At the heart of the book is the thesis that human beings understand reality through storytelling. Peterson states, “[T]he world has to be filtered through the mechanism of story to become comprehensible or even apprehensible” (xxv). This is because stories provide “aim and character” (xxv), key qualities that help us navigate life’s difficulties. Peterson goes further to argue that reality is not simply represented to us as a story but actually is a story.

Peterson signals his interest in narrative even in the title of the book’s Preface, which he calls “Foreshadowing”—a term borrowed from the study of narrative—rather than the “foreword” more typically found in works of nonfiction. In this “Foreshadowing,” Peterson sketches the story of the biblical prophet Elijah, presenting this story as a template for the kind of life that he believes his readers should aspire to: one rooted in the narrative elements of aim and character. 

Peterson’s interest in storytelling is contiguous with his interest in The Interplay of Chaos and Order—a central theme not just of this book but of Peterson’s entire body of work. In his view, storytelling is the only effective means of bringing order to the chaos of experience. The material world offers “an infinite plethora of facts […] one fact per phenomenon, perhaps, and more—a fact not only for every phenomenon but for all their possible combinations” (xxv). To make sense of the dizzying array of reality, one needs an organizing principle, and for Peterson, such principles are found in story, particularly in aim and character as defining elements of story. 

The story of Elijah exemplifies this ordering function. The people of Israel under King Ahab have returned to pagan religious practices, worshipping an array of gods. Elijah redirects them toward Yahweh, presented in the Bible as the one true God. In Peterson’s reading of this story, the people have become lost in the disorienting abundance of phenomena, symbolized by the presence of a separate god for every phenomenon—Baal for the rain, for example—and Elijah reminds them that the chaotic diversity of reality makes sense only when viewed in relation to a single core truth.  

Each of the biblical stories described in We Who Wrestle With God presents storytelling as the foundation of consciousness. In the story of Abraham, Peterson finds an archetype of the journey into the unknown—a journey that each individual must undertake in maturing from childhood into adulthood. In the story of Jonah, he finds an allegory of reconciliation and redemption, a restoration of both individual and collective consciousness. Jonah forgets his obligation to God and finds himself entombed in the belly of the whale. When he remembers this obligation through contrition and prayer, he is returned to the living world to continue his work.