2017-09-02

耶穌我們的替代者Jesus, Our Substitute

作者: R.C. Sproul   譯者:   Maria Marta

代理(vicarious)一詞對我們理解基督的贖罪非常重要。已故瑞士神學家卡爾巴特(Karl Barth)曾說過,按照他的判斷,整本希臘文新約聖經裏唯一、最重要的字是小寫字的「huper」。 此小單詞的英語翻譯是「代表」(in behalf of 。巴特在發表這一陳述時顯然有點誇張,因為新約有許多字可以說與huper同等重要,甚至更重要,但他只是想提請人注意耶穌地上事工中替代性的一面。

耶穌清償和解了我們的罪債、罪咎、我們對上帝懷有的敵意。祂付上所需的贖金,把我們從罪的奴役釋放出來。 然而,還有另一個重要的字,常常用來描述贖罪:替代(substitution)。 當我們看到聖經將罪描述為違法行爲時,我們便看到耶穌充當替代者,代替我們承擔上帝公義的審判和刑罰。 因此,我們有時說耶穌在十字架上的工作是基督替代性的贖罪,這意思是指祂提供贖罪,不是為祂自己的罪,而是為他人的罪,滿足上帝的公義。祂代表祂的子民,擔當替代者的角色。祂非為自己舍命乃為祂的羊舍命。祂是我們的最終替身。

從取了人性,進入這世界的那一刻起,基督便將「為其他人作替代者,提供贖罪,以滿足上帝律法的要求」這一觀念理解為祂的使命。作為天父的恩賜,祂從天上下來,特意要作我們的替身,成就救贖,祂為我們做了我們不能為自己做的事。我們在耶穌地上事工的開始,即祂來到約旦河與施洗約翰會面,開始祂公開的工作時,就看到這一點。

想象一下那天約旦河的情景。約翰為天國的來臨作準備,正忙於給人施洗。他突然擡頭看見耶穌走近。他當時所說的話,成為後來教會偉大的讚美詩《羔羊頌》(Agnus Dei)的歌詞:「看哪!上帝的羔羊的!是除去世人的罪孽的!」(約一29b   他宣告耶穌是來擔當祂的百姓的罪的那一位。祂會親自履行舊約獻祭系統所象征的一切,即借著一只羔羊被宰殺而後放在祭壇上焚燒,獻給上帝為祭物,代表為人贖罪。羔羊是一個替代物,所以当約翰稱呼耶穌為「上帝的羔羊」時,他斷言祂也將會是一個替代者,然而卻是真正實現贖罪的那一位。

耶穌來到約翰那裡,請求受洗,約翰感到萬分驚恐。聖經告訴我們約翰的反應:「約翰想要阻止他,說:『我應該受你的洗,你卻到我這裡來嗎?』」(太三13)。這句簡單的陳述掩飾了約翰的深深困惑。因為他剛剛宣告耶穌是上帝的羔羊,為獻上完美的祭,贖其子民的罪,上帝的羔羊必須沒有瑕疵。祂必須完全無罪。但約翰呼籲所有以色列人為準備彌賽亞的到來而施行的洗禮儀式却是象征罪得潔凈的儀式。約翰說,本質上「給你施洗對我來說是荒唐的,因為祢是上帝無罪的羔羊。」約翰提出另一個想法:耶穌應該給他施洗。這是約翰承認自己是一個需要洗去罪的人的方式。

耶穌推翻約翰的異議。耶穌回答:「暫且這樣作吧。我們理當這樣履行全部的義」(太三15a)。耶穌在這句聲明中選用的字非常有趣。首先祂說:「暫且這樣作吧。」耶穌用這些特別的字來命令約翰的事實表明,祂明白這涉及一些神學上的困難。耶穌仿佛在說,「約翰,我知道你不明白這裏發生什麽事,但你可以相信我。來,請為我施洗。」

但相反,耶穌接著解釋為什麽約翰應該給祂施洗。祂說:「為我們成全義是合宜的。」 這裏的「合宜」也可以被翻譯成「必要」。換句話說,耶穌說祂受洗是必要的。如何必要?施洗約翰是上帝差派的先知。耶穌後來說,「婦人所生的,沒有一個比約翰更大」(路七28a)。上帝藉著這位先知賜予祂的聖約子民一道新的命令:他們必須受洗。我們從來都不應該認為上帝在頒布十誡之後,便停止向祂的子民表達祂的旨意。基礎的十戒頒布後,又添加了許多律法。上帝的子民要為進入神國作準備,要履行這種潔凈儀式的命領,只不過是上帝的新法令而已。

