C.
S. Lewis
1959
Bill
Lin 譯
幾年前的一個早晨，起床後打算去理個髮，準備上倫敦；但是等我打開第一封信，信裡很明白的告訴我，不用去倫敦了。所以我決定也不用去理髮。
不過從那時起，在我的心裡，開始有個小小的——揮之不去的——很莫名其妙的聲音，好像是說：「還是去剪吧！去理髮！」最後受不了，只好去了。
那時我的理髮師也是個基督徒，是個有許多麻煩的人，我和我的弟弟有時還能幫他忙。我一推開他的店門，他說：「啊!我正禱告祈求，希望今天你會來。」真的，假如我一兩天以後才去，我就幫不上什麼忙了。
不可思議！至今還是不可思議。當然，沒有人能嚴謹的求證出理髮師的禱告和我去理髮之間有什麼因果關聯；有可能是心靈感應，也可能是湊巧。
我曾經站在一位婦女的床邊，她的整隻大腿骨裡裡外外被癌症侵蝕，而且癌細胞已經擴散到許多其他的骨骼；她在床上，必須靠三個人才能幫她移動身軀。醫生們預測她只能存活幾個月；護士們(經常是知道得更清楚的)認為只有幾個星期。一位有愛心聲望的人，把手放在她身上禱告；一年以後，這位病人居然可以行走了(無論是上坡，或穿過崎嶇的樹林地)，最後幫她照X光片的人說：「這些骨頭堅硬得像石塊，真是奇蹟。」
只是再次地，沒有嚴謹的證明。正如所有真正的醫師們所承認的，醫藥不是個確切的科學；我們不需要引用靈異來解釋這些病況預言的不實。除非是你自己要的，你不需相信禱告和病癒之間有個因果的關聯。
疑問就來了：「有什麼樣的證據，可以證明禱告的功效?」有些我們祈求的事情會發生，但是我們怎會知道它原本是不會發生的?
甚至假設這事是公認的神蹟，它也無法推引出是因為你的禱告，才發生奇蹟的。答案肯定是：休想得到類似在科學上強而有力的經驗證明。
有些東西是藉著我們經驗的完整一致性得到證明的。在我們的經驗中，萬有引力定律是由所有的物體，毫無例外的遵行的事實所建立的。
就算所有人們祈求的東西都發生了——實際上並沒有——這也不能證明基督徒所謂的禱告的功效。因為禱告是請求的，請求的本質——不同於強迫——是可給可不給的。
假如一位有無限智慧的造物者，聽了有限又愚蠢的被造物的請求，當然祂有時會賜予，有時會拒絕。在禱告上一直“成功”，一點也無助於證實基督教的教義；它只能證明某些類似魔術的東西——某些人身上具有的能力去控制或改變自然的行徑。
毫無疑問的，在新約聖經裡的有些章節，乍看之下，或許像是在給我們禱告必蒙應允的應許；但那不可能是它們真正的含意。因為在故事的最核心點，我們碰到了完全相反的明顯例子：在客西馬尼園裡，那最聖潔的請願者，禱告三次，希望能免了飲那苦杯；禱告並沒得到應允。從那時起，建議我們把禱告當成一種絕對可靠的手法的想法，是可以免談了。
其他的東西的證明不單單是憑藉經驗，而是藉著所謂的實驗，那些人為做作的經驗而來。禱告可以這樣做嗎？我要投反對票，沒有一個基督徒會參與這個項目，因為他被禁止這樣做：「你必不可試探神，你的主。」不管禁不禁止，這事可行嗎？
我見過這樣的建議，一隊人——越多越好——同意要努力的盡他們所能去祈禱，為期６個星期，為A醫院所有的病患禱告，而不為B醫院的病患禱告。然後你把結果總結起來，看看A醫院有沒有更多痊癒和更少病逝的。而且我認為你應該在不同的時間和地點，重複這個實驗來消除不相關因素的影響。
問題是，我不曉得如何會有一個真正的禱告，能在這環境裡持續下去。漢姆雷特劇中的國王說：「有口無心，不達天聽。」只念禱告詞並非在祈禱；否則一群受過適當訓練的鸚鵡，在我們的實驗中就能做得和人一樣的好。
除非到頭來，你要看到的是這患者的痊癒，否則你無法祈求他的痊癒。何況你不能有動機渴望在一家醫院的所有病人都得到康復，而對另一醫院的那些病患無動於衷。你在做的是想看看結果如何，而不是要減輕病患的痛苦。你的禱告的真正目的和目標有了差異；換言之，不管你的口舌怎麼說，下跪了多久，你不是在禱告。這個實驗會有真正的結果才怪。
