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2016-12-23

论真正的“后现代”On Being Truly Postmodern

作者: R. Scott Clark   翻译: 诚之

当代福音派对所谓的“后现代”已经有很多的讨论了。“后现代”是一个在建筑、文学、哲学与宗教上,与一群法国作家(例如福柯与德里达)有关的一个运动。在一些圈子中,这个运动被认为是对基督教的一个威胁,而有些福音派人士提倡要回到以前的状况。福音派的另一些支翼,如新兴教会运动(emergent and emerging movements),则把后现代看作对基督教是有好处的,并且尝试要让基督教去适应它。There is a good deal of talk in contemporary evangelicalism about the rise, nature, and effect of so-called "postmodernism," a movement in architecture, literature, philosophy, and religion associated with a circle of French writers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. In some circles this movement is thought to be a threat to Christianity and some evangelicals advocate a return to the status quo ante. Other wings of evangelicalism, such as the emergent and emerging movements, see postmodernity as a boon to Christianity and seek to adapt Christianity to it.

这篇文章的论点是,有认信信条的改革宗神学(confessional Reformed theology),因为它核心的认信反映在它的启示论、神论、人论、创造论、基督论、归算论(盟约的联合),预定论以及教会论上,因此,它不仅是(在一定的意义内)后现代的,而更准确地说,是前后一致地,反现代主义的。This essay argues that, because of it's core convictions reflected in its doctrines of revelation, God, man, creation, sin, Christ, imputation (federalism), predestination, and the church, confessional Reformed theology is not only, in some sense, postmodern, but more precisely, it is consistently anti-modernist.

在圣经信仰中,只有一位掌主权的造物主与救赎主:圣三一神。圣经说,起初,神借着话语创造了万有,它教导我们,这是三一神中的三个位格一起参与的。父神说了话,而若不是透过圣子神(就是“道”,约翰福音第一章),以及圣灵神运行在水面上,现存的任何事物都不会发生。这位超越的三一真神,自由地行动,从无中(ex nihilo)造有的这幅图象,为神在眷护(providence)与救赎(redemption)中,与人类的交往定下了一个模式。神乃是透过祂所造的代理人而行动(出96),也和他们一同行动(改革宗神学称之为“协同concursus”),但从来不需要依赖这些被造的代理人。这个从古代教会就认信的圣经信仰是:三一真神按祂的形象造了人。正是因为人持有这个形象,人才成为人。我们认信我们是在自由之中背叛了上帝,违背了神的律法,使罪和死亡进入这个世界。圣子神道成肉身,成为末后的亚当,一生顺服神,受死,在第三天从死里复活,使我们能被称义。在上帝所喜悦的交换中,我们的罪被归算到基督身上,而祂的义被归算到所有相信的人,也就是所有蒙神所赐的信心之恩典的人身上。基督把这个信仰的保存、执行与宣讲付托给一个可见的、制度化的社群,也就是教会。In the biblical faith there is only one sovereign Creator and Redeemer: the Holy Trinity. Scripture says that, in the beginning, God spoke creation into existence, it teaches that all three persons of the Trinity were involved. The Father spoke, and nothing came into being that came into being except through God the Son, the Word (John 1), with the Holy Spirit hovering over the face of the deep (Gen 1). This picture of the transcendent and triune God acting freely to create ex nihilo (from nothing) sets the pattern for God's dealing with humanity in providence and redemption. God acts through his created agents (Exod 9:16) and with them (which Reformed theology describes as "concursus") but never in dependence upon created agents. The Bible faith, confessed by the ancient church, is that the triune God made humans in his image. It is that image-bearing status that constitutes us as human. We confess that we freely rebelled against God, violating God's law, introducing sin and death into the world. God the Son became incarnate as the Last Adam, obeyed, died, and was raised on the third day for our justification. In God's joyous transaction, our sn was reckoned to Christ and his righteousness was credited to all who believe, to all whom God has given the grace of faith. Christ committed this faith for safekeeping, administration, and proclamation to a visible, institutional community, the church.

