No Simple Idea

C.S. Lewis said this: “It is no good asking for a simple religion.  After all, real things are not simple….  Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd….  Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed.  That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity.  It is a religion you could not have guessed.  If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up” (Mere Christianity, Book 2, Chapter 2). 

In a subsequent chapter he made this statement which I believe is at the core of what is not “simple” with Christianity: “The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start….  We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself.  That is the formula.  That is Christianity” (Book 2, Chapter 4).  As I think about the atonement and what we know about it from the scriptures and the words of living prophets, I have to agree with his statement.  While much about the gospel might be considered simple—(e.g. if you keep the commandments you will be blessed)—the fundamental fact that Christ died to somehow pay the price for our sins and save us from physical and spiritual death is no obvious or simple idea.  As C.S. Lewis stated it is hardly an idea that one would make up, and the difficulty it takes in understanding just how the atonement works underscores the need for the most fundamental principle of Christianity: faith. 

                As we seek to understand the atonement as the core of Christianity, I think we come to realize sooner or later that there is much that simply must be taken on faith.  Though we are encouraged to always seek for more understanding, there are things that we will simply never fully grasp in our mortal state.  I think that the words of Amulek to the Zoramites highlight both the simplicity of gospel statements and the problem of trying to make the atonement purely a matter of rational thinking.  He stated, “For it is expedient that an atonement should be made; for according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an atonement made, or else all mankind must unavoidably perish” (Alma 34:9).  That’s a simple concept that anyone can learn; but why must it be so?  Following this Amulek discussed how if a man committed murder, would a just law “take the life of his brother? (v11)  The answer of course is no, but then he went on to speak of the shedding of animal blood performed under the law of Moses, saying, “This is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal” (v14).  So while we clearly recognize that it is not just for a mortal to pay the debt of justice for another mortal, Christ’s atonement did just that, only in this case a God paid the price of our sins.  Why that is the way that the price of our sins can be paid is certainly no clear to me, but I have faith that it is indeed at the center of God’s plan.  Why a man cannot stand in the place of “his brother” to satisfy justice but Christ can is likewise unclear to me.  But I do believe with Amulek that Christ did indeed “atone for the sins of the world (v8).