It is comfortable to live on the surface so long as it remains unshaken. The depth of suffering is the door to the depth of truth. The pain of looking into one's own depth is too intense for most people. They would rather return to the shaken and devastated surface of their former lives and thoughts.
The prophets of all time can tell us of the hating resistance which they provoke by their daring to uncover the depths of social judgment and social hope.
Our attempt to avoid the road which leads to such a depth of suffering and our use of pretexts to avoid it are natural. One of the methods, and a very superficial one, is the assertion that deep things are sophisticated things, unintelligible to an uneducated mind. But the market of real depth is simplicity. For you ought to know that nothing of real importance is too profound for anyone. It is not because it is too profound, but rather because it is too uncomfortable, that you shy away from the truth.
Every step into the depth of thought is a breaking away from the surface of former thoughts.
Note: Keep in mind that Tillich was addressing a deeply traumatized post-war crowd, and had himself, the disillusionment of the German people in his mind.
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