古老的基督教Christian Antiquity

基督教会从基督升天,直到现代时期(modern period)所思量、所教导、所据以行动的,都是以这个观念架构为准。所有基督徒都会问,也有很多不同答案的一个大问题是:神说了什么?神的主权、权柄与自我启示,和“我信上帝,全能的父,创造天地的主”,同样是信心的一个条款。罗马天主教和新教的信徒,对在哪里可以找到神权柄的话语,发展出不同的看法:罗马天主教说,可以在两个地方找到:圣经与传统;而新教说,只能在教会所阅读和认信的圣经中找到(唯独圣经)。不过,这两群信徒都同意,神已经说话,而祂的启示是具有规范性的。This was conceptual framework within which the Christian church thought, taught, and acted from the ascension of Christ until the modern period. The great question that all Christians asked, and to which they gave different answers was: What has God said? The sovereign, authoritative self-revelation of God was an article of faith just as much as "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth." The Roman and Protestant communions developed different views of where God's authoritative Word could be found, Rome says it can be found in two places: Scripture and tradition and Protestants says that it is found in Scripture alone (sola scriptura) which is read and confessed by the church. Both communions agreed, however, that God has spoken and that his revelation is normative.

现代性Modernity

然而,到了17世纪中叶,这个共识开始瓦解。到了法国哲学家笛卡尔(Rene Decartes)过世的时候(1650),欧洲越来越多领头的作家和思想家开始问一个不同的问题:“神曾经说过话吗?”虽然在古老的基督教中有很多伟大的神学辩论(关于神,人,基督,救恩与教会),在现代时期的初期,辩论的焦点是人是否能确实地认识任何事,如果可以,这个权威的落脚处在哪里。到了18世纪,许多人所得到的结论是:“人是万物的尺度”,神如果存在,却是全然超越的,以至于我们无从认识祂,或被祂所认识。有些人转向感官经验(经验主义),而其他人则转向透过理性的过程来认识事物(理性主义)。无论如何,神过去是在前现代思想的中心,到了19世纪,人已经成了知性宇宙的中心。领头的思想家与作家对外来的权威发布了一个独立宣言。唯一值得信任的宗教是道德的宗教,或者是具有强烈宗教经验的宗教。从18世纪开始,许多福音派人士尝试要改造这个强烈、直接神圣经验(主观主义)的宗教,但人类仍然维持其自主性,担任什么才是构成正确宗教经验的仲裁人。By the middle of the seventeenth century, however, that consensus began to break down. By the time the French philosopher Rene Descartes died (1650) an increasing number of the leading writers and thinkers in Europe were beginning to ask a different question: "Has God said?" Where the great debates in Christian antiquity had theological (about God, man, Christ, salvation, the church), the debates in the early modern period centered on whether one can know anything certainly and if so, where the locus of authority is. By the eighteenth century many had concluded that "man is the measure of all things," that God, if he exists, is so utterly transcendent that he can neither know nor be known. Some turned to sense experience (empiricism) and others turned to what could be known through rational process (rationalism). Where God had been, in one way or another, at the center of pre-modern thought by the nineteenth century, humanity was the center of the intellectual universe. The leading thinkers and writers had issued a declaration of independence from all external authorities. The only religion that could be credited was the religion of morality or perhaps the religion of intense religious experience. From the Eighteenth century many evangelicals attempted to adapt the religion of intense, immediate experience of the divine (subjectivism) but humans remained autonomous, arbiters of what constituted the right sort of religious experience.

