We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine

“This is a discovery of unparalleled magnitude: the possibility of establishing a relationship with God by attending to conscience.”

Peterson identifies the “still small voice” of God, in the story of Elijah, as a moment of profound transformation in the relationship between humans and the divine. The story suggests that God can be accessed within the human person, thus becoming a source of moral change.

“Character is aim embodied, the habitual pursuit of aim.”

For Peterson, aim is what “gives the world its point” (xxix): People give order to the chaos of experience by viewing it in relation to a concrete aim. The steady pursuit of this aim over a lifetime is what Peterson calls character. The book is largely an analysis of these two concepts—constitutive elements of narrative—as depicted in the stories of the Bible.

“At every moment of consciousness, we are fated to wrestle with God.”

This is a statement of the book’s main thesis, reflected in its title. Peterson is drawing from the story of Jacob’s nighttime wrestling bout with a stranger, believed to be an angel or God himself, as depicted in the biblical book of Genesis. Peterson presents this story as an allegory for each individual’s lifelong struggle to live a good life by “wrestling” with the deepest moral questions.