Hello, everyone.

I’m working on my next big blog post, which will be titled “What Is God?” — so the profundity of that question might give you a sense of why it’s taking me so long to finish it (I also just haven’t had much free time because I’ve been so busy with work).

I was watching a video on YouTube today, a compilation of Jordan Peterson talking about God and faith, and there was a long quote from him that I found very striking in its truthfulness. For several months now, my spiritual life has been a mess, and I’ve really been struggling to feel worthy of calling myself a follower of Christ, because I know how badly I’ve been failing at it. Because of this, Jordan’s words here touched me deeply, and I feel as though it’s going to help me refocus myself and get out of this spiritual rut, so I wanted to share it with you, too. Jordan isn’t an official member of the Church (at least not yet), but much of what he’s saying here is actually very Catholic.

“Who would have the audacity to claim that they believed in God if they examined the way that they lived?

Who would dare say that?

This is why Nietzsche said there was only ever one Christian, and that was Christ. To believe, to actually believe, means to live it out fully — and that’s an unbearable task in some sense.

To be able to accept the structure of existence, the suffering that goes along with it, and the disappointment, and the betrayal, and to nonetheless act properly, to aim at the good with all your heart, to dispense with the malevolence inside of you and your desire for destruction and revenge and all of that, and to face things courageously and to tell the truth, to speak the truth and to act it out…

That’s what it means to believe.

That’s what it means.

It doesn’t mean to state it; it means to act it out.

And unless you act it out, you should be very careful about claiming to believe it.

And so I’ve never been comfortable saying anything other than, “I try to act as if God exists,” because God only knows what you’d be if you truly believed.

If you think about it, in some sense that’s the central idea in Christianity, that if you were capable of believing, it would be a truly transfiguring event. And I know people experience that to one degree or another, but we have no idea what the limit of that is.

We have no idea what the possibility is within each person if they lived a life that was maximally courageous and maximally truthful.

Maybe you’re running at 60% or 70% or 20% and at cross-purposes to yourself.

God only knows what you’d be if you truly believed.

And so I try to act like I believe, but I’d never claim that I manage it.”

I’ve been very focused on understanding truth, on making intellectual sense of the Catholic faith, and I have learned so much and come so far in this regard over the last few years. But my actions seem to be lagging behind. While it’s undeniable that my newfound belief in God and in the truth of the doctrines of Catholicism has changed my behavior, it hasn’t changed it enough, and I see that, and it hurts. Not only because I feel like I’m failing, but because it means that my actions aren’t in alignment with what I know and believe — as Jordan said, I’m at cross-purposes with myself.

But his words here have renewed my hope, not only because they’ve reminded me that I’m not alone in feeling this way, but because they’ve clarified the problem for me. Learning more or understanding more isn’t the answer right now; rather, I need to refocus on my actions, on living a Christian life — on aligning my behavior with my beliefs.

In short: I need to put down my theology books, and pick up my rosary.

God is not just some enigma for us to contemplate, though He certainly is that. God is a Person, and not just any person, but our Creator — our Father, in the most profound sense possible. This means that we need to have an actual relationship with Him, not just study Him. What this looks like in practice is something that the Church helps us to understand — especially through the Saints — and something that I’ll write more about in the future.

For now, I hope that you’ve found what I’ve shared here helpful in some small way.

And if you would, please pray for me; I will certainly be praying for you.

God love you.