我也要反省懺悔

photo by David Liu

【聲明】

這是一篇轉載的文章，原文登於 :

http://dryen.pixnet.net/blog/post/38833975

作者鄢源貴醫師是一位在台北的婦產科專科醫生，他在百忙中使用各樣的傳媒和網路文章，使有病痛的婦女患者能認識自己的身體，尋求適當的醫療看護；雖然我是個男人，從我所讀過的文章裡，我知道他是一位少見的好醫生，但是他也是一個很忙碌和承受很大的壓力的平凡人。平常我們或許可以碰到幾位卓越的醫師，但是像鄢醫師因為無法很有耐性的和某些患者溝通而感到內疚而寫在文章裡的，卻很少見。

有一些朋友或自認是我的學生的，曾使用email 向我就教，被我回答 ”沒意見”或 ”no comment” 的，曾經再次用電話，或email問我：「你這是什麼意思?」得到的結果並不比“沒意思”好到哪裡去，我也不覺得需要反省懺悔，所以我的愛心是遠比不上鄢醫師的。

【原文】

因為門診患者多，所以我看診及跟診護理師其實都倍感壓力，希望早些看完，但又希望能仔細診察說明，所以我說話不由得變快，加上圖檔看圖說故事較易懂，再加上我網站中龐大的資料庫，我也會提點要看的功課圈寫在我準備給患者的單張上，即便門診很匆忙的說明，但仍能讓患者能更清楚，藥物使用我也盡量寫便條紙提醒吃法。同樣我也希望患者自己也能用功一些，有概念時在門診討論就能很快進入重點。

話說今天周6門診一如往常忙碌，雖然已限號，有時一邊看診，但看診門診剩餘人數常不減反增，知道又是許多不好拒絕的患者又加號。眾多等候在門外的患者很辛苦，但我們也都很努力加油，有時護理師壓力大到不太敢走出門或上廁所，開玩笑說門外壓力比膀胱壓力還大...。今天一位之前初診患者來複診，也帶了父母親來，就說她們想知道為何要做手術or手術如何做or...一般初診我會花較多時間說明解釋，我也看了我準備給患者的單張上，幾乎都說過一次，所說之處我的筆會註記重點，不過兩位家屬應沒太多概念，可能也沒做功課，也許患者也只稍講一下等等,who knows ...但是來意說就是要我再講一次，其實老實說我不耐煩了，我拒絕了。門診我說明過後，若不了解當可以提出"問題"再補充說明，但又重頭說明我真的不想。之後又問了達文西手術等等，費用等等，我真的都說過，單張上我還圈寫出來，此時氣氛其實是僵的...我想我不適合當她的醫師，她也不想，他家屬應也不會想。

早上9點一直到下午4點終於看完了，壓力遽降...我想我也要反省懺悔，我當時EQ管理太差了， 同時也向3位道歉。也希望您找到好醫師，順利恢復健康。                                         

鄢源貴上

道德觀和心理治療

Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis

1943

Bill Lin譯

Book III. Christian Behavior

台南大同國小劉蕓瑄

4. Morality and Psychoanalysis

道德觀和心理治療

我提過，除非我們之間的大多數人都變成了基督徒，我們將無法建立一個有基督精神的社會。當然，這並非指我們可以對這個社會什麼事都不作，直等到那遙遠的某個假想的日子的到來。它意味著，我們必須雙管齊下：

(1) 尋求如何將“己所欲，施於人”的細節推行到現代的社會。

(2) 假如我們知道如何做，讓我們成為身體力行的那批人。

現在我要開始探討什麼是基督徒所謂的“好人”──基督徒對人類這部機器所訂的規格。

在進入到細節以前，我還要提到兩個概括的觀點：首先，既然基督徒的道德觀，聲稱有辦法來矯正人類這部機器；我想你們會想知道它和另一個幾乎有類似的聲稱的方法──叫做心理治療之間有如何的關聯。

你們必須很清楚的區分兩樣事：一是實際的醫學理論和心理治療法，一是弗洛伊德Freud和一些人把普通的哲學世界觀加諸其上的。後者──弗洛伊德的哲學──是直接和耶穌基督的精神牴觸的；而且也和另一位偉大的心理學家 Carl Jung直接牴觸。還有，當弗洛伊德在談到如何治療神經病時，他是個在這個主題上的專科醫生，但是當他繼續去談哲學概論時，他只是個業餘的身份。所以要很小心的去引用他所涉及的那個病例而不要無限上綱的擴及到其他──那就是我的做法。我是一直準備這樣子做，因為我發現當他在談到不是他的專業，而是我所懂的一個題目(譬如語言方面的)，他是很無知的。但是心理治療本身，去除了弗洛伊德等人所有的哲學添加部份以外，和耶穌基督的精神並不是沒有牴觸。它的方式和基督徒的道德觀在某些觀點上是重疊的，假如每一位牧師都懂一些心理治療並不是一件壞事；但是因為這兩者是在做全然不同的事情，並非從頭到尾走在同一條路。

