Many blessings,
Dee

But I would never say that non-Scriptural words have no power to shape us. Think of those books that stick with us, think of the tapes we play in our minds, think of the pithy sayings our mothers told us that dictate how we treat people or spend our money or do our laundry or say our prayers. …..Just saying….

God chooses as one of the leading metaphors for himself, the Word.

And then, once so characterized, the Word is involved in creation, both in John and in Genesis. The speaking formed (rather than revealed) all of creation.

If, as Dorothy Sayers argues, being created in the image of God means that we are creative, and if, God is, among other things, the Word, then it follows at some level that words have a creative rather than just a reporting essence. We fall short, but there is in the languaging process, a divine spark.

And then think of how language forms our view of ourselves, how words spoken create identity. “Good morning beautiful,” spoken by a father to a daughter helps form a person who sees beauty not in externals. “You are an idiot”, said often, forms a different sort of character. “I know pronounce you husband and wife” is a speech act, acknowledged by us or socially agreed by us to form a union.

In rhetoric, my old field, we talked often about the epistomological nature of discourse. Does it create reality? Does it report on reality? Peterson’s words remind me of those conversations. He may be referencing that set of writing and research.

Some hints of what Peterson may be touching on.