How Does Jordan Peterson Treat a Covenant?

Jordan B. Peterson treats a covenant as a contract. People already exist in relationship to themselves, to the world, and to other people, and the monotheistic hypothesis adds a relationship to the unity at the highest pinnacle. The covenant is an agreement with that higher unity: the belief that leaving home in a mature way is the best pathway to future thriving.

A person's part of the deal is to get up, leave the zone of comfort, take risks, and develop character. The expected return is that fate will smile as far as it is able to, because undertaking the adventure of life raises the probability of that outcome. No one who is not perverse to the core teaches a child that doing their best is the quickest pathway to frustrating failure. Even after a very difficult life and sequential failure, sometimes merely from perverse fate, a parent still wants a child to believe that having the adventure of life and taking on the challenges in front of them is the best pathway forward.

The stance is a statement of faith and a contractual relationship with being itself, or with the spirit of being itself. It underlies the decision to move forward into the world. The same pattern returns in adult life when opportunities make themselves manifest, call, or torment the conscience, and offer a chance to shift aim and focus. Abraham's decision is his covenant with God.