所以正反兩面的實証都無法獲得；不過這個結果看來不會太令人灰心，假如我們記得禱告只是一種請求，然後再和同樣事情的不同試樣來比。
我們向我們的同胞請求如同向神請求一樣：我們要求鹽；我們要求加薪；當我們度假時，我們拜託一個朋友餵貓；我們向個婦女求婚。有時我們得到所求的，有時得不到。但是當我們得到時，在請求和獲得之間的因果關聯，無法那麼容易的像某人所想像的有科學的確切證實。
你的鄰居可能是有個慈心的人，假若你都忘了做任何的安排，他也不會讓你的貓餓肚子。你的雇主從不會如此輕易的答應你的加薪要求，若非當他知道你有可能從一個敵對公司那兒拿到更多的錢，所以很有可能，無論如何都要藉加薪來留住你。至於那位答應要嫁你的小姐——你能確定她不是早就決定要這樣做了？你知道，你的提議可能已經是她的決定的結果，而不是原因。某些重要的談話可能根本不會發生，除非她本來已經打算讓它發生的。
所以我們對神的禱告的因果效能，和我們對人的請求，在某些程度上有同樣的懷疑。不管我們得到了什麼東西，或許遲早不管如何終究會得到。正如我說的，只是在某些程度上的差別。
我們的朋友、老闆、和老婆或許會告訴我們，是因為我們開口，他們才答應的；而且我們可能太認識他們，所以也深信不疑；首先他們說他們相信是實在的話，其次他們很了解他們自己的動機是對的。
但是要注意，當事情發生時，我們的把握並非是從科學方法得來的；我們沒有試著去做拒絕給加薪或毀婚約的控制實驗，然後在全新的條件下再提出我們的請求。我們的把握和科學的知識完全是兩回事；它是由我們和另一方的交情所產生的；不是從知道他們的事情而是從認識他們而來。
我們的把握——假如我們真有把握——神總會垂聽，而且有時會應允我們的禱告，這些明顯的賞賜不僅僅是偶然的，而且只能從相同的方式得來；成功和失敗可以毫無疑問的表列出來，而且可以毫無疑問的試著下決定，到底成功的次數是否多到絕非出於偶然。
熟知一個人，最知道當他做出他們所求時，是不是因為出於他們的請求。我想那些熟識神的人最知道，當祂差遣我去理髮店時，是不是出於理髮師的禱告。
因為直到現在，我們一直在用錯誤的方式和錯誤的層次來處理整個問題。這個“禱告有效用嗎？”的問題，一開始就把我們的心思擺進了錯的框架。“有效用”：當成是魔術，或是一部機器——具備自動功能的東西。
禱告若不是純粹的幻想就是一種存在於幼稚、不完全個體(我們)與最具體的個體之間的交往。請願、祈求東西只是禱告的一小部分；認錯和悔改是它的門檻，崇拜是它的聖所，同在、願景和享受神是它的麵包和酒。在禱告裡，神把祂自己顯示給我們。祂對禱告的回應只是這個啟示裡必然的結果——並不一定是最重要的。祂的所為可從祂的本質而知。
儘管如此，我們可以，而且也被要求要做請願的禱告：「請賜給我們日用的飲食。」毫無疑問的，它提出了一個理論上的問題：我們能相信，神真的曾經為了人們的建議而改變祂的作為嗎？
因為無盡的智慧不需要何為最佳的說法；無比的美善也不需匆促的作為。而且神也不需要任何這些從有限的生物或無生物所作為的東西。假如祂決定了，祂不需食物就能夠神奇的修補我們的身體；不需勞煩農夫、麵包師和屠夫就能賜給我們食物；不需勞煩學者就能賜給我們知識；也不需勞煩傳教士去改變異教徒。相反的，祂只要讓土壤、氣候、動物、和人的肌肉、心智和意念一起合作執行祂的旨意。
巴斯卡Pascal說：「神設立了禱告，為的是提供給祂的被造物因果關係的尊嚴。」但是並非只針對禱告，只要我們有所作為，祂就給我們那種尊嚴。它不是真正的陌生，也並非不稀奇，我的禱告應該會比我的其他作為更影響事情的過程；它們並沒有提醒或改變神的心意——就是祂的整體目的；不過那目的將會隨著作為，包括祂的被造物的禱告，以不同的方式實現。
