我刚刚读完大卫·本特利·哈特的一本精彩书籍，名为《神的体验：存在、意识与幸福》。 I just finished reading David Bentley Hart's great book called The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, and Bliss.
这是一本在许多层面上都令人惊叹的书，但我认为其重要贡献 在于他澄清了严肃的神论者使用「神」这个词时所指的含义。 It's a wonderful book at many levels, but I think the signal contribution is his clarification of what serious theists mean when they use the word God.
你知道，如今神论者和无神论者之间有很多对话，他们都使用「神 」这个词，但问题是，正如哈特所指出的，存在着巨大的歧义。 You know, there are a lot of conversations between theists and atheists today, and they both use the word God, but the trouble is, as Hart points out, there's just a massive equivocation.
他们使用的是同一个词，但含义却大相径庭。 The same words are being used but in very different senses.
这不是克里斯托弗·希钦斯与理查德·道金斯之类的人认真与托 马斯·阿奎那进行交锋，而是说，尽管他们使用同样的词，即「 神」，但他们真正不知道阿奎那使用这个词时所指的意思。 It's not so much that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are seriously engaging Thomas Aquinas; it's rather that, though they use the same word, namely God, they really have no idea what Aquinas means when he uses the word God.
这里有个问题：每一位新无神论者都相信神是世界中 的某个现实，或在世界的旁边，或在世界的上方。 Now here's the thing: the new atheists, to a person, believe that God is some reality in the world, or alongside the world, or above the world.
神是存在类别的最高实例，如果你愿意的话。 God is the supreme instance, if you want, of the category of being, all kinds of beings around.
神是存在或存在类的最高实例。 God is the supreme instance of the category or genus of being.
好吧，根据托马斯·阿奎那的说法，神恰恰不是这样的存在。 Well, that's exactly what God is not, according to Thomas Aquinas.
托马斯再清楚不过了。 Thomas couldn't be clearer.
他说神不属于任何类别，甚至不属于最普遍的类别。 He says that God is not in any genus, even that most generic of genera.
也就是说，你会问，神难道不是至少一种存在的形式吗？ Namely, you say, Well, isn't God at least a type of being?
托马斯引人入胜的回答是：不，不是。 And Thomas' beguiling answer is, No, he's not.
神不是事物或个体；相反，在托马斯的精辟拉丁语中，神是ipsum esse subsistens，这意味着存在本身的自我存在。 God is not a thing or an individual; rather, God is, in Thomas' pithy Latin, ipsum esse subsistens, which means the subsistent act of to be itself.
神不是世界中的一个项目。 God is not an item within the world.
所有新无神论者都相信某种版本的理论——我当然称之为「雪人理论」。 All the new atheists believe that some version of it—I call it, of course, the Yeti theory of God.
有些人说有雪人、大脚怪，有些人说没有。让我们去找出个中。 Some people say there is a Yeti, Bigfoot; some say there isn't. Let's go find out.
有些人相信，有些人不相信。这正是神所不是的：自然界或世界中的某个项目。 Some believe it, some don't. That's precisely what God is not: some item within nature, within the world.
相反，神是存在的大洋，世界全体由此而来。 Rather, God is that great ocean of existence from which the world in its entirety comes.
不是世界中的某物，而是世界可能性的条件——这就是神。 Not something in the world, but the condition for the possibility of the world—that's God.
你知道，理解这一点的方法之一也是区分大写G的神和众神。 You know, one way to get at this too is to distinguish between God (capital G) and the gods.
回到古老的希腊和罗马神话，或者任何文化的神话，说实话。 Go back to the old, you know, Greek and Roman myths, or myths of any culture, really.
众神，也就是说，众神是人类类型的至高实例。 The gods, you know, the gods are supreme instances of, let's say, the human type.
所以，看看伟大的希腊和罗马众神。 So, look at the great Greek and Roman gods.
他们就像超人，他们不朽，拥有超凡的心智、技能和力量。 They're like superhumans; they're immortal, they have, you know, super minds and super skills and powers.
但归根结底，他们是世界中的存在，居住在奥林匹斯山之上，或大海深处，或天空中。 But they are finally beings in the world, living up on Mount Olympus or down in the sea or up in the sky or something.
他们是人类或自然的至高实例。 They're supreme instances of the human or the natural.
他们严格来说不是超自然的，他们作为自然界中的居民而存在。 They're not strictly speaking supernatural; they exist as denizens within nature.
