hi 大家新年好！！最近跟朋友聊天的时候谈到宗教，发现他们对宗教的了解是绝对绝对的唯心；也就是说他们在相信物质的前提下，将宗教拿过来作为心灵上的寄托而已。我认为这种心态很有意思，以前懵懵懂懂上小学初中的时候也是这样想的。于是我最近留心去杂志以及论坛上寻求一些答案。

我看到《First Things》学术杂志上的一篇来自Stephen H. Webb教授的文章，通过对不可知论者David Bentley Hart 以及无神论者进行答复，以及通过基督教里面耶稣基督的独特性来说明基督教里的信仰跟其他信仰不一样，因为耶稣并不是完完全全超越我们理解能力的超自然力量，相反，祂既是让我们尊敬的圣父，又是两千年前在十字架上为我们受死的那个凡人。其中讲到的“古典神学”指的便是大多数现代人对基督教的认识，即跟其他宗教一样都是一个完完全全超出我们理解能力的超凡的神，也许在创造地球以后就离开地球了，我们只能祈祷和崇拜他；事实上不是这样的。

我写信给教授拿到翻译权便开始试图翻译，而因为原作词汇思路等比较复杂，又由于我并没有什么翻译的经验，也许下面的文章大家读起来有点困难，于是我也附上原文。尤其是第5-12自然段，我认为大家读起来可能会有些益处，因为我读的时候就感触很深：）


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柏拉图谬误 / 柏拉图不是圣保罗 Plato is Not Paul

作者：史蒂芬·H.·维博（Stephen H. Webb） 译：张月恒
于2013年12月24日 由《First Things》学术杂志发表
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/12/plato-is-not-paul
(Reprinted by permission)



①上世纪80年代，也就是我还在读博士生的时候，“基础主义（foundationalism）”[1]对大家来说跟脏话没什么两样。那时像我们一样搞宗教的人会觉得，要为像宗教信仰那样的东西找到一个哲学理论基础是一个想都别想的笑话。于是，我们便抛开那些关于“Why”的问题，而开始用各种方法（method）来解决关于“How”的问题。可惜啊，离开了那些对信仰实质的解释，我和我的同事们只找到寥寥几个理想的方法用来研究宗教信仰；譬如说耶鲁大学试图用宗教故事（narratives）来说明问题，而我们芝加哥大学却选用宗教在现实生活中的应用（hermeneutics）来进行研究等等。可笑的是，根据西方古典形而上学的传统理念，故事本身就是为了被应用到现实生活中去的，那么这些所谓不同的研究宗教信仰的方法又有何根本性的差别呢？这些只描述问题却不追究根本的方法无非都说明了宗教信仰这个东西好像是完全超出时间以及空间的范围的。这样一来，我们后来能够凭借什么信心去拿信仰跟客观真理相提并论呢？

②也就是因为不同的人们运用不同步骤与方法去研究信仰，我们最后无法得出一个一致的结论；于是我们认输了——放弃了以事实凭据为基础的方法，投奔纯粹的逻辑理论。很多神学家们都回过头来审视并且很快回归到各自的哲学主张中去了。确实，那个在80年代最使学者们回避的问题已经发展成了现代复古神学潮流[2]中的核心问题，因为现代人对神的定义大多都是一个绝对的、无限的存在（ultimate reality）。

③按现代人们的哲学倾向来看，否定式神学（negative theology）[3]如果不是用来研究中世纪的，那就是用来解决后现代主义中的矛盾的。同样，相比起罗纳尔[4]研究的圣多玛斯派学说（Thomism; St. Thomas Aquinas），我们对他所研究的海德格尔（Heidegger）更加有兴趣。（后文作者继续针对圣多玛斯和东正基督教派进行了比较性的分析，为了得出与本段首句相同的结论，即：处于后现代时期的我们或许更加追求一种非理性、非物质、不可被认知的绝对终极存在，而不是那个理性的、物质的、慈爱如父亲一样的上帝；由于不是本文重点，被总结概括的部分被译者略去。）……人们开始将看似互不侵犯的东正教、否定式神学以及圣多玛斯教派合并为一体，以至于欧洲的东西方两派基督教的关系能够得到调解。这其中，大卫·本特利·哈特（David Bentley Hart[5]）教授的研究在所有讨论神学的形而上基础的研究中最具突出。