因為祂像是儘可能地委任祂的被造物去為祂做事。祂要我們又慢又笨拙的去做祂能完美地而且在轉眼間能做成的事。祂容許我們疏忽祂的交代，甚至失敗了。或許我們沒有完全意識到這個問題，可以這麼說，想要促使有限的自由意志能與“無所不能”並存。好像在每個時間點上，都涉及到一種神的遜位。我們不僅僅是接受者或旁觀者；我們要不是很榮幸的參與了這個遊戲就是被迫偕同去做這個工作，“揮動我們的小三叉戟”。這神奇的過程不就是在我們的眼前進行神的創造？這就是神如何的(蠻慎重的)從無中生有——果真造了眾神。
所以禱告至少依我看來——盡我所能提供的，只不過是一個心理的模式或象徵。所有我們在這樣的主題上所說的應該只是類似的和比喻的。毫無疑問的，我們的能力無法理解這個真相。但是我們在某種程度上能夠排除不好的類推和不好的比方。禱告不是一種機器；不是魔術；不是對神的建言。當我們禱告時，我們的作為，和我們所有其他的行為，不會有異於神自己不停的作為，因為所有有限緣由的運轉都涵蓋在神的作為裡。
甚至還有個更糟糕的想法，就是把那些禱告得應允的，想像成是宮庭裡的寵幸，是對皇上有影響力的人；耶穌基督在客西馬尼園不得應允的禱告就足以回答這個題目。
有一次我聽到一位很老練的基督徒的非常堅定的說法，我不敢把它忽略掉，他說：「我見過許多次禱告的驚人的回應，不只一次我認為是神蹟；但是它們經常是發生在開始時：在沒變成基督徒之前，或剛變成基督徒的那一小段時間。當基督徒的生活持續下去，那些事就罕見了；而不被垂聽的禱告不只是更常發生；他們變得更明白無誤，更具說服力。」
難道神離棄了那些最忠心服事祂的子民？那位最忠心服事祂的，在被折磨致死，臨終前說：「祢為什麼離棄我呢？」
當神變成一個人，那個人，在眾人之中，在祂最有需要的剎那，最沒有得到神的安慰。這是個奧秘，甚至假如我有毅力，或許我也沒有勇氣去探查。同時，像你、我，我們這種小人物，假如我們的禱告有時竟蒙了應允——在絕望斷念之時——我們最好不要驟下定論。假如我們更堅強，我們可能得到更少的柔和待遇。假如我們更勇敢，我們可能被送去更危急的前線，在更少的助力下去打一個偉大的爭戰。
Some
years ago I got up one morning intending to have my hair cut in
preparation for a visit to London, and the first letter I opened made
it clear I need not go to London. So I decided to put the haircut off
too. But then there began the most unaccountable little nagging in my
mind, almost like a voice saying, “Get it cut all the same. Go and
get it cut.” In the end I could stand it no longer. I went. Now my
barber at that time was a fellow Christian and a man of many troubles
whom my brother and I had sometimes been able to help. The moment I
opened his shop door he said, “Oh, I was praying you might come
today.” And in fact if I had come a day or so later I should have
been of no use to him.
