8 - 3 - 17 Why Can't it just be Simple?

Jesus speaks always in parables. I think there could be many reasons for this, it is the way prophets traditionally speak, they traditionally speak that way out of fear of those in power, and I think He intended us to think a little bit, to put some effort into interpretation.

There is a response to complexity, especially among people inexperienced or uninterested in the field, that recoils in anger. They demand why such a thing is not simple. If it were a matter of no importance why could it not be simple, as the details of an unimportant thing are less important still? If it is a matter of great spiritual importance they demand why a God who loves simplicity should make something so complicated. Nay, they argue. He did not make it that way! Religion is just a human invention about God!

While I suppose it is true that Jesus did not lay out the hierarchy of the Church or elaborate extensively on such theological issues as were explored by Aquinas and More, which was probably intended since it gave these great minds an opportunity to contribute to the faith, he did appoint the Catholic Church’s first pope. He did personally teach the founders of the early church, short of Him living as a human forever I don’t see what these people could want. Surely, if God is going to live a mortal life it makes the most sense for him to be the founder of his Church, not pop up somewhere in the middle. And you can’t be upset that he isn’t still around directing the church in corporeal form because He clearly didn’t intend to.

The other problem I have with this argument is the way people assume God has a love of simplicity for its own sake. I do think simplicity is beautiful, much in the same way as symmetry. It is a certain way of being that we find visually pleasing and conceptually comforting. I think there are some very simple and powerful things we need to accept in our faith, like God’s eternal love for us. Certain tenets of the faith are hard to be reasoned into believing through complex arguments, that is why they are tenets of a faith.

But wasn’t the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection a terribly complicated way of saving mankind? I am not here saying it was necessary or unnecessary, I couldn’t know that for another eighty or ninety years and I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t find out then. But if our God was really one who prized simplicity so highly as some people claim, would it take the longest book some people will ever read, for those of us who do venture to read the whole thing (I have not yet), to explain Himself to us? If he was really simple shouldn’t we need a pamphlet? A brochure?

This fear of complexity and of mental effort comes out in another way. It’s a problem I frequently have with my mother. (Sorry mom) Rather than attempting to examine cases and determine an opinion on an issue people will say, “There are too many factors, I cannot begin to know.” Well with that attitude they are surely right. But how is anything to be known then? God rarely hands us down inscribed tablets and the words of Jesus could only be directly and literally applied to very few scenarios. How on earth are we supposed to reach decisions in our life besides diving into complex issues and attempting to sort them out?

People often think that when they say this they are being humble. This is no humility at all. Humility would require the effort. Humility would be fully engaging in the exploration of what we believe to be God’s will, and then, after we have reached our own conclusion (or at least educated ourselves to some extent) say that we could still be wrong. To demean your own ability is not humility. It is an insult to God as you are insulting his handiwork. As surely as to insult a table is to insult its carpenter. As Lewis said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” It’s less a self-deprecation than it is a divine lack of self-interest.

I think many people who belong to the church, or a church as I see this to be true among those who are not Catholic as well, have a great degree of laziness in their spirituality. They do not think of their faith as something to be studied like literature or science. But how we would know how to build a combustion engine without learning the chemical and physical properties of gasoline? How could we sniff out the cultural commentary of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables without knowing something of his life and times? And how on earth do we expect to decipher God’s will for us in our own lives when we spend one hour a week half listening to three readings and a sermon?

I think a misunderstanding of religion allows this error. As it is, in many ways, not like a school subject people don’t think of it as something to be studied. But the reason it is not like a school subject is not that we cannot learn more of it, it is that it is infinitely more important and real than chemistry or political science.