當一個人做一個道德上的選擇時，涉及到兩樣事情：一是選擇的這個動作；另一個是他的心理的機能所呈現給他的各樣的感覺、衝動等等，是他的選擇的素材。這個素材可分成兩類，一是我們會稱為正常的：它可以是包含所有人類共通有的感覺；或者是包含因為他的潛意識裡錯亂的事情所引起的很不自然的感覺。所以害怕那些真正危險的東西是一個屬於前者的例子；一個非理性的怕貓或怕蜘蛛是属於後者的一個例子。一個男人對一個女人的慾望是屬於前者；一個男人變態的想要一個男人就是属於第二類。心理治療所從事的就是要消除那些不正常的感覺，換句話說，要給人比較比較好的素材來做他的選擇；道德觀則是關注到這些選擇行為的本身。

這麼說，假想有三個人去打仗，一個人，他有平常人對危險的自然恐懼，但是他藉著道德努力克服了它而變成一位勇士。讓我們假設另兩位，因為在他們的潛意識裡的事情，讓他們有過度的、非理性的恐懼，使得再多的道德努力都使不上力。現在假設有一位心理治療師來將這兩位給治癒了；他將他們擺回到了和第一個人相同的狀態。這只是心理治療的問題解決了，而道德的問題才開始呢。因為他們雖痊癒了，這兩位還是可能採取完全不同的路線。前者可能說：「謝天謝地，我已經擺脫了那些莫名其妙的東西；我終於可以做我夢寐以求──為爭自由而盡我的職責。」但另一位也可以說：「我很高興在槍林彈雨中不再那麼害怕，不過這改變不了我的初衷，只要有機會，我還是樂於死心塌地的照顧我自己，讓那些傢伙去出危險任務吧。說真的，不再那麼害怕的好處之一，就是我可以更妥善的照顧自己，而且可以更聰明的不被他們識破。」這個差異是純粹出於道德的，心理治療是完全使不上力。縱使你改善了人的很多的素材，你還是會碰到其他的事：從這材料上呈現給他的，這個人的真正的自由選擇，到底是把他自己的利益擺在前面，或是擺在後面。而這個自由選擇就是道德觀唯一的關注。

不好的心理材料不是罪而是病，它不需要被懺悔，但是需要被醫治，而且那是蠻重要的。人們以他們的外在行為作為論斷人的依據；神以他們的道德選擇來判定他們。當一個對貓懷有病態的恐怖的神經質的人，因為某些良善的理由，逼著他自己去抓起一隻貓，很可能在神的眼裡，他比一個健康的人在贏得維多利亞十字勳章的表現中顯現出更多的勇氣。當一個自小就被變態的教導殘酷是對的行為的人，做了一些小小的仁慈的行為，或是不去做某些常犯的殘忍的動作，從而冒著或許會被同伴嘲笑的風險；在神的眼裡，他可能比你我假設我們要為朋友犧牲生命的作為，做得更多。

反過來說也是一樣的，我們之間有些人可能看來像是很好的人，實際上，卻很少用到那些好的遺傳和好的教養，以致於使我們比那些被我們認為是壞蛋的人還要更壞。假設我們被套上了那些心理的框架，我們能確定我們將會做出什麼樣的舉動嗎？再加上不好的教養，再加上權勢，譬如，像希姆萊(希特勒的心腹)? 這就是為什麼基督徒被告誡不可論斷。

我們只看到一個人從他的素材中做出抉擇的後果，但是神一點都不根據素材來判定他，而是根據他用素材去做了什麼。一個人的心理的成份大致是來自他的身體，當他的身體一死，所有的也會隨之而去；而真正的人的核心，他的抉擇，從素材裡所做出來的，不論是最好的或最壞的，都將裸露出來。各樣的我們以為是屬於我們的好東西，實際上是因為有好的消化能力，會從我們的某些人上消失；各樣的我們以為是因為心理情結或不健康而來的討厭的東西，也會從其他人上消失。這是第一次，我們將會看到每一個真正的自我，那時將會有很多的驚訝。

