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.