在被釘十字架之前,在履行上帝羔羊的職責之前,在獻上自己為供物以滿足上帝公義的要求之前,耶穌必須服從上帝賜予這個民族的每一項律法的每一個細節。祂必須代表祂的子民承擔上帝在每一個細節上的審判。既然法律現在要求所有人都要受洗,耶穌也必需受洗。假若祂必須是無罪的,他就必須要履行上帝的一切命令。祂要求約翰給祂施洗,不是因為祂需要被潔凈;祂要求受洗,為的是在每一個細節上都能順服祂的父。

這一點是耶穌要約翰明白的,因為耶穌的使命是成為替身,獻給上帝的替代性的犧牲的祭。耶穌明白並這擁抱這項使命。打從祂事工一開始,祂就知道祂來,充當替身,替代祂的羊。明確肯定耶穌這樣做不是為祂自己,而是為我們------救贖我們,買贖我們,拯救我們,這是關於耶穌的教導的核心。


本譯文的聖經經文皆引自《聖經新譯本》。

本文摘錄自史鮑爾 (R.C. Sproul)  所著的《The Truth of the Cross》。

Jesus, Our Substitute
FROM R.C. Sproul

The word vicarious is extremely important to our understanding of the atonement of Christ. The late Swiss theologian Karl Barth once said that, in his judgment, the single most important word in all of the Greek New Testament is the minuscule word huper. This little word is translated by the English phrase “in behalf of.” Barth was clearly engaging in a bit of hyperbole in making this statement, because many words in the New Testament are arguably as important or even more important than huper, but he was simply seeking to call attention to the importance of what is known in theology as the vicarious aspect of the ministry of Jesus.

He made satisfaction for our debt, our enmity with God, and our guilt. He satisfied the ransom demand for our release from captivity to sin. However, there is another significant word that is often used in descriptions of the atonement: substitution. When we look at the biblical depiction of sin as a crime, we see that Jesus acts as the Substitute, taking our place at the bar of God’s justice. For this reason, we sometimes speak of Jesus’ work on the cross as the substitutionary atonement of Christ, which means that when He offered an atonement, it was not to satisfy God’s justice for His own sins, but for the sins of others. He stepped into the role of the Substitute, representing His people. He didn’t lay down His life for Himself; He laid it down for His sheep. He is our ultimate Substitute.

The idea of being the Substitute in offering an atonement to satisfy the demands of God’s law for others was something Christ understood as His mission from the moment He entered this world and took upon Himself a human nature. He came from heaven as the gift of the Father for the express purpose of working out redemption as our Substitute, doing for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves. We see this at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when He initiated His public work by coming to the Jordan River and meeting John the Baptist.

Imagine the scene at the Jordan that day. John was busy baptizing the people in preparation for the coming of the kingdom. Suddenly he looked up and saw Jesus approaching. He spoke the words that later became the lyrics for that great hymn of the church, the Agnus Dei: “‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29b). He announced that Jesus was the One Who had come to bear the sin of His people. In His person, He would fulfill all of what was symbolized in the Old Testament sacrificial system, by which a lamb was slaughtered and burned on the altar as an offering before God to represent atonement for sin. The lamb was a substitute, so in calling Jesus “the Lamb of God,” John was asserting that He, too, would be a Substitute, but One Who would make real atonement.

Jesus came to John and, to John’s horror, asked to be baptized. Scripture gives us John’s reaction to this request. “John tried to prevent Him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?’” (Matt. 3:13). That simple statement must have masked a deep confusion on John’s part. He had just announced that Jesus was the Lamb of God, and in order to serve as the perfect sacrifice to atone for the sins of His people, the Lamb of God had to be without blemish. He had to be completely sinless. But the ritual of baptism that John was calling all of Israel to undergo in preparation for the coming of the Messiah was a rite that symbolized cleansing from sin. So John said, in essence, “It would be absurd for me to baptize You, because You are the sinless Lamb of God.” John then put forth an alternative idea: Jesus should baptize him. This was John’s way of acknowledging that he was a sinner who needed cleansing.