随着人的自主(human autonomy,意思是:人自己就是自己的律法)的哲学与宗教的兴起与独领风骚,就开始了一些推论,如同所有的神学一样,是从神论开始的,也包括如人论、罪论、基督论、救恩论以及教会论等内容。现代化的神论教导,神毫无区别的是所有人的父亲。基督徒所一直教导的是所有的人,作为被造物,都是神的儿女,但是如果考虑到在神面前的义和救恩,在信徒和非信徒,以及被拣选与未被拣选的人之间,就会有区别了。在启蒙运动中,这种区分被消除了。基督教教导,人类因为犯罪堕落,所以是有罪的;现代理论则教导人普遍的善,甚至是可达完美的,并拒绝罪的教义。在整个现代理论中,这个新的“开放”(liberal)的信条,实际上是相当狭隘的(illiberal)。那些采用现代主义者所认为的,神是全人类的父、四海之内皆兄弟,以及人的可完美性之教义的人,却无法容忍任何与此新的正统不同的说法。到了20世纪初期,现代主义者已经成功地把那些仍然相信老旧教义的人,驱逐出具有权威,或者在学术上有影响力的位置。With the rise and dominance of the philosophy and religion of human autonomy (being a law unto one's self) came a few corollaries beginning, as all theology always does, with the doctrine of God and including a doctrine of man, sin, Christ, salvation, and the church. The modern doctrine of God taught that God is the father of all humans in the same way without distinction. Christians have always taught that all humans are, as creatures, children of God but relative to righteousness with God and salvation there has always been a distinction between believers and unbelievers and between the elect and the non-elect. In the Enlightenment, such distinctions were erased. Where Christianity taught that humans are sinful because of the fall, modernity taught universal human goodness and even perfectibility and denied the doctrine of sin. Throughout modernity, the new "liberal" creed was actually quite illiberal. Those who adopted the modernist creed of the universal fatherhood of God, the universal brotherhood of man, and human perfectibility were quite intolerant of any dissent from the new orthodoxy and, by the early 20th century, the modernists had succeeded in driving those who still believed the old creed from positions of authority or influence in academia.

现代主义的傲慢——说人是万物的尺度,说他知道(或能知道)世界是怎么运作的,什么是可以达成的,什么是无法达成的)——首先在欧洲受到了震撼,然后在第一次世界大战中受到摧毁。现代战争的毫无意义(毫无道理),摧毁了现代主义者的普救主义(universalism)与现代主义的绝对乐观,而被极权主义(totalitarianism),法西斯主义(facism),社会主义(socialism)与存在主义(existentialism)所取代。欧洲的教会在20世纪变得空无一人。现代性(modernity)的乐观主义被恐惧、憎恨与反感所取代。最终,第一次世界大战导致了第二次世界大战,而所造成的毁灭规模,是如果缺乏现代科技就无法想象的。在20世纪中,被其他人所杀的人,可能比人类历史上任何时期的人都要来得多。我们只须复诵这些名字:史达林,希特勒,波尔布特(Pol Pot,赤柬领袖),亚美尼亚种族屠杀,卢旺达,等等。当现代性从理性主义和经验主义迈向浪漫主义(Romanticism)和主观主义之时,欧陆的作者开始怀疑“客观”的实在是否真的存在,是我们可以知道的。我们对现实的主观经验变成了主宰。老旧的现代主义者的乐观,被晚近的现代的怀疑所取代。人们现在问的最主要的问题,首先在欧洲,之后在美国,变成了:“是谁在问这个问题?”到了60年代晚期,在公民权利、越战、关于政府和权威犬儒主义(cynicism)之兴起的骚乱当中,这个同样的转移也在北美发生了。The hubris of modernity, the notion that man is the measure of all things, that he understands (or can understand) how the world works, what can be done and what can't be done, was was first shaken in Europe and then destroyed by World War I. The senselessness of modern war destroyed the modernist universalism and modernist optimism only to be replaced by totalitarianism, facism, socialism, and existentialism. The churches of Europe emptied during the 20th century. The optimism of modernity was replaced with fear, loathing, and nausea. World War I led, eventually, to World War II and destruction on a scale unthinkable without modern technology. During the 20th century it is likely that more humans were killed by other humans than at any time in human history. One has only to recite the names: Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, the Armenian genocide, Rwanda and so on. As modernity moved from rationalism and empiricism to Romanticism and subjectivism European writers began to doubt that there is such a thing as an "objective" reality that can be known. One's subjective experience of reality came to dominate. The old modernist optimism was replaced with late modern suspicion. The dominant question, first in Europe, and later in the USA, came to be "Who's asking?" By the late 60s, in the midst of turmoil over civil rights, the Vietnam war, the rise of cynicism about government and authority the same shift was underway in North America.

