雙語(yǔ)·當(dāng)呼吸化為空氣 我在一個(gè)虔誠(chéng)的基督教家庭長(zhǎng)大

我在一個(gè)虔誠(chéng)的基督教家庭長(zhǎng)大，禱告和閱讀《圣經(jīng)》是每晚的儀式。盡管如此，我和大多數(shù)從事科學(xué)工作的人一樣，相信現(xiàn)實(shí)的物質(zhì)概念，擁有終極的科學(xué)世界觀，遇事會(huì)力求用完整的形而上的方法去研究和解決，不去考慮那些陳舊的概念，什么靈魂啊，上帝啊，穿著長(zhǎng)袍、留著大胡子的白人男子之類的。二十幾歲的時(shí)候，我花了很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間，努力去建立這樣一種認(rèn)知框架。然而，最終問題還是顯現(xiàn)出來：把科學(xué)作為形而上的最終裁決標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，不僅否定了上帝在這個(gè)世界的存在，還同時(shí)否定了愛、恨與意義；這種思想中的世界，本來就與我們所生活的這個(gè)世界天差地別。當(dāng)然，并不是說如果你相信人生的意義，就必須也要信仰上帝。準(zhǔn)確地說，如果你認(rèn)為上帝在科學(xué)中無立足之地，那么你就幾乎一定會(huì)認(rèn)為人生的意義在科學(xué)中也無法容身。因此，生命本身也毫無意義。換句話說，那些關(guān)于存在主義的言論沒有任何分量，一切認(rèn)知都是科學(xué)認(rèn)知。
Although I had been raised in a devout Christian family, where prayer and Scripture readings were a nightly ritual, I, like most scientific types, came to believe in the possibility of a material conception of reality, an ultimately scientific worldview that would grant a complete metaphysics, minus outmoded concepts like souls, God, and bearded white men in robes. I spent a good chunk of my twenties trying to build a frame for such an endeavor. The problem, however, eventually became evident: to make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning—to consider a world that is self-evidently not the world we live in. That’s not to say that if you believe in meaning, you must also believe in God. It is to say, though, that if you believe that science provides no basis for God, then you are almost obligated to conclude that science provides no basis for meaning and, therefore, life itself doesn’t have any. In other words, existential claims have no weight; all knowledge is scientific knowledge.

然而，這其中就存在一個(gè)悖論?？茖W(xué)的方法論是人們的雙手創(chuàng)造出來的，因此無法涉及一些永恒的真理。我們建立科學(xué)理論，是為了組織和掌控這個(gè)世界，將各種現(xiàn)象局限在可控的范圍內(nèi)?？茖W(xué)的基礎(chǔ)，就是各種現(xiàn)象的重復(fù)出現(xiàn)以及人為制造的客觀性。這是很強(qiáng)的后盾，讓科學(xué)有能力去建立并闡釋各種關(guān)于物質(zhì)和能量的主張，但也讓科學(xué)知識(shí)無法解釋人類生命中存在主義的本能特性。人類生命本身就是獨(dú)特的、主觀的、無法預(yù)測(cè)的。也許在組織和研究重復(fù)出現(xiàn)的經(jīng)驗(yàn)主義數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)，科學(xué)提供了最有用的方法，但另一方面，科學(xué)卻無法用來解釋人類生命中最為核心的方面：希望、恐懼、愛、恨、美、妒忌、榮譽(yù)、軟弱、奮斗、痛苦和美德。
Yet the paradox is that scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth. We build scientific theories to organize and manipulate the world, to reduce phenomena into manageable units. Science is based on reproducibility and manufactured objectivity. As strong as that makes its ability to generate claims about matter and energy, it also makes scientific knowledge inapplicable to the existential, visceral nature of human life, which is unique and subjective and unpredictable. Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.