④哈特教授由耶鲁大学出版的新书《神之体验：存在、意识、极乐(“The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss”)》的确全面展现了一系列对于古典有神论的细致论述。哈哈，事实上哈特教授对于古典神学的研究颇具代表性，以至于人们都怀疑他写的这个哲学时代是不是要告一段落了。书中提出一些未解答的问题，例如：尽管神学研究者们不否认形而上学对现代神学所产生的巨大影响，但是我们不禁质疑——难道每个神学研究者都必须认同以古典形而上学为基础的古典柏拉图神学吗？古典神学要怎么来解释我们基督教上三位一体[6]的真神呢？

⑤当然，由于这本书写给无神论者，哈特教授就不会故意在这方面下功夫，因为无神论者不会去钻研精神层面上的基督教，而是会去指责基督徒们荒诞地相信着一个以物质为根本的神——是的，根据哈特的说法，不少无神论者都以为基督教的上帝是一个有魔法的、居住在云端上面的大胡子老爷爷；于是哈特回答那些稚气未脱的无神论者们，说众所周知的上帝是超越时间以及空间限制的，即上帝是一个100%精神上的主宰，跟我们低级的物质没有关系。他同时强调，在生活实际当中，信仰上的神与哲学上的神完全是同一回事儿。

⑥在剩余的篇章中，哈特根据他本人那草率的“神是纯粹非物质化的”理论前提就古典柏拉图神学展开更多的论述。哈特说，上帝超越存在、奠基存在，是一切事物的存在形式、无限的存在，同时也是祂本身的存在……祂是除了存在于其他介质的一切存在。哈特能够这样杂乱无章地提及各种本体论的术语，是因为上帝本人并没有直接地、实实在在地定义祂的存在。但是我们需要搞明白的是，哈特虽然多次使用“无极限的[7]”来形容上帝，但是根据他书中写的内容，他真正想要表达的意思并不指上帝是在字面上的无极限，而是上帝是无极限地不可被人们所理解。

⑦哈特很快与佛教以及梵式印度教建立联系，来证明这所谓的神不管在何种神学里面都被人们普遍认为是无法用语言来描述的。可是哈特所指代的那种体验并不是上帝本身，而是人们在这个俗世所感知到的不完全的、星星点点的上帝的施舍和恩赐（这句话还可以翻译为: 哈特所写到的并不是上帝的存在本身，而是祂因为存在而给世界带来的效果和影响）；或者说，这种人们冥冥之中感受到的一个超越他们的终极力量的存在是源于人们从直觉中意识到的“这个世界并不可能凭借它自身而运作”。诸如此类关于存在的领悟是出于人类自身对千千世界梦幻般的迷惘和无知；虽然这样的心态使我们用一个更加奇幻的眼光去看这个世界，但是我们看到的世界也因此变得主观而无序。我们研究形而上学的对象往往不会是单独的某个人、某个物体，因为这些物质化的事物具有本质上和客观层面上的缺陷。

⑧哈特所谓的“那个超凡存在的形而上学[8]（metaphysics of the transcendental）”跟所有具有人类性质的象征物所对立——就算这些象征物一直以来都被人们认作是神圣的。哈特认为，上帝并不是一个所有伟大而神圣物质当中的领袖；事实上，上帝根本就不是一个什么物质，他本身便是这种赋予物质以伟大、光明及其他各种属性的精神。哈特认为“超凡”这个概念是一个已经超越了空间上“高级”与“低级”关系的一个终极概念。而在我看来，哈特对神的定义无非只能说明语句组织上的困难而已。