Jesus overrode John’s protest. “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness’” (Matt. 3:15a). Jesus’ choice of words in this statement is interesting. First He said, “Permit it to be so now.” The fact that Jesus gave His command to John in these particular words shows that He understood there was some theological difficulty involved. It was as if Jesus was saying, “John, I know you don’t understand what’s happening here, but you can trust Me. Go ahead and baptize Me.”

However, Jesus went on to give an explanation as to why John should baptize Him. He said, “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” The word fitting here can also be translated as “necessary.” In other words, Jesus said it was necessary for Him to be baptized. How was it necessary? John the Baptist had come as a prophet from God. Jesus would say later, “Among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist” (Luke 7:28a). Through this prophet, God had given His covenant people a new command: they were to be baptized. We should never think that God stopped expressing His will to His people after He spoke the Tenth Commandment. A multitude of laws was added to the basic Ten Commandments after they were given. The command that His people undergo this cleansing rite to prepare for the breakthrough of the divine kingdom was merely the latest edict from God.

Before He could go to the cross, before He could fulfill the role of the Lamb of God, before He could make Himself an oblation to satisfy the demands of God’s justice, Jesus had to submit Himself to every detail of every law God had given to the nation. He had to represent His people before the bar of God’s justice in every detail. Since the law now required that all of the people be baptized, Jesus, too, had to be baptized. He had to fulfill every single commandment of God if He was to be sinless. He wasn’t asking John to baptize Him because He needed to be cleansed; He wanted to be baptized so that He could be obedient to His Father in every detail.

That’s the point Jesus was making here to John, because Jesus’ mission was to be the Substitute, the vicarious sacrifice offered to God. Jesus understood this and embraced it. From the start of His ministry, He knew He had come to act as a Substitute on behalf of His sheep. At the center of His teaching was the assertion that He was doing this not for Himself but for us—to redeem us, to ransom us, to save us.

This excerpt is adapted from The Truth of the Cross by R.C. Sproul.



作者: R.C. Sproul   譯者: Maria Marta

在我剛信主成為基督徒時我首次體驗到基督教團體的優先考慮事項。我很快了解到我每天應該有靈修時間即一段留給讀經和祈禱的時間。大家認為我應該返教會,我應該擁有一種虔誠,不詛咒、不喝酒、不抽煙等行為是明顯的證據。我完全不知道合乎聖經的義遠遠超越這些行為。然而,和大多數剛信主的基督徒一樣,我學會強調這種虔誠。我的私人信件采用一種新的語言表達形式,讀起來像讀新約書信的書頁。我也很快學會在日常會話中使用基督教行話。我不是「告訴」人某事,而是與他們「分享」。每一次碰到的好運都是「神所賜的福」,我發覺不以屬靈腔調作點綴,我幾乎不能說話。

然而,不久我便發現基督徒的生活遠不止每天靈修和讀聖言。我意識到上帝所希望的更多。祂希望我們在信心和順服中成長;我們不只能渴奶,也能吃乾糧。我還發現,基督教行話不管對非基督徒還是對基督徒來說,幾乎都是一種毫無意義的交流方式。與尋找真敬虔相比,我對模仿亞文化術語更感興趣。 

我的錯誤是將靈修與義行混淆。我也發現我並非惟一一個犯這樣錯誤的人。我讓那些將方法與目標相混淆的人給迷住了。靈修可能是義行的便宜替代品。

多年來一直有許多年輕的基督徒問我如何更屬靈或更虔誠。難得有認真的學生問:「請指教我如何成為義。」 我想知道,為什麼人人都想屬靈?靈修的目的是什麼?虔誠有何用處呢?

