Is Catholicism too complex?

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I heard a Protestant pastor this morning say" The most important thing is your relationship with God. Just work on that and everything else will fall into place."
Too simplistic? Sometimes I think they have a point. That is the most important thing, to my way of thinking.
I can see the advantages of keeping it simple for parishioners.
 
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Is Catholicism too complex?
goodcatholic said:
I heard a Protestant pastor this morning say" The most important thing is your relationship with God. Just work on that and everything else will fall into place."

Too simplistic? Sometimes I think they have a point. That is the most important thing, to my way of thinking.

I can see the advantages of keeping it simple for parishioners
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If you think Catholicism is “too complex” you’d never make it as a Jew with their 613 Laws [God gave them 10 and they just kinda grew. Not saying their “bad” just pointing out Religion is complex Because GOD is Complex. Amen
 
It’s simple but complex at the same time.

You can go deep or lightly tread. It’s not very difficult to understand the necessary.

Sort of how our rules are to love God and our neighbor, but look at all our canon law. Simple and complex.
 
If you have a Catholic who is doing lots of good works but has little or no prayer life, what do you have? A non-Christian, to my way of thinking.
 
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goodcatholic said:
I heard a Protestant pastor this morning say" The most important thing is your relationship with God. Just work on that and everything else will fall into place."
Too simplistic? Sometimes I think they have a point. That is the most important thing, to my way of thinking.
I can see the advantages of keeping it simple for parishioners.
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Everything else will fall into place?? Really. Guess you are not too familiar with the hundreds of different interpretations of a single element of Christ’s words that are rampant in the world of Protestantism. Just look at the divergence of “opinions” that are extant in Protestantism as to Jesus’ words, “What God has joined together, no man may divide.” And that is just for starters.

Read the words and actions of Jesus in the four gospels. He seems contradictory at times in relation to a particular idea or situation. Trying to boil down those conundrums into something one or two sentences being simple is not possible. The Holy Spirit guides that church in our “deposit of faith.” We have one unified teaching on a particular subject or teaching, not hundreds depending on the whims of the speaker. Now that’s simple!
 
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joeybaggz said:
Everything else will fall into place?? Really. Guess you are not too familiar with the hundreds of different interpretations of a single element of Christ’s words that are rampant in the world of Protestantism. Just look at the divergence of “opinions” that are extant in Protestantism as to Jesus’ words, “What God has joined together, no man may divide.” And that is just for starters.
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I know the protestants get it wrong. But I’m suggesting that Catholics may have their priorities out of order. Relationship with Jesus should always come first.
 
Oh, I grew up as a boy in the pre-Vatican II era. Mass was in Latin and you’d see dozens of people at Mass saying a rosary or some other novena or devotion and not really paying attention to the mass itself. If something like that is what you are referring to as disordered priorities, I agree. The thing about the RCC though is there are many paths that lead to Jesus that protestants do not recognize. Some Catholics find Jesus through Mary, some through the saints, some through various devotions, some through Latin Mass, some through OF. Some through theological study, some through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. But all lead to one goal. Jesus.
That idea of many diverse paths that lead to the same objective might be what seems like “out of whack” priorities. That however, is the nature of the RCC. I guess it is like, what makes a good Thanksgiving Dinner. Go to a dozen households, and you’ll probably get a dozen answers. But in the end, it’s all good.
 
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Computer science is extremely complex, yet ordinary people can use computers.

People only have to understand the basic doctrines of the faith and the obligations of their state in life. Obviously though, we need experts to exist in both cases.
 
Since being on CAF, I always think I’m not smart and/or educated enough to be a Catholic. It seems you need a doctorate in theology, philosophy, church history and canon law in order to understand it. It’s too complex for an ordinary person like me, who doesn’t even have a college degree. No, I have not read Aquinas nor am I capable of doing so. So what about folk like me?

One thing I love about the Orthodox (and many Protestant churches) is the teachings are understandable to a simple person and you can keep it simple and get close to God and be holy or you can go deep into the teachings without becoming a catechism or law book.

Of course there are the very holy saints, e.g. St. Therese the Little Flower who are Catholic and deep yet easy to understand.

Of course, this is only how I – one person – experiences it. (Please do not bully me or mock me for it!)
 
