Reading Notes: We Who Wrestle with God, Part 1

We Who Wrestle with God

By Jordan Peterson

First, some primer on what I am attempting here, and why. Then, disclaiming my own spiritual ‘path’. Finally, my notes from Jordan Peterson’s most recent book We Who Wrestle with God, and journaling prompts inspired by the notes. 

Quotes directly from the book are italicized throughout the text.

Books mean a lot to me. So much so that I take extensive notes while reading every morning, and this year (2025), I am going to focus on re-reading, and expanding on my notes. The intent here is to build a body of coherent lessons from my favorite books that I can refer to, and that I can share. It’s probably cheesy, maybe even embarrassing, but I love quotes and passages. I have found so many heavy, impactful, meaningful lessons in books, and I assume you are like me in that most of them don’t stick in your mind forever. In fact, if I were to attempt a detailed retelling of most of the books I’ve read - fiction and non-fiction - the lack of detail I’d be able to recount would be pathetic! If you haven’t experienced this first hand, I encourage you to go back to a favorite book that you haven’t read in a while, and re-read it. It will truly feel like reading it for the first time, even as you remember things along the way. 

So, I take notes. I’ve saved and organized a fair body of work from my favorite books, but it’s time to get serious in sharing the notes.

I recently read Jordan Peterson’s newest book, We Who Wrestle with God. It is so unbelievably dense, making for a slow read, and with LOTS of notes. This is a good thing.

I loved this book! The life lessons, hard truths, and human insights are non-stop. The detail is there, as Peterson gets specific with frequent biblical reference, as well as citations from Jung, Dostoevsky, etc. It won’t be for everyone, as it is fairly heavy in its Christianity as a foundation for guidance, but if you are open to metaphor and allegory, it’s really not too evangelical, and is quite tolerable. 

In fact, I will qualify that statement above in stating that I myself am not a Christian in the modern ‘definitive’ way. But perhaps I am from Peterson’s perspective. When I say not in the modern way - I mean a typical Evangelical, Catholic, or even Protestant mould that acutely defines and praises Jesus as the central idol of worship. It is too literal for me, too limited to the New Testament (more on that later), and often too vague. How can something be too literal and too vague at the same time? In my experience, the ‘modern’ Christian ethos takes scripture literally at face value (Jesus is Lord, we worship him as our treasure), and then stops before exploring the true meaning of the text - and profound meaning at that. Modern Christianity as I have experienced it does not play in metaphor, or even in an interesting place of interpreting the biblical corpus as fiction. 

Peterson addresses this early in We Who Wrestle with God (at least as I read and remember it). Fiction is the greatest lever for delivering truth that humans have ever known: stories, metaphors,  and tales of inspiration. Fiction is where we imagine and bring to life the greatest characters ever known - the characters that conjure imaginations, define childhoods, and motivate the pursuit of dreams. Typically - certainly from my experience - fictional characters would be the well-known literary and/or pop-culture staples of our collective education and consumption. Superheroes, villains, folktale adventurers, coming-of-age youths, romantic sojourners, protagonists (and antagonists), and generally speaking the fictional ‘best’ versions of men and women that we end up idolizing. For me, these characters were Superman, Aragorn, Harry Potter, Maximus, Gandalf, Alyosha Karamozov, John Grady Cole, Gus McRae, Rand Al-thor, Paul Atreides, Luke Skywalker, Ezio Auditore, hell…Link from Zelda, James Kirk and Spock, and so many more.

There are other ‘heroes’, massive literary figures, missing from this list, however. I never would have included them on this list, until reading We Who Wrestle with God. That would be Jesus Christ, and his Old Testament pals Cain and Abel, Noah, Jacob, Jonah, Moses, etc. Back to Peterson addressing this whole idea - the Bible is in fact the greatest story ever told. The hardest-hitting tale of metaphor. The most epic of adventures. And most importantly, the brightest guiding light of truth and inspiration the world has ever known.