晚期或浮动的现代性Late or Liquid Modernity

有些关于现代性的记载,将后期或“浮动”的现代时期(一个主观性的转变)描述为“后现代”(postmodern),但至少有一些作家对这个形容词发出质疑。字面上看来,“后现代”似乎暗示着拒绝现代性的基本原则,但没有任何证据表明这种拒绝已然发生了。只有很少数(如果有的话)所谓的带领“后现代”的作家,拒绝了现代性的基本原则,也就是人的自主性。的确,这个后期现代性的主观转变,是19世纪浪漫主义者所料到的,他们尝试以强烈的感觉(感情)经验,来平衡早期现代主义者之转向到客体、理性主义(亦即:教导只有在理性上能全面地理解或分析的,才是真的或真实的),与经验主义(亦即:教导知识的主要或唯一来源是感官)。当代主观主义所强调的,不是作者的意图,而是读者对文本的领受。对这类主观主义,福音派基督徒在某方面来说,是走在一般人前面的。18世纪早期至中叶的宗教大复兴,就具有这类对感觉的强调,这是19世纪的浪漫主义的特色。后期现代性转向到对文本的主观经验,是美国福音派敬虔主义者几十年来的特色,早在多数英语语系者知道德里达或福柯之前。Some accounts of modernity describe the late or "liquid" modern period (the subjective turn) as "postmodern," but at least a few writers have called that adjective into question. Taken literally "postmodern" would seem to entail a rejection of fundamental principles of modernity but there is little evidence that any such rejection has taken place. Few, if any, of the leading so-called "postmodern" writers have rejected the fundamental principle of modernity, i.e., human autonomy. Indeed, the subjective turn of late modernity was anticipated in the 19th century by the Romantics who sought to balance the early modernist turn to the objective, to rationalism (i.e. the doctrine that only that is true or real that can be comprehensively understood and analyzed rationally) and empiricism (i.e. the doctrine that knowledge comes principally or only via the senses), with intense affective (feeling) experiences. The subjectivism of the current period emphasizes, e.g., not the author's intent but the reader's reception of the text. Evangelical Christians were, in certain respects, ahead of the curve when it came to this sort of subjectivism. The religious revivals of the early to mid 18th century bore marks of the sort affective emphasis that marked 19th century Romanticism. The late modern turn to the subjective experience of texts was a feature in American evangelical piety for decades before most English speakers would know the names Derrida or Foucault.

现代性——无论是早期的或晚期的,无论是乐观的或怀疑的——之伟大的统一主题,从来就是人的自主性。一直到晚期的现代事物,仍然假定人的自主性,高于所有其它的权威来源,包括神。它仍然是现代的东西。要成为真正的后现代,我们必须完全拒绝这个现代性的基本原则。原则上,就其可信度而言,改革宗正统或信条从来没有接受过人的自主。老派的改革宗神学家是从神的自主、自存与具有权威的自我启示开始的,他们中有许多人从一开始就是与现代性作战的。是一位认信信条的改革宗神学家对自然神论(Deism,一位全然超越,唯一神论的,不认识世界的,人所不可知的神祗)做出诊断,也是一位认信信条的改革宗神学家看到笛卡尔转向人的自主的本质:要把神从宝座上赶下来,而用人类与人类的经验来取代祂。The great unifying theme of modernity, whether early or late, whether optimistic or suspicious, has always been human autonomy. Inasmuch as late modernity still assumes human autonomy relative to all other sources of authority, including God, it is still modernity. To be truly postmodern would be to reject the fundamental principle of modernity altogether. To its credit, in principle, Reformed orthodoxy or confessionalism never accepted human autonomy. Beginning with God's autonomy, self-existence, and authoritative self-revelation, many of the old Reformed theologians were at war with modernity from the start. It was a confessional Reformed theologian who diagnosed Deism (an utterly transcendent, unitarian, unknowing, and unknowable deity) and it was a confessional Reformed theologian who saw Descartes' turn to human autonomy for what it was: an attempt to unseat God and to replace him with humanity and human experience.