靈修和虔誠本身並非目標。事實上,除非它們是更高目標的媒界方法,否則它們是毫無價值的。這個更高的目標必須超越靈修而達到義。

屬靈操煉對成全義至關重要。聖經學習、禱告、參加教會聚會、傳福音等對基督徒的成長是必要的,但這些都不能作為最終目標。沒有靈修,我們無法成全義。更「屬靈」是有可能的,至少表面上如此,但不能實現義。

耶穌是一個禱告的人。祂的禱告生活穩定而強有力。祂是一個擁有豐富聖經知識的人。祂顯然精通上帝的話語。祂很屬靈。然而祂的屬靈不僅僅是表面的。祂自身的內在生命在外在的順服、順服至死中表露出來。

那麼,什麼是義呢?最簡單答案是:義乃是行上帝眼中看為正確的事。這是個簡單的定義,其背後的意義無疑要複雜得多。成為義就是做上帝呼召我們做的事。要達到真正的義的要求是如此之大,如此之多,以致在這世上從來沒有人完美地成全上帝的義,它包括遵行上帝全備的旨意。

Don’t Confuse Spirituality with Righteousness
FROM R.C. Sproul

When I first became a Christian I was introduced to the priorities of the Christian community. I learned quickly that it was expected of me that I have a daily devotion time, a time reserved for Bible reading and prayer. I was expected to go to church. I was expected to have a kind of piety that was evident by not cursing, not drinking, not smoking, and the like. I had no idea that biblical righteousness went far beyond these things. However, like most new Christians, I learned to emphasize such things. My personal letters took on a new pattern of language. They began to sound like pages from New Testament epistles. I soon learned to use Christian jargon in my everyday speech. I didn’t “tell” anybody anything, I “shared” it with them. Every good fortune was a “blessing,” and I found I could hardly speak without sprinkling my sentences with spiritual platitudes.

Soon, however, I found that there was more to the Christian life than daily devotions and sanctified words. I realized that God wanted more. He wanted me to grow in my faith and obedience, to go beyond milk to the meat. I also discovered that Christian jargon was an almost meaningless form of communication, both to non-Christians and Christians alike. I found myself more interested in echoing a subculture’s lingo than in finding true godliness.

My error was this: I was confusing spirituality with righteousness. I also discovered that I was not alone in this. I was caught up with a crowd who confused the means with the end. Spirituality can be a cheap substitute for righteousness.

Over the years I’ve had many young Christians ask me how to be more spiritual or more pious. Rare has been the earnest student who said, “Teach me how to be righteous.” Why, I wondered, does anybody want to be spiritual? What is the purpose of spirituality? What use is there in piety?

Spirituality and piety are not ends in themselves. In fact they are worthless unless they are means to a higher goal. The goal must go beyond spirituality to righteousness.

Spiritual disciplines are vitally necessary to achieve righteousness. Bible study, prayer, church attendance, evangelism, are necessary for Christian growth, but they cannot be the final goal. I cannot achieve righteousness without spirituality. But it is possible to be “spiritual,” at least on the surface, without attaining righteousness.

Jesus was a man of prayer. His prayer life was intense and powerful. He was a man of vast knowledge of the Scriptures. He obviously mastered the Word of God. He was spiritual. But His spirituality was not merely a surface thing. His inner life displayed itself in outward obedience, obedience even unto death.


What is righteousness? The simplest answer to that question is this: Righteousness is doing what is right in the sight of God. This is a simple definition that is far more complex under the surface. To be righteous is to do everything that God calls us to do. The demands of true righteousness are so great and so many that none of us ever in this world achieves it perfectly. It involves following the whole counsel of God.

梅晨:基督教是一種教義Machen: Christianity Is ADoctrine


可是有人會說:「基督教是一種生活,不是教義」。有些人常常把這句話掛在嘴邊,看起來敬虔,其實錯得離譜,即使不是基督徒,也可以看得出來。「基督教是一種生活」是陳述歷史,而不是陳述理念。說「基督教是一種生活」,和說「基督教應該是一種生活」,或者「理想的基督教是一種生活」,是很不一樣的。「基督教是一種生活」這句話必須接受歷史的檢驗,就像「羅馬帝國在尼羅當皇帝的時候,有自由民主」這句話必須接受歷史的檢驗一樣。我們可以說:「如果羅馬帝國在尼羅當皇帝的時候有自由民主,那就太棒了」,但這句話不是在講歷史。歷史只問:「羅馬帝國在尼羅當皇帝的時候,到底有沒有有自由民主?」。基督教是一個歷史現象,就和羅馬帝國、普魯士帝國、美國是一個歷史現象一樣。既然是歷史現象,就得用歷史證據檢驗。

