Why ‘The Main Things Are the Plain Things’ Doesn’t Work

I recently heard a Protestant say something I’ve heard many times before: “The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.” It has a certain charm, doesn’t it? It sounds humble and democratic. However it sounds, it’s false. And its falsity is revealed the moment one tries to justify it.

The idea is simple: what matters most in Christianity is clearly taught in Scripture and easily grasped by any sincere reader, while whatever is unclear must be secondary. But first, notice this principle isn’t taught in Scripture. At least not plainly. That is, if it’s a main thing that the main things are the plain things, then that “main thing” is neither plainly taught nor obviously main. And because of that, if the slogan were correct, I’d be forced to conclude that this supposed “main thing” is actually secondary—and can therefore be safely disregarded.

(I’m painfully aware that I’m currently sacrificing clarity for cleverness. MOVING ON!)

On the contrary, Scripture itself suggests otherwise: some passages are hard to understand and can be misread (2 Peter 3:16), others require guidance to grasp (Acts 8), and even where God’s word is said to give light (Psalm 119), it is never claimed to make all saving truths immediately obvious to every reader.

And it doesn’t fare much better in practice. Protestants, who share the same Scriptures and appeal to their clarity, nevertheless disagree on matters many would consider central: baptism, justification, the Eucharist, even whether salvation can be lost. If the main things were truly plain, we would expect far greater agreement; instead, we find persistent division over what is supposedly most obvious.

But if God established a Church and gave it authority to teach and explain what has been revealed, then we can have a kind of certainty that the Bible alone was never meant to provide. As Scott Hahn said somewhere “the Bible is not an instruction manual for a Church still in shrink wrap; it presupposes a Church already in existence.” That Church wrote the books of the New Testament, recognized and canonized them, and continues to faithfully explicate what they teach today.

P.S. I won’t be able to respond to every comment—here I am assuming anyone will read this, much less comment—but even if you think I’m wrong about the Catholic Church, I think I’ve said enough to show why “the main things are the plain things” doesn’t hold up.