A University for the Simple

20th Sunday of the Year

Imagine this were a classroom and I asked you to come up with a list of things that are simple; and then I asked you to make a list of things that are complex. You might have put words under simple and sentences under complex. Addition and subtraction might be simple; but trigonometry is complex. A cell is simple; an organism is complex.

With both of your lists filled out, I would then ask you to put God on one of them. What do you think? Is God simple or is God complex? I would wager most, if not all of you, would say complex. God is the greatest conceivable being, or according to St. Anselm’s expression, that which nothing greater can be thought. In other words, you could spend every minute of your entire life thinking about God and never even begin to scratch the surface. However much you understand, there is still an infinity that you don’t.

So, it would seem that God is more like trigonometry than he is like addition—that he is complex rather than simple; but this is not how the Christian philosophical and theological tradition has understood God. On the contrary, they taught that God is completely and perfectly simple.

Simplicity and complexity, in a philosophical sense, have to do with composition. Something complex is made up of many parts; while something simple is made up of only one. Something is more complex if it has more parts, and more simple if it has fewer.

As a human being, I am complex because I can say I am wise, but my wisdom would only apply to my mind and heart, in a figurative sense. I do not consider my pinky toe, or even the aortic valve of my heart, to be wise. But, because God is simple, when we say God is wise we mean God is wisdom—not just in part, but on the whole. Wisdom is not merely something God is. Wisdom is who God is.

God is perfectly simple because everything we say about God applies absolutely to God. God is Truth, Love, Justice, Mercy, Goodness, and Faithfulness. These are not qualities he can turn on and turn off, or powers that reside in only part of himself—because in God, there are no parts. God is simple; and God simply is what he is.

I began with this philosophical discursus because the claim God is simple is counterintuitive, until you understand the terms. In a similar way, the readings today also make a counterintuitive claim: that wisdom is found in simplicity. Wisdom, we are told, “calls from the heights out over the city: ‘Let whoever is simple turn in here.’” If I had asked you whether wisdom is something simple or complex—or, put another way, whether wisdom consists in knowing one thing or many things—you would have likely said Wisdom is complex. To be wise, it would seem, is to know many things. But, as with God, wisdom is, in fact, simple; and to be wise is to know only one thing; and because God is wisdom, the one thing to know in order to be wise is God.

With that, you might be reconsidering your major. If wisdom is only found in God, should we not all strive to be theologians? Why would we waste our time thinking about anything else? Now, while the theology department would certainly love the boost; the folks over there would be the first to tell you that even the greatest theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, taught that other fields of study in addition to theology are necessary. But even as we study different things, we are, at the end of the day, only ever studying God. The reason for this is grounded in God’s simplicity. Because God is Truth, he is not merely one true thing among many, but Truth itself. Being Truth itself means there can be no truth outside of him. Therefore, whatever truth we find in any area of study is part of the Truth that is God. Aquinas puts it simply: “The nature of a circle, and the fact that two and three make five, have eternity in the mind of God” (ST I q. 16, a. 7, ad 1).

Rather than only studying theology, we should, in a sense, study anything but theology, because any truth—however and wherever we find it—is part of God; and to study less truth would be a tragedy, for we would know less of God.

The reason for a university, as Saint John Henry Newman would remind us, is to be a space in which many pursuits of wisdom have a common home, and in that home dialogue with and enrich each other. It is a beautiful idea: that the chemist observing reactions in a flask is pursuing the same, ultimate reality as the philosopher contemplating being, the theologian pouring over holy writ, the botanist examining flora, the biologist peering through a microscope, the musician composing a melody, and the artist brushing paint a canvas.

Is wisdom simple or complex, one or many? At first glace, it would seem many; and, by consequence, a university would seem to be a loose association of distinct disciplines engaging in their respective fields of study in isolation from each other. Rather, what puts the uni- in university is the fact that we all pursue the same thing—Truth—and, as a Catholic university, we know that the Truth we pursue is not an idea, but a person—someone with a name and a face—Jesus Christ.

With that in mind, at the beginning of this academic year, I offer you three encouragements.

Wisdom is about knowing one thing—God—but the path of pursuing wisdom is many. If you look long and hard enough, in whatever your field of discipline, you will find God. So, the first is that you should take your studies seriously and engage them with all your mind and heart. But also remember that God is greater than your area of inquiry. While you may uncover something of God in what you study, you will never exhaust the mystery.

My second encouragement is to share and listen to those around you, because you’re all on the same quest, looking for the same person who reveals himself gradually but surely as we search for him.   

My third encouragement is the most important—and if you do nothing else this academic year, let it be this. Make prayer before the Blessed Sacrament your top priority. Why? Remember wisdom’s call, “Let whoever is simple turn in here.” If you strive to be wise, to know the one thing necessary, to find God in all things, then go to God, who has made himself present among you. What I said earlier about all the various disciplines all searching for God, all the ancient Greek philosophers would have agreed with. In fact, they said just the same. But what they lacked is our great boast: that the object of our inquiry, that in which alone our minds and hearts will rest, is right in front of us. Whatever you are looking for, you will find in the Blessed Sacrament.

Let me be clear: my encouragement is more than just to have a spiritual life. My encouragement is to make your intellectual life spiritual, and to make your spiritual life intellectual—to integrate your study with your prayer, so that whether you are in the chapel or in the classroom, you won’t know the difference. The goal is to worship, adore, and serve the same Lord no matter where you are. Don’t just make a commitment to pray more this year; be intentional about bringing your work into your prayer, so that your prayer will lead and direct your work. This will make your prayer incarnational—it will bring your relationship with God down into your daily living; and at the same time, it will keep your inquiry on the straight and narrow, as God purifies and directs your mind, sifting away half-truths and lies and leading you to Truth in its fullness. Strive to know the one thing necessary. Find him in the Blessed Sacrament before you. Bring everything you learn to him and take from him everything he gives you.

It's usually taken as an insult if one is called simple; but, properly understood, we can say that this university ought to be a place of simple-minded people. For Wisdom invites us to be concerned only about Wisdom. So let us answer Wisdom’s call and turn in here.

Homily preached August 18, 2024 at in the Immaculate Conception Chapel of Mount St. Mary’s University.