⑨我认为不管古典神学有多么重要，它终究不是基督教的实质。有哪一个古典教派的哲学家能够想象一位既不由物质组成、又同时保持三位一体的真神呢？同时，在圣经当中对上帝的描述一直都具有与人类相同的性质，从来没有讲到过上帝的非物质性。事实上，我们无法想象一个不像人类的上帝，就如同我们无法想象出一个没有目的的生理现象一样。许多无神论者没有相信基督教教义，并不是因为他们错把基督教当作是叫人们去相信一个物质化的神，而是因为他们以为基督教就是要去了解一个无法被人所了解的上帝——哈，这听起来确实很奇葩。然而事实上的基督教并不是那样的；然而即便是这样，哈特极力强调的“神超越时间与空间”的特点也完全无法说服一个无论如何也不相信“神”其本身的无神论者去相信神是如此超凡以至于人们都没有权利去拒绝甚至去知道他的存在。

⑩是的，在书的最后，哈特没有给读者留下任何权力去相信或不相信上帝；这种不可知论的态度与做法不就好像80年代的我用方法与过程去绕开真理的起源性以及实质性问题一样吗？哈特运用形而上学来回避经验层面上的向外开拓与向内核实。尽管他承认现代人比古代人更容易将物质与精神这两个概念极端化，他执意对宇宙的研究永远不会升到对本体研究的那一层面。哈特通过古希腊的形而上学试图推翻机械唯物论，但他并没有想到科学领域上取得的理想成绩能更好地推出有关神学的结论。归根结底，如果上帝有足够的力量去选择用进化论的方法创造人类并且维持人类的繁衍规律，那么祂为什么没有选择把自己化身为量子机体而是化身为人的模样呢？

⑾ 哈特竭力去驳倒以唯物论为基础的自然主义，他忘了将那个模糊的、超越我们理解能力的超自然概念带回到我们的物质世界中来。我认为，连哈特本人都应该偷偷地明白，他将上帝定位在我们的时间和空间之外的观点明摆着是不切合实际的。先不用去谈论他错误地使用“定位”以及“在……之外”这样的术语来描述无法用空间来定义的上帝吧；我不这样认为的一个很简单的理由，即我深切地知道人类与神的儿子耶稣（Jesus Christ）不仅是在天堂的，还是由神化为肉身出现在人类历史上并且统治着整个人间的。确实，耶稣在另一个空间，一个神似的空间，但是那空间同样还是空间。

⑿ 对哈特来说，古人们在所有不同的宗教、哲学主题上将真理研究得那样透彻，以至于神学的知识基础早已基本成型了。但是，如果现代无神论者反对宗教信仰的核心是出于一个柏拉图学派有意或无意的谬误（即，超自然力量是一个100%精神的概念，0%物质的概念），那么也许现在便是时候重新定义我们的唯物主义了！这样一来——如果我们对物质的观点有了新的认识，那么也许那些无神论者对超自然的观点也会做适当的调整——与其重新开始那个持续了千百年的、对物质本体的探究，我们不如从化为人形的耶稣基督身上开始思想我们对物质的定义。我们为何不试着将耶稣的实质看作是物质的基础呢？我们为何不将空间看作是在上帝创造我们之前就被祂这位三位一体的真神而创造的概念呢？

⒀ 是的，跟着柏拉图他们古希腊人的思路，我们永远都达不成一个结论。他的理念论为早期基督教会提供了方法上的基础。但再怎么说，柏拉图终究不是圣保罗，不是那位亲眼见证耶稣基督而后一生为祂而劳的圣徒。不管怎样，在近代虚无主义出现之前，基督徒们就已经敬拜了耶稣好几个世纪；圣奥古斯丁当初认可柏拉图学派的哲学无非是因为当时现有的唯物论实在缺少清晰的条理。圣多玛斯的新一轮对罗马天主教的整理也历经几百年的实践才被教会和教徒们接纳的；而从现在开始，我们是否也应该选择一个新的方向使其在几百年后被人们所吸收呢？是的，我怀疑近代所出现的那些将基督教义极端“精神化”的现象来自于一些领头的神学家为了与唯物论者作对而试图忽视耶稣降于人间的做法；假如我的假设哪怕有一点点儿的信度，先别说对物质形而上学的探究，还有什么比教徒们在基督里的亲身体验更加重要的呢？