改革宗与现代性的对立The Reformed Antithesis to Modernity

自从自主性、人可以完美以及普救论的宗教兴起以来只有一个信仰认信是完全与之对立的改革宗信仰。 只有改革宗信仰曾经彻底并一贯地拒绝现代性的根与支干。我这样说并不是主张改革宗教会或改革宗的基督徒就完全没有受到现代性的影响。在许多重要的方面,我们也受到理性主义与主观主义的影响。范泰尔(Cornelius Van Til)提醒我们注意在一些方面,一部分改革宗世界对和平的诉求。亚米念主义是“改革宗”人士,在早期与现代性的挣扎中,尝试诉诸和平的一个例子。17世纪,有一些科克由(Cocceius17世纪圣约神学的提倡者)的追随者要让笛卡尔能与改革宗神学相称,以及J.A.Turretin拒绝他父亲(译按:Francis Turretin17世纪一位相当出色的改革宗神学家,曾在日内瓦学院任教30年)的神学,是其它的事例。横扫欧陆的改革宗正统的衰败,见证了尝试要找到一条现代性和改革宗正统的中间路线,是失败的。值得争议的是,要记得Paul Helseth, Kim Riddlebarger和其他人对这个故事的修正版,即使老普林斯顿也承担着在它有时要调和复兴主义的主观主义和19世纪的理性主义时,所受到的现代性蹂躏的疤痕。 Since the rise of the religion of autonomy, human perfectibility, and universalism, only one confession has been utterly antithetical: The Reformed confession. Only the Reformed faith has utterly and consistently rejected modernity root and branch. In arguing this I am not claiming that the Reformed churches or that Reformed Christians have escaped completely the influence of modernity. There are important ways in which we have come under the influence of rationalism and subjectivism. Cornelius Van Til called attention to ways in which some segments of the Reformed world sued for peace. Arminianism is one example of an attempt by some "Reformed" folk to sue for peace in the early days of the struggle with modernity. The attempt, in the 17th century, of some of the followers of Cocceius to appropriate Descartes for Reformed theology and J. A. Turretin's rejection of his father's theology are other examples. The collapse of Reformed orthodoxy across Europe is witness to the failure of those attempts to find a mediating place between modernity and Reformed orthodoxy. Arguably, bearing in mind the revisions to the story argued by Paul Helseth, Kim Riddlebarger, and others, even old Princeton Seminary bore the pockmarks of the ravages of modernity in its sometime attempt to mediate between the subjectivism of revivalism and the rationalism of the 19th century.

当代的福音派则借着宗教的主观主义,来寻求一个与现代性妥协的道路。复兴主义布道家(revivalist evangelicals)和宗教改革暂时和策略性的联盟,在18世纪初叶开始瓦解。这个联盟在二战之后,暂时被新福音派(neo-evangelicalism)所复兴了,但福音派和宗教改革的关系则回到了先前的状态。同样的说法也适用于基要主义。基要主义是从一个保守版本的人的自主性起家的,在20世纪的初叶,暂时与宗教改革信仰结盟了,但是基要主义的兴趣从来就不同于宗教改革家的兴趣。一旦发现宗教改革不是宗教理性主义(美国的基督教)与道德主义(禁烟)的好友后,基要主义者就遗弃了他们与宗教改革的联盟。然而,大多数基要主义者最令人吃惊之处,是他们从来与现代性没有太大的不同,都是:人的自主性。基要主义者全权地运用他们的自主性来主张他们对基督教和道德主义的拣选,但是其核心的认信,从来就只是人全权的选择。Contemporary evangelicalism has sought a middle way with modernity via religious subjectivism. The temporary and strategic alliance between revivalist evangelicals and the Reformation began breaking down in the early 18th century. That alliance was temporarily revived in post-World War II neo-evangelicalism, but relations between evangelicalism and the Reformation have returned to the status quo ante. The same might be said for fundamentalism. Having begun with a conservative version human autonomy, fundamentalists were temporarily allied with the Reformation faith early in the 20th century, but the interests of fundamentalism were never those of the Reformation. When it became clear that the Reformation was a poor friend of religious nationalism (Christian America) and moralism (tee-totaling) the fundamentalists abandoned their dalliance with the Reformation. The starting point of most fundamentalists, however, was never very different from that of modernity: human autonomy. The fundamentalists sovereignly exercised their autonomy to assert their election of Christianity and moralism but the core conviction has always been sovereign human choice.