Christianity they will tell us is a life and not a doctrine. Now that seems to be a devout and pious utterance, but it is radically false all the same, and to see that it is false you do not need even to be a Christian, you need have just common sense and common honesty. For when you say that Christianity is this or that, you are making an assertion in the sphere of history. You are not saying what you think ought to be true, but what you think actually is a fact. When people say that Christianity is this or that—some have ventured the absurd assertion that Christianity is democracy —when you say Christianity is this or that, you are making an assertion in the sphere of history. It is just like saying that the Roman Empire under Nero was a free democracy. It is possible that the Roman Empire under Nero might have been a great deal better if it had been a free democracy, but the question is whether as a matter of fact it was a free democracy or not. So when you say that Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, you are making an assertion in the sphere of history, because Christianity is an historical phenomenon exactly like the Roman Empire, like the kingdom of Prussia or the United States of America.

摘錄自《基督教真偽辨》Christiannity and Liberalism19頁,梅晨(J. Gresham Machen)著/包義森(Rev. Samuel Boyle) 譯,改革宗出版有限公司,2003



默想上帝聖言的益處The Value of Meditating UponGod’s Word

作者: Joel Beeke  編譯:王志勇等

閱讀聖經之後,我們務要懇求上帝光照我們,細察我們的內心和生活,然後默想上帝的說話。操練默想聖經有助於我們專注於上帝;幫助我們將敬拜視為一種紀律。默想既操練頭腦、內心,又運用理智、情感。默想把聖經經文輸入靈魂的深處。默想有助於消除虛無罪惡的思想(太十二35)。默想是我們可以支取的內在資源(詩七七10-12),包括每天的生活方向(箴六21-22)。默想是抵擋誘惑的有力武器(詩一一九1115)。默想能減輕痛苦(賽四十九15-17),幫助他人(詩一四五7),榮耀上帝(詩四十九3)。

(略有修改)

本文摘錄自《Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching》。

In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel-Centered Life》已翻譯的篇章

The Value of Meditating Upon God’s Word
FROM Joel Beeke

After reading Scripture, we must ask God for light to scrutinize our hearts and lives, then meditate upon the Word. Disciplined meditation on Scripture helps us focus on God. Meditation helps us view worship as a discipline. It involves our mind and understanding as well as our heart and affections. It works Scripture through the texture of the soul. Meditation helps prevent vain and sinful thoughts (Matt. 12:35), and provides inner resources on which to draw (Ps. 77:10-12), including direction for daily life (Prov. 6:21-22). Meditation fights temptation (Ps. 119:11, 15), provides relief in afflictions (Isa. 49:15-17), benefits others (Ps. 145:7), and glorifies God (Ps. 49:3).

This excerpt is taken from Joel Beeke’s contribution in Feed My Sheep.



追寻路德遭遇雷雨的那一夜

/陈佐人
《不灭的火焰——宗教改革导论》中文版序言

1950年出版的罗伦培登(RolandH.Bainton)《这是我的立场——马丁·路德传记》,以路德的雷雨经历作开始:

15057月一个闷热的夏日,在斯道特亨萨克逊村郊一条晒得焦干的路上,一个孤单的旅客拖曳着疲惫的身躯踽踽独行。他看来颇为年青,个子短小精悍,一身大学生的打扮。将近村子的时候,已是四野昏朦,阴霾密布。突然间.洒下一阵骤雨,跟着便雷轰电掣,哗啦哗啦的倒下了倾盆大雨。一鞭闪电,撕裂了天际的沉郁,年青人一跤摔在地上;他好不容易的挣扎起来,声色凄惶的喊着说:“圣亚拿(St.Anne),救我!我愿意作修道士。”

到了1990,该年出版的《上帝与魔鬼之间的路德》,则以路德的临终作结:

“可敬的神父,在死亡来到之时,你会坚守基督和你所宣讲的教义吗?”