这就是为什么我们可以合理地说，科学，现代科学，确实消除了众神。 This is why we can say legitimately that the sciences, the modern sciences, have indeed eliminated the gods.
所以，凭借我们的科学设备和伟大的科学精神，我们探索了天空 ，探索了山巅和大海的深处，确实没有发现至高无上的存在。 So, with our scientific equipment and our great scientific spirit, we've explored the heavens, and we've explored mountaintops and the depths of the ocean, and indeed we haven't found supreme beings.
更重要的是，现代物理科学成功解释了大多数物理现象。 More to it, the modern physical sciences have managed to explain most physical phenomena.
我们不必诉诸超自然现象的外在原因，神的原因。 We don't have to appeal to extraneous causes of supernatural phenomena, divine causes.
如果你所说的神性指的是众神，这是正确的。 That's true if by divine you mean the gods.
科学确实消除了众神。 The sciences have indeed eliminated the gods.
但这里是哈特的观点，一个我想强调的观点：科学原 则上无法消除神，因为神不是自然界中的某个项目。 But here's Hart's point, a point I want to underscore: the sciences, in principle, cannot eliminate God because God is not an item within the natural world.
神不是物理科学可以考察的事件或现象。 God is not some event or phenomenon that can be examined by the physical sciences.
他不是实验的主体或对象。 He's not the subject or object of an experiment.
即使在原则上，科学也无法消除神，也无法解决神的问题。 Even in principle, the sciences can't eliminate God; they can't address the question of God.
这就是为什么有那个著名的俄罗斯宇航员的故事，他 飞向天空，说：「我四处寻找，却没有找到神。」 That's why the famous story of the Russian cosmonaut going up into the heavens and saying, Well, I've looked all around and there's no God.
他说的完全是胡言乱语；这只是个分类错误。 Well, he was speaking so much nonsense; it was simply a category error.
如果他把大写G改成了小写g，那还说得过去。 If he had changed the capital G to a small g, fair enough.
我在天空，没有众神——太好了，这没问题。 I'm up in the sky, and there are no gods—great, that's fine.
科学可以这样做，但它甚至无法开始解决神的问题。 Science can do that, but it can't even begin to address the question of God.
你看，这就是为什么新无神论者会说，就像马特会说的那样 ：「随着科学的进步，宗教退缩到越来越小的知识领域。」 See, that's why too you hear the new atheists say, like Matt will say, Well, with the advance of the sciences, religion retreats to ever smaller bits of intellectual turf.
不，并非如此，因为这不是零和游戏。 No, it does not, because this is not a zero-sum game.
这不是平等之间的战斗；它是从完全不同的层面探讨现实。 This is not a battle between equals; it's addressing reality at an entirely different level.
科学的进步永远不会威胁到真正的宗教。 The advance of the sciences can never threaten authentic religions.
人们说「为神提供证据」真是太荒谬了。 It's so silly for people to say, Produce evidence for God.
你看，这是雪人理论又一次。 See, it's the Yeti theory again.
好吧，有证据吗？ Well, is there evidence?
有巨大的脚印；有迹象表明大脚怪可能存在。 There's a big footprint; there's some sign that Bigfoot might be around.
好吧，你不会为整个宇宙的创造者提供这样的证据。 Well, you don't produce evidence like that for the Creator of the entire universe.
你不会用科学方法来解决神的问题。 You don't use the scientific method to get at questions of God.
再说一次，这只是个分类错误。 Again, it's simply a category error.
哈特的书非常擅长指出这一点。 That's what Hart's book is very good at pointing out.
那么，如何接触到真正的神？ So how do you get at the true God?
正确的方法是什么？ What is the right way to do it?
哈特的观点在这里非常有趣。 And again, Hart here, I think, is very interesting.
真正的宗教经常从这种非凡的体验开始——对世界可能性的体验。 Authentic religion will often begin in this extraordinary experience—an experience of the contingency of the world.
这意味着什么？ What does that mean?
这意味着一种深刻的感觉，一种直觉，即世界存在，但并不一定存在。 It means this deep sense, this intuition, that the world exists but doesn't have to exist.
事物存在，但并不一定存在。 Things are, but they don't have to be.
它们不包含自身存在的理由。 They don't carry within themselves the reason for their own existence.
现在，看一个非常具体的例子：正在录制我的摄像机。 Now, look at a very particular case: the camera that's now recording me.
它确实存在，但它是如何存在的？ So it exists, certainly, but how does it exist?
通过自身本质的力量吗？ Through the power of its own essence?