And here begins the uncomfortable and possibly-cringey religious language that I warned about, but stick with me! I am not talking about the literal-but-vague ‘churchspeak’ that is not properly explored or questioned - the very doctrine that caused an aversion to religion in so many youths (yours truly). Rather, I am talking about a nuanced, mature, and open-minded interpretation of the Bible as a story to be read, learned from, and enjoyed just like every amazing work of fiction the characters I listed above came from. And maybe, just maybe, this story came from a divine spirit far beyond and above the human soul.

Peterson does such an amazing job walking through the Bible and precisely hitting the content and lessons that show and tell us how we might live well. That’s what I will discuss here. There are so many excellent ways to interpret and distill these lessons, and none of them require blind surface-level membership of Christianity.

They may, however, cause you to consider what it really means to be a Christian, and that might be exciting. From reading this book, and listening to Peterson talk over the years, here is my current takeaway regarding what is means to be a real Christian: it means to embody Jesus by following his teachings, and by following him to death with a cross on your back. 

Wait, what?

First part of the sentence: there are a lot of awesome, simple teachings from Jesus in the Bible (I think - I don’t know them all and maybe some are not so great). But let’s assume that little things like ‘love thy neighbor’ are great pieces of advice.

But it’s the second part of my definition above that gets interesting. Follow Jesus to death with the cross on your back. Remember…metaphor. This means to shoulder responsibility - burden - and lead others uphill, no matter what. It means it’s going to hurt, literally, and that everyone is going to see you. But they have to see you to follow you, and to be inspired by you. It means sacrificing selfish impulses and desires and to put the needs of others before yours. It means facing adult obligations and taking them on before relaxing and seeking pleasure. It means choosing the difficult path, and walking it with a heavy load, and not stopping, even in the face of death. It means telling the truth, no matter what. That means telling the truth to yourself, deep inside your own mind and heart, and soul. Perhaps this is what it means to be a Christian. Does that mean you ‘believe in God’? I don’t know - but to quote Peterson, ‘maybe it means you act as if you do’. 

And what does that mean, to act like a Christian, and to really believe? According to JBP, ‘to believe is to commit to, to sacrifice everything to, to be voluntarily possessed by. True belief is the ultimate relationship with the aim of that belief.’

Yet still, I yearn for specificity, for realistic translation, and even prescription. What does this mean today? How do I distill these maxims into the actions of my life? These are some of the foundational questions I struggle with and that Peterson poses. I don’t have the answers, and the ones I am grasping at are quite specific to me. Back to the beginning of this document, my notes and reflective exercise while reading. Seeking the answers to foundational questions of guidance and fulfillment is one iteration of seeking the truth, and that is what I am aiming at.

So following this section are my notes, edited, revised, and organized (somewhat) thematically. I tried to retain verbatim accuracy of passages taken directly from the book, with my unbracketed commentary in between. As I took the notes, I often found myself stepping away from the translational effort, and taking more personal efforts to apply them to my life. You will see some of those questions and prompts throughout the notes. Finally, following the main body will be an appendix of ‘journaling prompts’ taken directly from the book, and from similar text and ideas. 

Final note on what to ‘do’ with these notes and questions. I believe it’s effective to simply write out answers and thoughts inspired by the material, even if quickly and in a disorganized fashion. I also believe one should make a more formal attempt at writing coherent responses to the questions. But finally, and perhaps most interestingly, would be the attempt to contend directly with the Logos. This was, for example, what Socrates felt to be the most effective attempt at intellectual discovery and growth. As I take it from Socrates, from the main body below, and from similar work by James Hollis, what this means to me is to meditate and pray in a truly focused state where an actual dialogue between you and your soul comes to be. As you will find, the Logos, the truth, God Himself is within you and your heart. Your psyche, your soul, has formed an ancestral covenant with God, the Logos, that which is True, and it is only that you must find the space to hear the call and act accordingly. This means to clear our the clutter of your heart and align with the central meaning and destiny of your life. Sit, focus, think, ask, and listen.