“是的”,路德清晰地最后一次回答。1546218日,即使在他弥留之际,在艾斯莱本,远离自己的家,马丁·路德仍无法逃避最后一次的公开考验,不能在临终最个人的一刻享有最后的隐私。他的长期密友乔纳斯犹士都,在哈雷城的牧师,赶紧传召证人到床边后,摇动这个垂死的人的手臂,唤醒他最后的精神。路德时常祷告要有安宁的一刻,在生和死的事上信靠上帝,藉此抵抗那最终、最痛苦的敌人撒旦,这是上帝使人得释放脱离罪恶的压迫的礼物。它把痛苦转化为不过一刻的短暂打击。

《这是我的立场》一书的作者罗伦培登,系美国耶鲁大学教会史学家,文笔流畅而间带幽默,将16世纪维腾堡大学教授与修士路德,栩栩如生地呈现在读者眼前。而相对于罗伦培登直述式的传记,1990年出版的《上帝与魔鬼之间的路德》,作者荷兰史家奥伯马则明显采用历史分析的写作方法。后者重在分析与反思,而非重现路德生平。两位学者不单文风不同,写作形式有异,且在解释路德的神学突破时理念不一。

培登全书的重点之一是强调路德的灵性危机与“焦虑”(Anfechtungen),该词是路德用来形容自己面对的试炼,是他在神面前的深度挣扎,像《诗篇》90篇的隐恶。这字成为了半世纪前德国路德学者流行的理论,用以解释路德的转变与改革。荷兰学者奥伯马则提出了另一看法,他认为当时出现了一种新奥古斯丁派,由此而影响了路德对救恩的看法,产生了改教运动。

“伊拉斯谟下了一个蛋,马丁路德把它孵出来”,这句俚语的困难之处是历史中还有许多可能的改革先驱,像英伦的约翰·威克里夫(1384年被绞死),捷克的约翰胡斯(1415年被烧死)。而在思想渊源上,不同学者提出了不同的可能选项:耶鲁大学的罗伦培登在他的路德传中,花了许多篇章来描述修道院院长施德比兹(Johann Von Staupitz)与路德的关系。

路德是在1511年从爱福特迁到维腾堡。罗伦培登描述施德比兹有天在一棵梨树下,劝导路德进修神学博士,并留在维腾堡大学任教。施德比兹具有神秘主义的思想,他成为了路德的告解者,但他一生效忠教罗马教廷,不可能成为改革者路德的启蒙者。他临终(1524年)时引用《箴言》“朋友乃时常亲爱,弟兄为患难而生”(17:17)来描述他与路德的交情。

另一早期的理论是将中世纪晚期的唯名论视为改教运动的启蒙泉源。19世纪德国著名学者狄尔泰形容唯名论是西方理性神学的挖墓者,瓦解了中世纪的形而上学。

阿利斯特麦格拉思在《宗教改革运动思潮》中介绍了中古晚期经院主义中的唯名论,其中心思想是区分信仰与理性,恩典与自然,极度强调上帝的主权与旨意,但他们亦注重自由意志与恩典的合作,因此可能会过分容许人的意志在救恩上产生作用,而这正是奥古斯丁所反对的。但唯名论(又名新路派)对上帝主权的重视,似乎是与路德及加尔文一脉相承,特别是唯名论对哲学的排拒,十分像路德在海德堡辩论(1518年)中以十架神学对经院哲学的批判。但经过了一百年来的研究,学者仍然无法在正反双方的论据中,确证唯名论的真正影响力。

最后的一个主要提纲是荷兰学者奥伯马倡议的“新奥古斯丁主义”。他的路德传中第二部主题为意料之外的改教运动(Unexpected Reformation),这是符合大家的共识:即路德,加尔文,慈运理,英伦清教徒与小教派的翼锋改革家,都是在没有全盘计划下,无心插柳柳成阴。而第二部的其中一章是:改教运动的突破。这是每本路德传或改教运动史都要有的一章。

奥伯马尝试去证明在当时维腾堡大学出现了一种新的思潮,以前常被混合在唯名论中,但这却是自成一体的新神学,他称之为奥古斯丁式的新路派。其思想根源不是中古的神学家,如托马斯,司各脱或奥卡姆的威廉,而是直接上溯至希坡主教奥古斯丁。其代表人物是利米尼的格列高列(Gregory of Ramini),故又称格列高列派。

这看法的特出之处是强调在改教前夕出现了一个被人忽略的奥古斯丁神学的复兴,重新强调恩典的优先性与上帝的主权,改教运动的源起不是一些被火烧死的改革先驱,也不是一群中世纪末期的隐晦形而上家,而是那位在四世纪北非的恩典博士奥古斯丁。

