This past week, a new self-help book came out.
Now, that itself is not news. A new self help book comes out every week. One might as well say they saw a Starbucks in Seattle or a marijuana dispensary in Colorado. No biggie.
This particular self-help book, however, has my attention because the author is none other than Dr. Jordan Peterson.
I've been following Peterson for a while now, ever since he rose to internet fame for his opposition to Canada's Bill C-16. He's a renown clinical psychologist, a vocal proponent of free speech, and just an all around brilliant mind. It's nigh impossible to listen to him for just a couple of minutes without learning something, and for millions of young millennial and Generation Z males he's something of a father figure (and a much needed one at that).
He may also be one of the best ambassadors of Christianity to our modern culture, which is ironic because he's not a Christian (not yet, at least).
Anyway, the book in question is entitled 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, and it's currently the #1 top selling book on Amazon. It's also a book that, in full disclosure, I've not yet read. So, despite how enormously presumptuous it would be for me to write about a book I've not actually read, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
Actually, what I want to do is interact a little with one of the concepts that I understand Peterson talks about therein: The logos.
The logos, as many of my readers likely already know, is what Jesus is referred to as in the opening lines of John's gospel. "In the beginning was the word (the logos), and the word was with God, and the word was God." John uses this as an appeal to Greek philosophy. The logos is reason. But more than that, it is reason made real. It is the coherent logic that gives shape and meaning to the world. It is what takes chaos and makes it into order.
It is, in essence, the spoken truth.
Christ is the logos.
And as Peterson rightfully points out, the Bible is the story of the logos.
In the beginning, God speaks creation into being. By His words, chaos is shaped into order. The night it separated from the day, the land is distinguished from the sea, and life is brought into being according to its various kinds.
In the end, chaos is put into final order. "The Word of God" comes riding in on a white horse, eyes of fire, enacting justice by the sword protruding from his mouth. The sea - the tumultuous nature of the world as we know it - is no more.
But in between these two events, something curious happens.
The logos, spoken truth itself, comes down to the earth.
And it doesn't just come down as you'd expect: Not as a lord ruling over his domain or a god demanding worship or anything remotely resembling that which created the universe we know from unimaginable chaos. But as a child. A baby, even. And one of lowly birth at that.
I've heard Peterson say that 12 Lessons for Life could be summarized in three points:
- Confront chaos voluntarily
- Establish and revivify order
- Constrain malevolence
In no place can this be more clearly seen than in Christ himself. A baby is the epitome of chaotic potential. That the logos, the one who shapes order from chaos, would become a baby is the height of irony. But, at the same time, how could it make any more sense? We are offered a front row seat to the ultimate transformation. That little bundle of chaos grows, learns, and develops into the great sculptor of order.
And that's a good thing, because that's exactly what we are created to do.
That's part of what it means to be made in the image of God. We are to become beings that, through speaking the truth, shape chaos into order.
What else is science? What else is math? What else is art if not this? The height of human ingenuity is to find the truth and express it so that it shapes the world around us for the better.
How fitting, then, that we are called to worship Him. After all, we become like what we beholden to. If you put Kim Kardashian on a pedestal, you'll get a big butt and post inappropriate pictures to Instagram. If you value money above all, you'll grow wrinkly and green. But if your eyes are fixed on Jesus, you'll become a speaker of truth and a shaper of order. You will mold your life around truth - the Truth - and become a blessing to all around you. It is the natural, inevitable outcome. If you love Jesus, you will be a force to be reckoned with, and the world will be better for it.
Of course, if this is true, then it's a little misleading to say that Christ is an antidote to chaos. Or even a better antidote to chaos. Rather, if he is the logos, then Jesus is the only antidote to chaos.
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’” - John 14:6-7