It
awed me; it awes me still. But of course one cannot rigorously prove
a causal connection between the barber’s prayers and my visit. It
might be telepathy. It might be accident.
I
have stood by the bedside of a woman whose thighbone was eaten
through with cancer and who had thriving colonies of the disease in
many other bones, as well. It took three people to move her in bed.
The doctors predicted a few months of life; the nurses (who often
know better), a few weeks. A good man: laid his hands on her and
prayed. A year later the patient was walking (uphill, too, through
rough woodland) and the man who took the last X-ray photos was
saying, “These bones are as solid as rock. It's miraculous.”
But
once again there is no rigorous proof. Medicine, as all true doctors
admit, is not an exact science. We need not invoke the supernatural
to explain the falsification of its prophecies. You need not, unless
you choose, believe in a causal connection between the prayers and
the recovery.
The
question then arises, “What sort of evidence would prove the
efficacy of prayer?” The thing we pray for may happen, but how can
you ever know it was not going to happen anyway? Even if the thing
were indisputably miraculous it would not follow that the miracle had
occurred because of your prayers. The answer surely is that a
compulsive empirical Proof such as we have in the sciences can never
be attained.
Some
things are proved by the unbroken uniformity of our experiences. The
law of gravitation is established by the fact that, in our
experience, all bodies without exception obey it. Now even if all the
things that people prayed for happened, which they do not, this would
not prove what Christians mean by the efficacy of prayer. For prayer
is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is
that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being
listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He
will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them. Invariable “success”
in prayer would not prove the Christian doctrine at all. It would
prove something much more like magic—a power in certain human
beings to control, or compel, the course of nature.
There
are, no doubt, passages in the New Testament which may seem at first
sight to promise an invariable granting of our prayers. But that
cannot be what they really mean. For in the very heart of the story
we meet a glaring instance to the contrary. In Gethsemane the holiest
of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass
from Him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended
to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed.
Other
things are proved not simply by experience but by those artificially
contrived experiences which we call experiments. Could this be done
about prayer? I will pass over the objection that no Christian could
take part in such a project, because he has been forbidden it: “You
must not try experiments on God, your Master.” Forbidden or not, is
the thing even possible?
I
have seen it suggested that a team of people—the more the
better—should agree to pray as hard as they knew how, over a period
of six weeks, for all the patients in Hospital A and none of those in
Hospital B. Then you would tot up the results and see if A had more
cures and fewer deaths. And I suppose you would repeat the experiment
at various times and places so as to eliminate the influence of
irrelevant factors.
The
trouble is that I do not see how any real prayer could go on under
such conditions. “Words without thoughts never to heaven go,”
says the King in Hamlet. Simply to say prayers is not to pray;
otherwise a team of properly trained parrots would serve as well as
men for our experiment. You cannot pray for the recovery of the sick
unless the end you have in view is their recovery. But you can have
no motive for desiring the recovery of all the patients in one
hospital and none of those in another. You are not doing it in order
that suffering should be relieved; you are doing it to find out what
happens. The real purpose and the nominal purpose of your prayers are
at variance. In other words, whatever your tongue and teeth and knees
may do, you are not praying. The experiment demands an impossibility.
Empirical
proof and disproof are, then, unobtainable. But this conclusion will
seem less depressing if we remember that prayer is request and
compare it with other specimens of the same thing.
We
make requests of our fellow creatures as well as of God: we ask for
the salt, we ask for a raise in pay, we ask a friend to feed the cat
while we are on our holidays, we ask a woman to marry us. Sometimes
we get what we ask for and sometimes not. But when we do, it is not
nearly so easy as one might suppose to prove with scientific
certainty a causal connection between the asking and the getting.
Your
neighbor may be a humane person who would not have let your cat
starve even if you had forgotten to make any arrangement. Your
employer is never so likely to grant your request for a raise as when
he is aware that you could get better money from a rival firm and is
quite possibly intending to secure you a raise in any case. As for
the lady who consents to marry you—are you sure she had not decided
to do so already? Your proposal, you know, might have been the
result, not the cause, of her decision. A certain important
conversation might never have taken place unless she had intended
that it should.
