Dodging the God question. Jordan Peterson earlier this year.

Jordan Peterson is not known for being shy about his opinions. Yet “the most influential Biblical interpreter in the world today” is very coy about saying whether or not he believes in God.
“I don’t like the question” Peterson always replies when put on the spot, acknowledging that he is “obsessed with religious matters”. Several millions of people can attest to that, having watched his fascinating “The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories” YouTube series, which focuses on the book of Genesis. But when it comes to God’s existence, Peterson doesn’t want to declare his hand. Why? “I don’t know, exactly” he replies. “I act as if God exists and I am terrified that He might.” Some think Peterson is being deliberately shifty.
As a result of the professor’s engagement with religion, a full-length study on the question of him and God has been published: Jordan Peterson, God and Christianity: The Search for a Meaningful Life. In it, Christopher Kaczor and Matthew R. Petrusek, a couple of American academics, generously acknowledge all that he has done to draw out the psychological insights of Biblical narratives, while seeking to encourage him over the line, into what they think of as full-blown belief. Both admire Peterson, but just can’t quite get over the fact that he is unwilling — publicly, at least — to make what they take to be the ultimate declaration of faith. His faith, they say, is the sort of thing you might have “in the parking lot, outside the church” – as if he is nearly there, but not quite. You can sense their frustration throughout: is “acting as if God exists” enough to be counted as a believing Christian? Close, they think. But not close enough.
“In the end, the difference between ‘acting as if God exists’, which Peterson says he does, and ‘believing in God and acting accordingly’, which Peterson says he is not ready to do, may seem inconsequential. Yet the difference between the two is as vast and relevant as the difference between reading a great love story and falling in love yourself.”
What is at stake here, though, is something more than wanting to sign Peterson up as a proper member of team Christianity. What is at stake is deciphering what we mean by really believing. And here, even as a priest, I am much more in the Peterson camp. Unlike the authors of this book, I am really not that bothered by Peterson’s apparently indeterminate status.
I remember a terrible moment on the first night at theological college in Oxford. I had unpacked my trunk ready for three years of training to be a priest. I lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and a terrible thought struck me: did I really believe in all this stuff? Was I now writing the cheques of religious commitment that I didn’t have the intellectual recourses to cash? In other words: was I a fraud?
After a quarter of a century as a priest, I still don’t have a satisfactory answer to this question. And after a great deal of soul-searching on the matter, I have come to a similar conclusion to Peterson: there’s something wrong with the question.
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