Defeat Happens. What Will You Do Next?
Jordan Peterson's failure and C.S. Lewis's lost debate at Oxford
“Like the old fangless snake in The Jungle Book, I’ve largely lost my dialectical power” - C.S. Lewis (1949)
Something quite bad just happened to Jordan Peterson. The divisive academic and author of multiple books on self-improvement and comparative philosophy appeared on the megasized Jubilee YouTube channel to do the show, Surrounded. In this debate program, one person faces down 20 opponents and must survive their questioning in rapid-fire succession.
It is challenging in one sense, and easy in another. The very fact of the rapid-fire format and your opposition having to make frenzied cases against you means that there is little time to truly pin down the subject in the middle of the room. Peterson, like anyone in that chair, can bat people off and move from one combatant to the next if the audience gets bored.
Still, Peterson collapsed. His task was to debate 20 atheists, but the much-publicized problem is that Peterson has not publicly announced a religious conversion of any kind. He’s embraced the cold arms of “cultural Christianity”, a timid belief that holds up Christian belief as useful for society, but will not endorse it as a matter of Truth.
“What do you mean by ‘believe’?” asks Peterson when questioned directly about whether or not he believes in God. This went on for over an hour. As of today, it has been viewed 6 million times on YouTube, and the reviews from usual Peterson allies are brutal. Many are embarrassed to have ever stood up for him.
Why am I telling you about this? Well, it’s not because I assume you favor Jordan Peterson or that you have strong opinions about this debate he half-showed up for. Rather, I’m telling you about this because Peterson isn’t the first high-profile public intellectual to crash and burn in public, nor will he be the last.
It could happen to any of on stages of varying size. Maybe some of you have thousands of eyeballs on you, judging your every word. Others might just have children watching them and taking notes on each word and deed.
We will all fail to different degrees, and it will almost always be embarrassing.
C.S. Lewis comes up a lot on Geeky Stoics. He’s one of our north stars, a lover of fantasy and purveyor of philosophy. Lewis’s life story is a constant point of reference for lessons on wisdom and good living.
He had a disastrous public debate also, one that some say nearly crushed his spirit and drove him from public life as the world’s most beloved Christian apologist.
In February 1948, C.S. Lewis, the celebrated Christian apologist and author, engaged in a public debate with budding philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe at the Oxford Socratic Club, a forum Lewis co-founded to discuss big issues of the day. This debate centered on Lewis's argument from his book Miracles (1947), specifically Chapter 3, where he claimed that naturalism (the view that everything arises from natural causes and laws) is self-refuting because it undermines the validity of human reasoning.
has a deep dive into this chapter if you want to go down the full rabbit hole….
Anscombe challenged Lewis head-on. She contended that Lewis's critique misunderstood the nature of reasoning and causation. She also pointed out ambiguities in Lewis’s use of terms like “reason” and “cause,” exposing logical weaknesses in his formulation.
The debate was intense and technical. Lewis struggled to respond effectively.
Many in attendance, including Lewis’s friends, felt that Anscombe had the upper hand, with her arguments being sharper and more rigorous. Some accounts, like A.N. Wilson’s biography of Lewis, describe him as being deeply shaken, even humiliated, by the encounter. Other biographies suggest Lewis was not as shaken up about it as his critics suggested.
Doesn’t really matter….
What did Lewis do after this debate? That’s what matters.
He revised the relevant chapter in Miracles for its 1960 edition, clarifying his argument to address Anscombe’s points, though he didn’t abandon his core position. There is a myth that C.S. Lewis retreated from all his views after the debate. That is not true, but he did do serious reflection on what happened.
Jordan Peterson has yet to respond to all the discussion surrounding his Jubilee appearance. Perhaps he never will. I for one hope that he does speak about it, and even tries to grapple publicly with what happened.
It is clear that Peterson is at another inflection point of his career, and he is struggling publicly to articulate his own views on subjects he once spoke very clearly about. Maybe that’s a byproduct of inching closer to faith by deep study of the Gospels and Old Testament, or maybe it’s because he is just as lost as ever.
What I love about this part of the C.S. Lewis story, as told by biographer Alister McGrath, is that the best was yet to come for Lewis. Narnia was in development…The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) was on the way.
The late 1940s were the downturn of Lewis’s bright star in the world. His home life was falling into chaos, his brother had descended into alcoholism, and at Oxford, Lewis was becoming public enemy #1. The university was passing over him for top jobs, certainly because of his popular success beyond the scope of secular academia. Lewis declined to appear on the BBC for a debate on religious faith, saying that he “had lost” his “dialectical power,” like the old fangless snake in The Jungle Book.
But Lewis did come roaring back. It took humility, patience, and faith.
The Wardrobe was about to open for him. It may soon open for you. Be ready.
I have wondered at Peterson's discomfort in committing to Christianity for years now. Though im not sure I have enough information to do so well, I find myself psychoanalysing him from afar, trying to work out what the hurdles are he is unwilling or unable to vault. Another quote from Lewis, from Miracles, came to my attention today that strikes me as likely one of those reasons Peterson resists commitment to Jesus.
"Supposing We Really Found Him? It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. ‘Look out!’ we cry, ‘it’s alive’. And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back—I would have done so myself if I could—and proceed no further with Christianity. An ‘impersonal God’—well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads—better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap—best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband—that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God!’) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?"
Before this debacle on Jubilee, I read many times individuals commenting on Peterson walking closer to Christianity, saying something to the effect of, "the hounds of heaven are after him". As if Jesus is relentlessly pursuing Peterson, and it was only a matter of time until he caught up and captured him. But Christ is a gentlemen, he forces no man into the faith. And so, perhaps Peterson felt those "hounds of heaven" nipping at his heels, and has been spooked away, back into his intellectual turtle shell.
I still pray for him. But there is clearly some degree of intellectual pride, or self reliance, that must be sacrificed upon the altar to God before JP is welcomed into the Church.