這就帶到了我的第二個觀點：人們經常認為基督徒的道德觀是一種買賣，在這個買賣裡神說：「假如你們守規條，我會獎賞你們；假如你們不守規條，我會給你們苦頭吃。」我不認為那是個最好的看法。我寧願說：你每一次做了一個抉擇，你是正在把你做決定的那個核心部分扭轉成和以前些微的不同。拿你的一生來說，把所有你的無數次的抉擇，你的一輩子，你是慢慢的在轉變這個核心的東西，或是成為一個屬天的活物，或是成為一個在地獄裡的活物；變成一個與神、與其他的活物和自我和睦相處，或另一個與神、與其他同等的活物和自我爭戰和恨惡的狀態。變成了這一種是有喜樂、平安、良知和力量的天堂的活物。變成了另一種則是瘋狂、恐怖、痴呆、憤怒、無能和永遠的孤寂。我們每個人每個時刻都在往這兩個狀況之一進展。

這就解釋了我以往經常對基督徒作家們存有的迷惑：他們好像有時很嚴峻，而在其他的時候卻很自由輕鬆；他們一談到心中的罪念時，彷彿是天大地大不得了的事；然後一談到最駭人聽聞的謀殺和叛逆時，卻好像你只要去懺悔，什麼都可以得到寬恕。不過現在我已經知道他們是對的，他們一直在思考的是一舉一動所留在那小小的自我中心的痕跡，在今世沒人看得到，但是我們每個人卻必須永永遠遠的忍受或享受。一個人可能一怒萬骨枯，另一個人也同樣的憤怒，然而卻只惹來別人的譏笑；但是兩者一起留在靈魂上的小印記卻可能很類似。每個人都會自作自受，除非他懺悔了，否則下次再被招惹，他會更難壓抑他的怒氣，脾氣越來越大，越陷越深。假設他認真的轉向神，每個人有可能把自我中心的扭曲再次的矯正；若不如此，每個人長久下來要面對滅亡。從外界看來事情的巨大或微小，不是真正重點的所在。

最後一點，記得我說過，對的方向不只帶給平安也但來良知。當一個人變得更好時，他更清楚的了解，邪惡仍然留在他的裡面；當一個人變得更壞時，他更少了解他自己的惡劣；一個不怎麼壞的人，知道他是不怎麼好；一個壞透了的人，看自己還不賴。這確是個通識。你知道什麼是睡覺，是在你清醒的時候，而非是在你正睡著的時候。當你心智正常的時候，你能看到算術裡的錯誤，而非正在算錯的時候；當你正算錯時，你是不能看得出它們的。當你清醒時你能了解醉酒的性質，而不是當你酒醉時。好人知道什麼是良善和邪惡；壞人通通不知道。

I have said that we should never get a Christian society unless most of us became Christian individuals. That does not mean, of course, that we can put off doing anything about society until some imaginary date in the far future. It means that we must begin both jobs at once-(1) the job of seeing how "Do as you would be done by" can be applied in detail to modern society, and (2) the job of becoming the sort of people who really would apply it if we saw how. I now want to begin considering what the Christian idea of a good man is-the Christian specification for the human machine.

Before I come down to details there are two more general points I should like to make. First of all, since Christian morality claims to be a technique for putting the human machine right, I think you would like to know how it is related to another technique which seems to make a similar claim-namely, psychoanalysis.

Now you want to distinguish very clearly between two things: between the actual medical theories and technique of the psychoanalysts, and the general philosophical view of the world which Freud and some others have gone on to add to this. The second thing-the philosophy of Freud-is in direct contradiction to Christianity: and also in direct contradiction to the other great psychologist, Jung. And furthermore, when Freud is talking about how to cure neurotics he is speaking as a specialist on his own subject, but when he goes on to talk general philosophy he is speaking as an amateur. It is therefore quite sensible to attend to him with respect in the one case and not in the other-and that is what I do. I am all the readier to do it because I have found that when he is talking off his own subject and on a subject I do know something about (namely, languages) he is very ignorant. But psychoanalysis itself, apart from all the philosophical additions that Freud and others have made to it, is not in the least contradictory to Christianity. Its technique overlaps with Christian morality at some points and it would not be a bad thing if every parson knew something about it: but it does not run the same course all the way, for the two techniques are doing rather different things.

