Jordan Peterson on The argument from miracles
Peterson interprets miracle accounts as psychologically and symbolically true without committing to their historical or metaphysical reality.
Jordan Peterson's treatment of miracles is perhaps the most characteristic example of his distinctive approach to religious claims. When pressed on whether he believes in the literal resurrection of Jesus, Peterson has famously refused to give a straightforward answer, saying that the question is more complex than a simple yes or no allows. He treats the resurrection narrative as a profound symbolic truth about the capacity of the individual to confront chaos, undergo death, and be reborn — regardless of whether a corpse walked out of a tomb in first-century Palestine.
This approach frustrates both atheists and traditional believers. Atheists like Sam Harris have pressed Peterson to simply state whether he thinks miracles actually happen, and Peterson consistently deflects: the question, he insists, is not whether something happened historically but what it means that human beings across cultures tell stories of death and resurrection. The archetypal pattern, for Peterson, is more real than any particular historical event.
Peterson's position is rooted in his reading of Jung, Eliade, and Dostoevsky. Miracles, in his framework, are eruptions of the transcendent into ordinary experience — moments when the archetypal structure of reality becomes visible. Whether this constitutes a defence of miracles or a sophisticated way of avoiding the question depends entirely on one's philosophical commitments.
“I need to think about that for about another forty years before I would even venture an answer.”