這些核心的情感與科學(xué)理論之間，總是存在一道鴻溝。沒有任何思想體系能夠完整地包含人生所有的體驗(yàn)。形而上學(xué)仍然停留在提供啟示的范圍，并沒有那么寬泛（畢竟，奧卡姆的核心觀點(diǎn)是這個(gè)，而不是無神論）。而只有在這樣的基礎(chǔ)上，無神論才是合理的。最典型的無神論者，大概是格雷厄姆·格林的著作《權(quán)力與榮耀》里的中尉，他的無神論，來自“上帝不在”的天啟。唯一名副其實(shí)的無神論，必須建立在創(chuàng)造世界的愿景之上。很多無神論者都喜歡引用諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)得主、法國(guó)生物學(xué)家雅克·莫諾的一句話，而這句話其實(shí)在掩飾無神論的一個(gè)富有天啟色彩的特征：
Between these core passions and scientific theory, there will always be a gap. No system of thought can contain the fullness of human experience. The realm of metaphysics remains the province of revelation (this, not atheism, is what Occam argued, after all). And atheism can be justified only on these grounds. The prototypical atheist, then, is Graham Greene’s commandant from The Power and the Glory, whose atheism comes from a revelation of the absence of God. The only real atheism must be grounded in a world-making vision. The favorite quote of many an atheist, from the Nobel Prize–winning French biologist Jacques Monod, belies this revelatory aspect:“The ancient covenant is in pieces; man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance.”

古老的圣言已經(jīng)灰飛煙滅，人類終于知道，自己是這冷酷無情的廣闊宇宙中孤獨(dú)的存在，而自己在這宇宙的誕生，也是偶然的。
Yet I returned to the central values of Christianity— sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness—because I found them so compelling. There is a tension in the Bible between justice and mercy, between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the New Testament says you can never be good enough: goodness is the thing, and you can never live up to it. The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.

而我最終回歸了基督教的核心價(jià)值：犧牲、救贖、寬恕。因?yàn)槲?shí)在太大，令人嘆服。《圣經(jīng)》里，正義和仁慈，在《新約》和《舊約》之間都存在一種拉鋸。《新約》說，從善沒有盡頭：善良就是人生的目標(biāo)，你永遠(yuǎn)也不可能做到盡善盡美。我相信，耶穌傳遞的主要信息，是無論何時(shí)，仁慈都重于正義。
Not only that, but maybe the basic message of original sin isn’t “Feel guilty all the time.” Maybe it is more along these lines: “We all have a notion of what it means to be good, and we can’t live up to it all the time.” Maybe that’s what the message of the New Testament is, after all. Even if you have a notion as well defined as Leviticus, you can’t live that way. It’s not just impossible, it’s insane.

不僅如此，也許原罪傳遞的主要信息也不是“應(yīng)該時(shí)時(shí)刻刻抱有愧疚之心”。也許這樣解釋反而更為恰切：“我們心中都有一個(gè)善的概念，但不是時(shí)時(shí)刻刻都做得到?！贝蟾胚@才是《新約》想要傳遞的信息。就算你心中對(duì)“善”的認(rèn)識(shí)和《圣經(jīng)·利未記》中一樣嚴(yán)苛全面，你也不可能像那樣生活。真的不可能，瘋子才會(huì)那樣。
About God I could say nothing definitive, of course, but the basic reality of human life stands compellingly against blind determinism. Moreover, no one, myself included, credits revelation with any epistemic authority. We are all reasonable people—revelation is not good enough. Even if God spoke to us, we’d discount it as delusional.

當(dāng)然，關(guān)于上帝，我無法提出任何明確的觀點(diǎn)，但人類生命的基本現(xiàn)實(shí)，本來就是極度反對(duì)盲目決定論的。另外，包括我在內(nèi)的任何人，都不認(rèn)為天啟論在認(rèn)知領(lǐng)域擁有任何權(quán)威。我們都是講求理性的人，天啟論不足以解釋所有疑惑。就算上帝真的與我們對(duì)話，我們也會(huì)認(rèn)為那是幻覺。
So what, I wonder, is the aspiring metaphysician to do?

那么，我會(huì)想，有追求的形而上學(xué)者，應(yīng)該做什么呢？
Give up?

放棄嗎？
Almost.

幾乎就要放棄了。朝著終極真理掙扎向前，但發(fā)現(xiàn)這是不可能完成的任務(wù)；或者說，有可能找到正確答案，但證實(shí)這個(gè)答案，是絕對(duì)不可能的。
Struggle toward the capital-T Truth, but recognize that the task is impossible—or that if a correct answer is possible, verification certainly is impossible.