When a man makes a moral choice two things are involved. One is the act of choosing. The other is the various feelings, impulses and so on which his psychological outfit presents him with, and which are the raw material of his choice. Now this raw material may be of two kinds. Either it may be what we would call normal: it may consist of the sort of feelings that are common to all men. Or else it may consist of quite unnatural feelings due to things that have gone wrong in his subconscious. Thus fear of things that are really dangerous would be an example of the first kind: an irrational fear of cats or spiders would be an example of the second kind. The desire of a man for a woman would be of the first kind: the perverted desire of a man for a man would be of the second. Now what psychoanalysis undertakes to do is to remove the abnormal feelings, that is, to give the man better raw material for his acts of choice: morality is concerned with the acts of choice themselves.

Put it this way. Imagine three men who go to war. One has the ordinary natural fear of danger that any man has and he subdues it by moral effort and becomes a brave man. Let us suppose that the other two have, as a result of things in their sub-consciousness, exaggerated, irrational fears, which no amount of moral effort can do anything about. Now suppose that a psychoanalyst comes along and cures these two: that is, he puts them both back in the position of the first man. Well it is just then that the psychoanalytical problem is over and the moral problem begins. Because, now that they are cured, these two men might take quite different lines. The first might say, "Thank goodness I've got rid of all those doodahs. Now at last I can do what I always wanted to do-my duty to the cause of freedom." But the other might say, "Well, I'm very glad that I now feel moderately cool under fire, but, of course, that doesn't alter the fact that I'm still jolly well determined to look after Number One and let the other chap do the dangerous job whenever I can. Indeed one of the good things about feeling less frightened is that I can now look after myself much more efficiently and can be much cleverer at hiding the fact from the others." Now this difference is a purely moral one and psychoanalysis cannot do anything about it. However much you improve the man's raw material, you have still got something else: the real, free choice of the man, on the material presented to him, either to put his own advantage first or to put it last. And this free choice is the only thing that morality is concerned with.

The bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured. And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God's eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge.

We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man's psychological make-up is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.

And that leads on to my second point. People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing." I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.

That explains what always used to puzzle me about Christian writers; they seem to be so very strict at one moment and so very free and easy at another. They talk about mere sins of thought as if they were immensely important: and then they talk about the most frightful murders and treacheries as if you had only got to repent and all would be forgiven. But I have come to see that they are right. What they are always thinking of is the mark which the action leaves on that tiny central self which no one sees in this life but which each of us will have to endure-or enjoy-for ever. One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at. But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is not what really matters.

One last point. Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.

神蹟(Chap 1) - C.S. Lewis

神蹟─初步的研究

C. S. Lewis

1947

2nd edition 1960

第一章 本書範圍

想成功的人必須追詢那些對的開端的問題。   *** 亞里斯多得 《形而上學》

Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions.

ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics形而上學, II, (III), i.

我一輩子裡只遇過一個人，宣稱見過一個鬼。在這故事裡，有趣的是：那個人在見鬼以前就不相信有不朽的靈魂，而且見過以後還是不信。她說她看到的應該是一個幻影或是神經過敏。很明顯的她可能是對的。眼見不足為信。

In all my life I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. And the interesting thing about the story is that that person disbelieved in the immortal soul before she saw the ghost and still disbelieves after seeing it. She says that what she saw must have been an illusion or a trick of the nerves. And obviously she may be right. Seeing is not believing.

所以，有關神蹟是否曾經發生過的問題，無法用經驗簡單地回答。每一件可稱之為神蹟的事，最終，都呈現在我們的感覺裡，是看見的、聽到的、觸摸的、嗅聞的、或品嚐的；而我們的感覺卻並非萬無一失的。假設好像發生了任一件不平常的事，我們總可以將它歸咎於錯覺；假如我們秉持著一種排除超自然的哲學，這當然就成了我們一向的說法。我們從經驗裡所學到的，是取決於我們使用於經驗上的那種哲學。所以在我們能夠澄清哲學的問題以前，想訴之於經驗是徒然的。

For this reason, the question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience. Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our senses, something seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. And our senses are not infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say. What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. It is therefore useless to appeal to experience before we have settled, as well as we can, the philosophical question.

