Simplicity

The ancients made a virtue of simplicity. Traces of this remain even in this age of complexity; when a scientist or mathematician says a solution is 'elegant', it might mean 'symmetrical', 'solves more problems than it creates', or 'easily understood'. Most often, 'elegant' is 'simple' of sorts – lacking complexity of form while containing depth of meaning.

Theology is a simple discipline in any religious context; if the faith is beyond apprehension, or beyond the exercise of simple reason, it necessarily discriminates against the simple and casts doubts on its own claim to universality. Christianity, with its priesthood of believers, can make at least that claim; Science, in that sense, can also do that. If the theological or logical complexity is too great, the body of practice must be too arcane to be universal.

This is a fundamental paradox that strikes at the heart of claims to perfection. If a body of practice or belief is perfect, it must be accepted completely by everyone – the Baldur principle. If it is not, it is not yet perfect. On the other hand, if it is universally accepted by any possible measure and by every possible adherent, it becomes axiomatic – and thus is no longer a justified body of belief or practice, but part of the system by which other things are justified.

The consequence of this situation is that all religion is flawed, unless a specific case of religion can be shown to meet the test of universality. If it does, it is no longer religion, but axiom. The only way to resolve this is to begin with axioms. The first axiom of a religious universe cannot be, "There is a God." We have to begin at the simplest level, by assuming that things exist, and that causation is possible but not necessary for all things.

But if we do that, then there is no necessary conclusion. Which means that if we live in a religious universe, we either have to accept God-who-is-not-axiomatic, or leave logic out of it. It all leads me to believe that God is impugned by atheists for the simple reason that He cannot be dealt with in a comprehensive way. He's beyond comprehension of any sort (although not apprehension in all its myriad ways), which is either a cop-out, or the greatest truth of all.