不过改革宗的认信三一真神绝对主权、堕落的奥秘、亚当的罪的归算、道成肉身的奥秘、替代性代赎的奇妙以及基督的义的归算以及在这些之后无条件拣选的奥秘对现代主义者的主观主义和理性主义来说是一个全然的安慰现代主义者说:“真实的就是理性的理性的就是真实的”(the real is the rational and the rational is the real);主观主义者说:“真实的就是你经历到的你经历到的就是真实的”(the real is the experienced, and the experienced is the real);而改革宗信仰则说:“真实的是神所启示的神所启示的就是真实的。”(The real is the revealed and the revealed in the real.Nevertheless, the Reformed confession of the absolute sovereignty of the Triune God, the mystery of the fall, the imputation of Adam's sin, the mystery of the incarnation, the wonder of the substitutionary atonement, and the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and behind all these, of the mystery of unconditional predestination stand in stark relief to modernist subjectivism and rationalism. Where the modernist says "the real is the rational and the rational is the real" and where the subjectivist says, "the real is the experienced, and the experienced is the real," the Reformed faith says, "The real is the revealed and the revealed in the real."

这个对立的说法最能解释为什么现代主义者耗费心力与笔墨,想要消灭加尔文的名誉。只要上谷歌网站,搜寻“加尔文”和“塞尔维特”(Servetus),就可以看到证据。对照之下,现代主义者并没有以同样的方式来尝试污蔑路德。这是因为加尔文独自且不公平地,与一个教义联系在一起。这个教义是最彻底的反现代性宗教的:预定。我们对联盟主义(federalism,亚当和基督作为人类代表性的头)也有类似的困扰。这两个教义与现代主义者主张的人的自主性是彻底无法调和的。现代主义者对人性的定义包括了相对于所有其它权威与行动者的自主。改革宗对人性的定义始于神,而我们的地位是祂形象的持有者。我们有必要知道自己是与两个伟大的法人团体(corporations)相关联的:义人,与堕落的人。无论是何者,我们的地位是由在我们以外的某人决定的,他代表我们行动。我们的自主性从一开始就完全是破损的。This antithesis best explains why the modernists have expended so much energy and ink in seeking to destroy Calvin's reputation. One has only to google "Calvin" and "Servetus" to see the evidence. By contrast, the modernists have not sought to deface the image of Luther in the same way. It is because Calvin is singularly and unfairly associated with the doctrine that is most utterly opposed to the religion of modernity: predestination. We have a similar problem with doctrines such as federalism (Adam and Christ as representative heads of humanity). These two doctrines are utterly unreconcilable to the modernist assertion of human autonomy. The modernist definition of humanity entails autonomy relative to all other authorities and actors. The Reformed definition of humanity begins with God and our status as image bearers. We understand ourselves as necessarily implicated in tow great corporations, righteous humanity and fallen humanity. In both cases our state was determined by someone outside of us who acted for us. Our autonomy is compromised fatally from the beginning.

新兴教会运动The emerging and emergent movements尝试要成为后现代。事实上从一定程度来说因为他们是以人的自主性开始的使用的是不同版本的理性主义他们否认赎罪),与主观主义他们的解经寻求直接与神相遇),他们并不像他们所说的那么后现代正如Mike Horton喜欢说的他们是最现代的”(most modern。要成为真正的后现代,需要拥抱历史性的改革宗信仰。它必须是反现代的,要拒绝主张人类的选择,或人的经验,或人的理所拥有的主权,而支持奥秘的三一真神的主权,支持两个亚当之说,支持无条件的恩典,信心与基督自己所设立的教会。The emerging and emergent movements seek to be "postmodern." In fact, to the degree that they begin with human autonomy, with versions of rationalism (e.g., in their denial of the atonement), in subjectivism (e.g., in their hermeneutic and quest for the immediate encounter with God) they are not postmodern as much as they are, as Mike Horton likes to say, "most modern." To be truly postmodern would be to embrace the historic Reformed faith. It would be to become anti-modern, to repudiate the assertion of the sovereignty of human choice or of human experience or of human rationality in favor of the the sovereignty of the mysterious Triune God, of the two-Adams, of unconditional grace, faith, and the church instituted by Christ himself.


 R. Scott Clark, D.Phil. is Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California and he writes regularly at The Heidelblog.