[1] “基础主义”这个概念强调的是，我们心中的、意识里的主观体验为所有的客观事实和理论都奠定了必要的基础；或者说，一切事物归根结底都是有一些“公理”所支持的，而这些公理来自于不同人不同的观点，经过时间考验由于被当做是“基础”而不太被怀疑。
[2] 现代复古神学潮流指现代人重新开始发扬古典（尤其指柏拉图的理念论）神学的精神的现象；古典神学（Classic theism）根据古希腊形而上学的理论，提倡人们要将神（deity/god）视作超越人类理解能力、100%非物质的绝对主宰，如同柏拉图的“外核世界”或者“第二世界”。
[3] 指的是为了避免对神的不尊敬、为了尽可能以正确的方式了解神，人们以“神不是…”的说教形式来代替“神是…”；通过研究对象的反面来确定研究对象的范围。这个方法体现了神过于伟大而很难被人们所准确地理解和知晓。
[4] Rahner’s, the 1870s, Thomism and Heidegger.
[5] 美国东正教派神学教授，于英国剑桥大学获得MPhil，美国弗吉尼亚大学获得博士学位。
[6] 三位一体的真神是基督教教义中最基本的概念，即，如同氧化氢（H2O）具有冰、水和水蒸气三个不同的物理状态一样，上帝具有圣父、圣子（耶稣）和圣灵三个身份、特点以及性质；此教义与柏拉图理念论中清晰划分的“物质”与“精神”相背离。
[7] 可以想象成是数学中的“∞”。
[8] 超凡存在泛着包括基督教上帝在内的普遍感知到的超自然能力，即神其本身。



原文：

Plato Is Not Paul
December 24, 2013
Stephen H. Webb


When I was in graduate school in the eighties, foundationalism was a dirty word. We didn’t think it was possible or even desirable to provide a metaphysical grounding for theological claims, so we spent our time doing method instead. Methods, after all, can be applied to a mode of inquiry without raising the question of truth. Unfortunately, that left us with few resources for determining which method worked best for theology. Yale relied on the category of narrative and Chicago used hermeneutics, and so on. From the standpoint of the classical metaphysical tradition, there was little difference between them. They all conceded theology’s inability to rise above a particular time and place. We were not confident enough in the truth of our faith to subject it to any single account of what truth is.

Stephen H. WebbPerhaps because there were no clear winners in the method wars, reason has since prevailed. Theologians have returned to their philosophical roots. Indeed, the very topics we neglected in the eighties have become the standard ingredients in the current renaissance of classical theism, where God is established as the ultimate reality.

We thought negative theology was a topic for medievalists or a clever way to outbid the irony of postmodernism, and we were more interested in Rahner’s use of Heidegger than his Thomism. And it is good to remember that not that long ago Eastern Orthodox theology was still submerged in a sea of Western prejudices. Today, philosophical theologians embrace negative theology, Thomism, and Eastern Orthodoxy, all rolled into one. Discovering in Thomas the most systematic expression of negative theology, they have begun reconciling East and West. Nobody has done more to put the metaphysical foundations of theology in that simple and tidy package than David Bentley Hart.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that Hart’s new book, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, is a masterful summation of classical theism. Indeed, The Experience of God is such a good summation of classical theism that one wonders if it is not the beginning of that great tradition’s end. It raises some questions that it does not really answer, such as: While it’s good that theologians agree that metaphysics is essential to their work, is it premature to declare that all theologians must agree with the ancient metaphysical consensus? Can classical theism account for a trinitarian God?

Of course, the book is not precisely addressed to those who might raise such questions. Hart addresses his book to those atheists who think that Christians believe “in some magical invisible friend who lives beyond the clouds.” He responds to these “childish caricatures” by assuring his readers that even the “average believer” knows that “God is spirit, incorporeal, not an object located in space.” In fact, “As a practical reality, the God of faith and the God of the philosophers are in many crucial respects recognizably one and the same.”

The rest of the book rehearses the main tenets of classical theism, all of which can be inferred from the deceptively simple premise of God’s immateriality. God is beyond being, the ground of being, the being of all things, infinite being, even being itself—every kind of being, it seems, but a being among other beings. Hart can be promiscuous with his ontological terminology because no words can do God justice. He uses “infinite” more than any other term to describe God, but he does not mean that God is literally infinite. Instead, he means that God is infinitely beyond our understanding.