几乎不是。 Well, hardly.
这台摄像机存在，是因为一群工程师、设计师、科学家和制造商的共同努力。 That camera exists because of a whole slew of engineers, designers, scientists, and manufacturers who put it together.
更重要的是，即使现在它存在，也是因为它的分子结构、原子结构和亚原子结构。 More to it, even now it exists because of its molecular structure, its atomic structure, its subatomic structure.
如果你拿走这些结构，摄像机将不存在。 If you take those away, the camera wouldn't exist.
关键在于，它外部被各种原因包围，内部被各种 原因支撑，这些原因使其存在，使其成为可能。 The point is, it's surrounded extrinsically, and it's grounded intrinsically in all sorts of causes that bring it into being, that allow it to be.
现在，继续思考这个方向，正如本特利·哈特敦促我们所做的那样。 Now, keep musing in that direction, as Bentley Hart urges us to do.
我刚才提到的所有事物——所有设计师、科学家和技术人 员，所有物理现实的较低层次——本身都是有条件的。 All the things I just mentioned—all those designers, scientists, and technicians, all those lower levels of physical reality—are themselves contingent.
它们不包含自身存在的理由。 They don't contain within themselves a reason for their being.
无限地诉诸有条件的原因不会回答我们为什么摄像机存在的问题。 An endless appeal to contingent causes is not going to answer our question of why that camera exists.
哲学家以非常明确的方式这样做；我会说，普通信徒以非常隐含的方式这样做。 Rather, philosophers do it in a very explicit way; I would say ordinary believers do it in a very implicit way.
我们知道有某种现实，其本质是无限的现实源泉，它支撑并产生整个有条件事物的联系。 We know there's some reality whose very nature is to be that infinite source of reality which grounds and gives rise to the whole nexus of conditioned things.
我们在圣礼中说：「我们生活、动作、存留，都 在乎他」，这是对这种哲学直觉的诗意表达。 In you we live and move and have our being, we say in the liturgy, and that's the poetic expression of this philosophical intuition.
这就是神。 That's God.
真正的神是有条件和有条件性现实的无条件和非有条件性基础。 The true God is the non-conditioned and non-contingent ground of contingency.
用宗教语言来说：那就是天地万物的创造者。 Put it in religious language: that's the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
你看，这就是神与世界中的任何事物之间的区别， 是真正超自然与自然界中任何事物之间的区别。 You see, again, that's the distinction between God and anything in the world, between the properly supernatural and anything within nature.
这就是为什么科学无论如何努力，都无法开始解决这个问题。 It's why the sciences, try as they might, cannot even begin to address this question.
现在，让我用这个来结束，因为哈特的书，我在许 多方面都喜欢，多次在我脑海中触发了这个想法。 Now, let me just close with this, because Hart's book, which I like in so many ways, triggered this in my mind many times.
我在与互联网上人们的对话中发现了这个。 I find it in my dialogues with people on the internet.
我发现无神论者经常声称：「我们是最理性的。」 I find the atheists who often claim, We're the most rational.
「你们宗教信徒相信你们的魔法思维，被这些古老的 迷信所束缚，而我们才是这里的真正理性主义者。」 You religious people believe in your magical thinking, and you're caught in these old superstitions, and we're the real rationalists around here.
我总是调侃他们说：「你们在问题变得真正有趣时就放弃了。」 I always tease them and say, You drop the question just when it gets really interesting.
是的，科学问题是迷人的；我同意你，完全跟随它们。 Yes, scientific questions are fascinating; I agree with you, follow them all the way.
但真正有趣的问题是：为什么有事物而不是无？ But the really interesting question is: Why is there something rather than nothing?
为什么世界存在？ Why does the world exist at all?
为什么有自然界？ Why is there the realm of nature?
为什么有这些有条件的事物联系？ Why is there the nexus of contingent things?
这是一个有趣的问题。 Now, that's an interesting question.
而我从无神论者那里一次又一次地得到什么？ And what do I get from the atheist time and again?
「我不知道，它就是这样，或者我最喜欢的，它从无中生有。」 I don't know; it just is, or my favorite, It popped out of nothing.
而我被指责有魔法思维？ And I'm getting accused of magical thinking?
我认为，大卫·本特利·哈特帮助我们极大地澄清了这里所涉 及的问题，以及为什么神的问题仍然是桌面上最迷人的问题。 David Bentley Hart, I think, helps us to clarify enormously what's at stake here and why the question of God remains the most beguiling question on the table.