此种维腾堡的奥古斯丁神学使路德可以全面抗拒经院哲学的入侵,也能过滤了唯名论着重人意志的帕拉纠主义。但奥伯马的倡议当然引起了学者的躁音,麦格拉思对此倡议提出了五个异议,表示这仍是在争议中的看法。

19世纪的美国普林斯顿神学院教授华尔裴德(B.B.Warfield)总结改教运动为:从内部而言,改教运动是奥古斯丁的恩典论胜过了他自己的教会论。此句名言表明改教家如路德与加尔文都深受奥古斯丁的影响,而且天主教与改教家双方都是引证奥古斯丁为他们的辩论根据。而路德产生了一套对奥古斯丁的新解,尖锐地对立于天主教的旧解。问题是我们无法清楚地追溯出在当时是那一派的思想人物,直接引发路德的神学突破。 

有关路德历史追寻问题也出现在其他改革家生平研究,其中更棘手的是对加尔文生平与神学突破的探究。多言多语的路德为我们留下了《桌边谈话录》,其中热情口沫横飞,宛如今天的读报一般。路德更在言谈间为我们留下了许多自传式的言说。虽然有学者置疑其准确性。后来路德在他的拉丁著作集的编集完成后(1545),加上了一篇自传性前言。

相比之下,对自己生平整为寡言的加尔文,却没有留下许多的史料。他要待大约二十五年后,在日内瓦的书房内挥笔写《诗篇注释》(1557)时,才提到他以前的迅速的悔悟。我们若要准确地推算加尔文悔悟的年份,是极为困难的事。
                 
要追寻每位改教家的悔悟日期,要厘清他们的神学突破,这是西方改教研究锲而不舍的重要课题。如果说中世纪是上限明确,下限模糊的西方时代,那改教时期是一个上限模糊,下限明确的阶段。

为什么一定要找出路德与改教运动神学突破的起源?最好的答案之一,是引用路德自己的话:“读者必须知道到我不是那些不知从什么地方冒出来的人,突然间便能完美地,透彻地地明白圣经。”如果连路德自己都承认事必有因,不会是一夜之间的顿悟,那历史学者更有理由要寻根究底。

历史学家与神学家对改教运动的追寻,像是拼图游戏。他们推陈出新的理论,似乎没有还历史的真相,但结果却丰富了我们对16世纪改革纷纭的了解。问题的核心可以总结为信心与历史事实(faith and fact)的对扬。具信心者,往往从信念来看历史,但却不易完全掌握事实之根据。

探索历史者,往往只从事件着手,而无法参透事件背后的精神。基督教之道成肉身,可以说是信心与历史结合的告白,但如何能得之?这就是改教运动研究史所要致力的目标。


宗教改革的神学TheTheology of the Reformation

作者: B. B. Warfield      译者/校对者: /李亮
Reprinted from The Biblical Review, ii. 1917, pp. 490-512 (published by The Biblical Seminary in New York;).


查尔斯·比尔德(Charles Beard)在希伯特讲座(Hibbert Lectures[2]上这样开始他关于宗教改革的发言:“将十六世纪的宗教改革仅仅看成一套神学教义的更替,或者看成对教会臭名昭著的暴行和腐败的清洁,甚至看成是回到原始的纯朴和简单的基督教,都是对宗教改革的本质和重要性认识不足。”他希望我们注意到我们所谓的宗教改革带来的人类生活的广阔的改变,观察那些至少受到其影响的众多活动,然后寻找它影响如此深广的原因。他自认为在“人类智慧的普遍觉醒”里找到了根源,这觉醒在“十四世纪已经开始”并在“十五世纪加速”。在他看来,宗教改革只不过是我们所说的文艺复兴的宗教层面。他断言“这是文艺复兴的生命力,藉着已在坟墓中的古人和认真的日耳曼民族的影响进入到宗教中”,按照他的观点,他甚至觉得有理由这样说,宗教改革“并非主要是一个神学、宗教与教会的运动”。Charles Beard begins his Hibbert Lectures on The Reformation with these words: "To look upon the Reformation of the sixteenth century as only the substitution of one set of theological doctrines for another, or the cleansing of the Church from notorious abuses and corruptions, or even a return of Christianity to something like primitive purity and simplicity - is to take an inadequate view of its nature and importance." He wishes us to make note of the far-reaching changes in human life which have been wrought by what we call the Reformation, to observe the numerous departments of activity which have been at least affected by it, and then to seek its cause in something as wide in its extension as its effects. He himself discovers this cause in the "general awakening of the human intellect," which had begun in the fourteenth century and was being "urged on with accelerating rapidity in the fifteenth." In his view the Reformation was merely the religious side of what we speak of as the Renaissance. "It was the life of the Renaissance," he affirms, "infused into religion under the influence of men of the grave and earnest Teutonic race." He even feels justified in saying that, in the view he takes of it, the Reformation "was not, primarily, a theological, a religious, an ecclesiastical movement at all."