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Of course, if a bunch of uninformed people were to decide that they didn’t need the aid of experts, and try to build computers on a sola Maxwell’s Equations basis, we’d probably see something analogous to Protestantism in terms of usefulness.
 
See my analogy to computer science. Ordinary people only need basic knowledge of how to use a computer, but they need experts to exist.
 
So only educated, elite and superior people are capable of understanding Catholicism and getting close to God? That’s what God requires?

Well then, I guess I not good enough?
 
goodcatholic said:
I know the protestants get it wrong. But I’m suggesting that Catholics may have their priorities out of order. Relationship with Jesus should always come first.
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Can you be more specific. You have a general accusation of superficiality against Catholics that could be applied to most anyone.
 
No, no no and no. I guess (the way I see it) all those fancy stuff are kinda like sprinkles on a cake. The “basics” are the actual cake. A ton of things can help a person add those sprinkles into their relationship with God if you wanna put it that way. Some people add extra taste via reading and studying stuff like church history but the Lord I am sure doesn’t think you aren’t good enough and has not given us a revelation that is impossible to understand. Catholicism isn’t filled with too many mathematical proofs like some calculus textbook. If you don’t have time/don’t understand Aquinas’s section on the angels you can just read church doctrine on it and take it as fact. The core of Catholic teaching is pretty simple and everything else is just kind of like commentary on said core. I don’t know your case but at our parish our priest puts a ton of emphasis on having a relationship with God. Scholasticism is a virtue developed by Catholic culture, not something meant to make you feel inferior. Also out of curiosity what threads have made you feel such? Relax 🙂

PS Orthodox and Protestants are easier to undertand? Don’t know about Prots but I come from an EO country and trust me, although there’s lesser quantity of it EO mysticism is harder to get due to lack of a nice structure that CC has (I tried to read one article on death once and my head got spinning) I find it fun you feel drawn to EO and I to Catholicism but you can try EC if you like Eastern spirituality
Best wishes and prayers 🙂
 
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TigerLily-1 said:
So only educated, elite and superior people are capable of understanding Catholicism and getting close to God? That’s what God requires?
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Not at all. Simple people can have very fruitful spiritual lives. All I said was that it is necessary that experts exist, otherwise you end up with Protestantism, where there is no coherent doctrine of the faith.
 
The way I see it is this.
There is a smart phone and there is a non-smart phone.
Now only few of us would know the the complex electronics behind it, some of us use the smart features but there might be a lot of us who uses it to make calls only.
So the smart phone caters for everyone. You can make it as simple or as complex you want. But you are limited in the other version.
 
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I do put Jesus first and prioritize my relationship with him. That’s why I’m part of His Church.
 
Yes, I think that is true, “The most important thing is your relationship with God. Just work on that and everything else will fall into place.” But how does one get there? We arrive at that rightly ordered and intimate relationship with God by way of the Church that Jesus the Son of God founded, not by going it alone, and charting our own course.
 
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Thank you writing this @Ioana!
Ioana said:
the Lord I am sure doesn’t think you aren’t good enough and has not given us a revelation that is impossible to understand. . .The core of Catholic teaching is pretty simple and everything else is just kind of like commentary on said core.
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Well, it wasn’t until I began reading Catholic sites online – such as CAF – that I began to have difficulty and lots of doubts. There are very few good discussions of beliefs, prayer and spiritual life like I find on a few other Christian sites, including Orthodox sites, that lack fighting and nitpicking and where those responding know what they’re talking about and can write and describe things in plain paragraphs in a way that most of us can understand. No Bible proof-texting (which is not how to read the Bible!) or long quotes from “official” documents. The apologetic forum here on CAF is deadly for me and I’ve learned to avoid it.
Ioana said:
I come from an EO country and trust me, although there’s lesser quantity of it EO mysticism is harder to get due to lack of a nice structure that CC has (I tried to read one article on death once and my head got spinning) I find it fun you feel drawn to EO and I to Catholicism but you can try EC if you like Eastern spirituality
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😀😀😀

Perhaps a case of the grass is always greener? Gosh, I don’t know! Glad you found Catholicism and pray you rely on God during your journey. As for me, I don’t hate being Catholic but don’t like all the structure and top down authoritarianism and prefer things “looser” and less defined (as long as everything remains in orthodox parameters) as in Eastern Orthodoxy. I love the prayers and learning about God (Trinity) through the Divine Liturgy/prayer.

God Bless you!
 
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