Thus
in some measure the same doubt that hangs about the causal efficacy
of our prayers to God hangs also about our prayers to man. Whatever
we get we might have been going to get anyway. But only, as I say, in
some measure. Our friend, boss, and wife may tell us that they acted
because we asked; and we may know them so well as to feel sure, first
that they are saying what they believe to be true, and secondly that
they understand their own motives well enough to be right. But notice
that when this happens our assurance has not been gained by the
methods of science. We do not try the control experiment of refusing
the raise or breaking off the engagement and then making our request
again under fresh conditions. Our assurance is quite different in
kind from scientific knowledge. It is born out of our personal
relation to the other parties; not from knowing things about them but
from knowing them.
Our
assurance—if we reach an assurance—that God always hears and
sometimes grants our prayers, and that apparent grantings are not
merely fortuitous, can only come in the same sort of way. There can
be no question of tabulating successes and failures and trying to
decide whether the successes are too numerous to be accounted for by
chance. Those who best know a man best know whether, when he did what
they asked, he did it because they asked. I think those who best know
God will best know whether He sent me to the barber’s shop because
the barber prayed.
For
up till now we have been tackling the whole question in the wrong way
and on the wrong level. The very question “Does prayer work?”
puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. “Work”: as if
it were magic, or a machine—something that functions automatically.
Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between
embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete
Person. Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a
small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold,
adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God
its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us. That He answers
prayers is a corollary—not necessarily the most important one—from
that revelation. What He does is learned from what He is.
Petitionary
prayer is, nonetheless, both allowed and commanded to us: “Give us
our daily bread.” And no doubt it raises a theoretical problem. Can
we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to
the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling
what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But
neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite
agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair
our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid
of farmers, bakers, and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of
learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He
allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and
wills of men to cooperate in the execution of His will. “God,”
said Pascal, “instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures
the dignity of causality.” But not only prayer; whenever we act at
all He lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less
strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that
my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God's
mind—that is, His over-all purpose. But that purpose will be
realized in different ways according to the actions, including the
prayers, of His creatures.
For
He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to
His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He
could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye. He allows us to
neglect what He would have us do, or to fail. Perhaps we do not fully
realize the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills to
co-exist with Omnipotence. It seems to involve at every moment almost
a sort of divine abdication. We are not mere recipients or
spectators. We are either privileged to share in the game or
compelled to collaborate in the work, “to wield our little
tridents.” Is this amazing process simply Creation going on before
our eyes? This is how (no light matter) God makes something—indeed,
makes gods—out of nothing.
So
at least it seems to me. But what I have offered can be, at the very
best, only a mental model or symbol. All that we say on such subjects
must be merely analogical and parabolic. The reality is doubtless not
comprehensible by our faculties. But we can at any rate try to expel
bad analogies and bad parables. Prayer is not a machine. It is not
magic. It is not advice offered to God. Our act, when we pray, must
not, any more than all our other acts, be separated from the
continuous act of God Himself, in which alone all finite causes
operate.
It
would be even worse to think of those who get what they pray for as a
sort of court favorites, people who have influence with the throne.
The refused prayer of Christ in Gethsemane is answer enough to that.
And I dare not leave out the hard saying which I once heard from an
experienced Christian: “I have seen many striking answers to prayer
and more than one that I thought miraculous. But they usually come at
the beginning: before conversion, or soon after it. As the Christian
life proceeds, they tend to be rarer. The refusals, too, are not only
more frequent; they become more unmistakable, more emphatic.”
Does
God then forsake just those who serve Him best? Well, He who served
Him best of all said, near His tortured death, “Why hast thou
forsaken me?” When God becomes man, that Man, of all others, is
least comforted by God, at His greatest need. There is a mystery here
which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to
explore. Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are
sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not
draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we
might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent,
with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great
battle.