Drawing liberally from Buddhism and Vedantic Hindusim, Hart also argues that the experience of God is as universal as it is indescribable. That experience, however, is not exactly of God. Instead, it is a momentary glimpse of the sheer givenness of the world and the subsequent intuition that the world cannot account for itself. This experience of “existential surprise” is innocent and dreamlike and, while it renders the world beautiful, it is a purely subjective event. Individual objects cannot hold our metaphysical attention due to the “intrinsic ontological poverty of all things physical.”

What Hart calls a “metaphysics of the transcendental” serves to “strip away all the anthropomorphic imagery,” no matter how stubbornly these images cling to our conception of the divine. God is not “just some especially resplendent object among all the objects illuminated by the light of being, or any kind of object at all, but is himself the light of being.” Hart recognizes that the concept of transcendence is dependent on “the clearly inadequate spatial metaphors of above and below,” but that is a merely linguistic inconvenience.

Still, classical metaphysics, solid as they are, are not precisely Christian. No classical theist has ever given a convincing account of how God can be without parts and yet composed of three persons. The Biblical view of God is decidedly anthropomorphic, with no indication that the spiritual is defined as immaterial: It is as cognitively impossible to think of God outside of anthropomorphism as it is to think of biological change outside of teleology. Many atheists reject God not because they think Christians believe in a real person, but because they cannot understand why anyone would want to try to understand how we cannot understand God. It’s hard to imagine this book would convince them otherwise, though it is addressed to them. Atheists deny the supernatural; how can putting God absolutely beyond space and time make them think that God is beyond the reach of their rejection?

In the end, Hart gives atheism nothing to deny, but also gives it nothing to believe in. Just as, in my graduate school days, we used method to escape questions of truth, Hart has used metaphysics to escape empirical elaboration or corroboration. Even though he says that the ancients held together the spiritual and the material better than we do, he insists that “cosmology cannot become ontology” and that the “latest developments in speculative cosmology” are “quite simply irrelevant” as “interventions in philosophical debates.” Hart uses classical metaphysics to critique mechanistic theories of matter, but he does not think that scientific advances can inform theories of the divine. Yet if God chose to create the world through evolution, why couldn’t he choose to become incarnate through quantum mechanics?

Hart works so hard against naturalism that he leaves the supernatural only vaguely connected to the material world. For me, his mantra that “God is outside of space and time” is most certainly false, and I think he knows that too. Forget about the problem of using a spatial term like “outside” to “locate” God’s non-spatiality. I don’t believe that God is outside of space and time for the simple reason that I believe Jesus Christ is in heaven, fully bodied, and ruling over the world. He’s in a new space, true, a divinized space, but he is in space nonetheless.

For Hart, the ancients in every religious tradition got philosophy so right that there is little left to be said about the intellectual foundation of theism. But if a false view of matter is at the heart of atheism, then might it not be worth thinking through new views of matter? And if matter is not what we once thought it was, shouldn’t our concept of the supernatural also undergo change? And rather than reviving the old debates about the nature of Being itself, wouldn’t it be better to think about matter in terms of the incarnate Christ? Couldn’t we think of space being within the Trinity first before God makes room for us?

We will never be finished thinking through Plato and company. His providential role in helping the Church navigate its triumph in the ancient world is secure. Nonetheless, Plato is not Paul, and the idea of divine simplicity is not irreversible dogma. After all, Christians worshiped Jesus for several centuries before any of them thought to argue that God created the world out of nothing, and Augustine found the “books of the Platonists” so convincing mainly because the Manichaeans made such a muddle of their version of materialism. It took the Catholic Church centuries to adopt and assimilate Thomas’ philosophy; it could take centuries yet to move in another metaphysical direction. And if my suspicion that the move to immaterialism originated in the embarrassment of elite theologians over the scandal of the incarnation is even partly correct, then nothing could be more important for how Christians experience God than to think again about the metaphysics of matter.

(This article has been updated to correct an editorial mistake.)

(Stephen H. Webb is a columnist for First Things. He is the author of Jesus Christ, Eternal God and Mormon Christianity. His book on Bob Dylan is Dylan Redeemed. Image from Wikimedia Commons.)