Principles are harder to keep than rules

Professed Christians often present the Lord’s way as easier than anything less.¹ For example, many believe that the principles Jesus taught during his mortal life are easier to live than the law of Moses.² Principles will only seem easier than rules to those who inconsistently live them. Principles are more difficult to live than rules are to keep. A person unable to perfectly live rules is unable to live by principles.

The main difference between principles and rules is that a rule applies only to a specific situation, but principles scale and transfer across contexts. It is because principles are more generally described than rules and can be applied across any situation that they are much more difficult to keep than rules. There are infinitely more opportunities to break principles than there are to break rules.

To learn and live up to principles requires greater virtue than rules. Most people are not willing to become as good as they would need to be in order to live by principle.

Principles require a pure and noble motive. While you can obey a rule without understanding why it is necessary, principles specify action as the application of a motive. Principles specify what to do from the perspective of why to do it. Those who hold multiple motives will struggle to live by principles, because they will alternate between competing motives in response to challenges. The greatest motive is love, which is dedication to the benefit of others independent of the benefit to self.³ Love is a motive that cannot co-exist with any other.⁴

Principles require honesty. Dishonest people will apply principles only when it serves their selfish interests, greedily maintaining a false nobility. Meanwhile, they use principles to justify whatever their arbitrary emotions have enticed them to do.⁵

Principles require knowledge. Unlike obedience to rules, living by principle requires consideration of outcomes. The calculation of what benefits others the most requires knowledge of cause, effect, and value. What benefits the most cannot be stipulated with rigid rules for all, because what benefits the most differs between people and situations.

Greatest net benefit is not the same as the greatest number of people that receive some benefit.

Principles require understanding. Principles require the individual to interpret and apply them. When you upgrade from rules to principle, what is right can no longer be discerned merely by blindly following something or someone; You actually have to query the light that God has given you, researching your options and evaluating the long-term cost and benefit of each. You actually have to study God's word, pay attention to the world, and actually think critically about the choices before you. You have to ask questions that identify your blind spots and crack open your preconceived notions with greater understanding from God.

If a person were honest, intelligent, and benevolent, the following would be sufficient to guide them for all eternity: always do everything you can to improve all things as much as possible. Unfortunately, honesty, intelligence, and benevolence are all rare qualities, and even less abundant in combination. Most people have none of the three, and those who have any of these qualities do not have very much of them. A shortage of these three qualities make the full, plain truth much harder to see and seem less desirable to obtain. In his mercy, God presents the truth in reduced quantity and quality, adapted as needed to hearer’s preparation.

To cater to those who are less honest, intelligent, or good, lesser representations of this same truth must be given. In practice, this usually means by providing a rule. When a person can’t handle a principle, a rule is the next best thing.