The Lie of Simplicity

I recently shared with an e-mail list that I have been on for over ten years that I had finished my Master's Degree in Theology and Ethics. As I expected most were happy for me and just took the opportunity to express congratulatory sentiments and then went right back to arguing the hot topic of the day. Yet one member in particular used the occasion to proclaim her tired old talking point of simplicity. She did this by questioning whether or not I had or would allow my education with its fancy degrees and titles to corrupt my understanding of the simplicity of the gospel and scriptures.

Those of us who hang out in Restoration Movement circles hear this sort of "reasoning" often. It is understandable, really. Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone believed that the unity of Christian church had been compromised by church councils and their creeds. What was needed--no what was required--was a return to the simplicity of the Scriptures. To whatever degree they were correct about councils and creeds muddying up the waters, so to speak, can you see the problem in their approach? They went to the scriptures assuming simplicity. You usually find what you are looking for. This had a lot to do with the influence of Scottish Common Sense Realism, but that's a blog for another day. I just say it now, so you know I am not making this stuff up out of thin air.

A lot of the focus on simplicity was to blur or even erase the line between clergy and laity. You didn't need a degree in theology to understand the scriptures. Anyone could open the Bible, read it, and grasp its clear presentation of simple facts (the Bible as a collection of facts was distinctively a Campbell emphasis). In many ways they were right, of course. You didn't need a degree to understand the Bible, but it doesn't mean that you read it apart from any sophistication, nuance, or discipline. Yet, as with most well-meaning movements, out went the baby with the bathwater.

So, my list friend who used my recent academic achievement as her latest soap box to proclaim the gospel of simplicity got me to thinking. Is the word even in the Bible? Because if not, there is great irony in the simplicity advocates calling for a return to the simple reading of scripture, if simplicity itself is conspicuously absent from the Bible! I did a quick search on www.biblegateway.com with several versions and could not find even one form of the word simple (there might be synonyms or similar ideas, and I am not saying that the word doesn't exist in any modern English translation or that I know the Greek/Hebrew equivalents. I am just using this search for illustrative purposes).

Your level of education has little to do with your ability to read and comprehend scripture. However, the notion that the Bible is inherently simple is a myth not worthy of the God who inspired it. Discipline, training, practice, and reading in community with other believers are all aspects of successful Bible reading/study. One of the errors of Restoration Movement fathers was that in advocating the correct position that all could read scripture, they also unwittingly proliferated the rampant American individualism that survives today. We don't learn scripture best alone.

I suspect instead fear is part of what upholds this unbiblical notion of the simplicity of scriptures. We are afraid of what we don't understand. God doesn't fit into our box as well, if we can't simplify his revelation. We don't want the tensions produced by the doctrines of the incarnation, trinity, atonement, predestination/free will, etc. The very subject nature of the Bible precludes the very notion of simplicity. Yet, where mystery abounds, it should humble us and leave us in awe of God (cf. Rom. 11:33-36).