假如直接的經驗都無法證明或反証，一件事是否是神蹟，那歷史更是無能為力了。許多人認為， 藉著查考“根據歷史考證的通則”的證據，一個人可以辨決一件過往的神蹟是否發生。但是通則是無用的，除非我們已經定調了神蹟是否可能發生，而且如果可能發生，機率有多高。因為假若它們是不可能發生，再多的歷史憑證，都無法說服我們。假若它們是可能的，但是機率奇低，這樣，只有以數學表達的數據才能說服我們：因為歷史從未對任一事件供給這類程度的證據，所以歷史從未能使我們相信有那一件神蹟發生了。反過來說，假使神蹟並非本質上不可能發生，所以現有的證據就足夠使我們相信有不少的神蹟已經發生了。所以我們的歷史考證的結果，是取決於我們都還未開始看證據以前所秉持的哲學觀點。所以首先必須提出這個哲學上的疑問。

If immediate experience cannot prove or disprove the miraculous, still less can history do so. Many people think one can decide whether a miracle occurred in the past by examining the evidence ‘according to the ordinary rules of historical inquiry’. But the ordinary rules cannot be worked until we have decided whether miracles are possible, and if so, how probable they are. For if they are impossible, then no amount of historical evidence will convince us. If they are possible but immensely improbable, then only mathematically demonstrative evidence will convince us: and since history never provides that degree of evidence for any event, history can never convince us that a miracle occurred. If, on the other hand, miracles are not intrinsically improbable, then the existing evidence will be sufficient to convince us that quite a number of miracles have occurred. The result of our historical enquiries thus depends on the philosophical views which we have been holding before we even began to look at the evidence. This philosophical question must therefore come first.

假如我們忽略了開端的哲學上的功課，卻急於查究歷史，這兒就有一個這樣的例子。在一個廣被接受的聖經的註釋裡，你可以找到一個有關約翰福音的著作時日的討論。那作者說，那福音書必定是在使徒彼得殉道以後寫的，因為耶穌基督在約翰福音書裡被描述，提到了預言彼得的被處死。那作者認為：「一本書不能夠在它所提到事件發生之前就寫成。」當然不可能—除非真的預言確實是說了。假如真有那些預言，有關著作時日的這種說法就成了廢墟。那作者絲毫不提真有預言的可能性，他認為是理所當然的(或許是無意識地)不可能。或許他是對的：縱然如此，他並非藉任何歷史的考據來發現這個信念；他只是拿他的不信預言擺進了他的歷史作業，說來就是賣現成的。除非他的信念是由歷史的考據而來的，他的有關約翰福音的著作時日的歷史性結果就無從獲得。對一個想知道預言到底存不存在的人而言，他的作品是毫不中用的。那作者只能在已經回答了他的不信有預言的問題後，才能開始工作，而且是腳踏實地的，只是他從未如此的與我們溝通。

Here is an example of the sort of thing that happens if we omit the preliminary philosophical task, and rush on to the historical. In a popular commentary on the Bible you will find a discussion of the date at which the Fourth Gospel was written. The author says it must have been written after the execution of St. Peter, because, in the Fourth Gospel, Christ is represented as predicting the execution of St. Peter. ‘A book’, thinks the author, ‘cannot be written before events which it refers to’. Of course it cannot—unless real predictions ever occur. If they do, then this argument for the date is in ruins. And the author has not discussed at all whether real predictions are possible. He takes it for granted (perhaps unconsciously) that they are not. Perhaps he is right: but if he is, he has not discovered this principle by historical inquiry. He has brought his disbelief in predictions to his historical work, so to speak, ready made. Unless he had done so his historical conclusion about the date of the Fourth Gospel could not have been reached at all. His work is therefore quite useless to a person who wants to know whether predictions occur. The author gets to work only after he has already answered that question in the negative, and on grounds which he never communicates to us.

這本書的目的是作為歷史考據的先驅。我不是一位受過訓練的歷史學家，也不為著基督教的神蹟來查驗歷史的證據。我的心血是要使我的讀者們有能力來這樣做。除非我們對神蹟的可能性或機率已經有某些概念，再念下去也是徒然的；那些假設神蹟不可能發生的人，看了本文只會浪費他們的時間：我們已經預知他們將會得到的結果，因為他們打從一開始，就把預設的結果當成了推演的確據。(譯者例： 我認為他不吸引人，因為他長得不好看。)

This book is intended as a preliminary to historical inquiry. I am not a trained historian and I shall not examine the historical evidence for the Christian miracles. My effort is to put my readers in a position to do so. It is no use going to the texts until we have some idea about the possibility or probability of the miraculous. Those who assume that miracles cannot happen are merely wasting their time by looking into the texts: we know in advance what results they will find for they have begun by begging the question.