: 172.
¹⁵⁸Fox, Richard. Reinhold Niebuhr. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985: 160.
¹⁵⁹Fox, Richard. Reinhold Niebuhr. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985: 257.
¹⁶⁰Fox, Richard. Reinhold Niebuhr. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985: 257.
¹⁶¹Fox, Richard. Reinhold Niebuhr. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985: 257.
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