So since last year, I've received many emails probing the question of symbolism and its relation to the Christian's insistence on the historical existence of Christ.

Just last week, I was sent something which summed up much of the issue, and so I'd like to read the main parts of this letter that I received last week,

and then I'll try to answer some of its concerns.

This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world.

Okay. So, I'm 20 years old, and I spent all of my grade school years at a fundamentalist evangelical Christian private school in Fort Worth, Texas. There, I was educated and immersed

in a deeply conservative theological tradition. However, after I graduated, I began to doubt my faith and

progressively adopted a rationalist, positivist worldview and became an atheist. I have been an

atheist for a little over a year. I had been an atheist for a little over a year when I came

across Dr. Peterson's lecture videos,

and with those, your videos.

Dr. Peterson's perspective opened my eyes to a very different essential conception of religion

from the one that I grew up with,

and helped me rediscover a sense of meaning and purpose in my life

after wandering aimlessly as an atheist.

I have begun reading other great thinkers to help further my newly developing understanding

of religion and Christianity, like Carl Jung and William James.

Here is where my problem begins.

I would now say that I certainly believe in God, an objective morality.

I would also say that I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the source of salvation.

But I think perhaps that this is true in a symbolic sense, rather than in a physical, literal, historical sense.

More and more I am convinced that the symbolic reality actually points to the truest reality,

but this conception is difficult to square with the way that most people interpret Christianity.

...