 这种表达显然有一些夸大;之所以会夸大,明显是因为他的分析存在缺陷;而分析的缺陷恐怕源于有问题的价值观。向我们指出十五世纪进行中的人类智慧的普遍觉醒,这并未揭示出改革发生的真正原因,只是描述了当时的环境条件。因着人类智慧的觉醒,人们很久以来就强烈感受到改革的需要,而且多次尝试想要使其发生,虽然都归于徒劳;各处的人们都充分感受到礼仪和道德的腐败而且世界在这腐败下卑躬屈膝,却又同样感受到无力纠正它。但对此的提醒并不能激发我们去思考和寻求,在多年未发生改革的状况下为何宗教改革最终能爆发的原因。在这里催逼性的问题是:使宗教改革发生及发挥影响的力量来自哪里?此影响带着巨大的能量,远超过事物表层。That there is some exaggeration in this representation is obvious. That this exaggeration is due to defective analysis is as clear. And the suspicion lies very near that the defect in analysis has its root in an imperfect sense of values. To point us to the general awakening of the human intellect which was in progress in the fifteenth century is not to uncover a cause; it is only to describe a condition. To remind us that, as a result of this awakening of the human intellect, a lively sense had long existed of the need of a reformation, and repeated attempts had been vainly made to effect it, that men everywhere were fully alive to the corruption of manners and morals in which the world was groveling, and were equally helpless to correct it, is not to encourage us to find the cause of the Reformation in a general situation out of which no reformation had through all these years come. The question which presses is: Whence came the power which achieved the effect - an effect apparently far beyond the power of the forces working on the surface of things to achieve?

试图在轻蔑的陈述下掩盖事实是没有用的。轻蔑地谈论另一套神学教义的“替代”很容易,像轻蔑地谈论另一套政治或卫生学说的更替一样容易,但其错谬之处在于保持事情抽象。要证明食物里有没有布丁,需要去品尝这食物。毫无疑问,只是一般性地谈论密码锁的数字排列是可能的,但那却会忽视一个并非不重要的状况,那就是其中一个排列不同于其他所有的排列——而只有它才能打开锁的螺栓。在宗教改革中所发生的神学教义的替代,是带着生命的应许与权能的一套教义替代了一套症结为死亡的教义。在宗教改革中所发生的是基督教充满生机的复兴,并借此生命的力量通过激烈和大量的斗争开始发挥效用;这是在生活的各个层面发生伟大革命的真实原因。人类毫无疑问一直向往和追求“回归原初纯洁和简单的基督教”,这正是伊拉斯谟(Erasmus)对他所处的时代的需求的想象。困难在于,与其说他们是被他们所不知道的原初的纯洁的基督教所吸引,不如说他们是被他们所知道的当时的基督教排斥,他们仍然只是在黑暗中摸索。而路德所做的则是重新发现生气勃勃的基督教并将它还给世界。这件事就好像是把火花点到火车上。直到现在我们仍在感受那个爆炸。There is no use in seeking to cover up the facts under depreciatory forms of statement. It is easy to talk contemptuously of the "substitution of one set of theological doctrines for another," as it would be easy to talk contemptuously of the substitution of one set of political or of sanitary doctrines for another. The force of the perverse suggestion lies in keeping the matter in the abstract. The proof of the pudding in such things lies in the eating. No doubt it is possible to talk indifferently of merely working the permutations of a dial-lock, regardless of the not unimportant circumstance that one of these permutations differs from the rest in this - that it shoots the bolts. The substitution of one set of theological doctrines for another which took place at the Reformation was the substitution of a set of doctrines which had the promise and potency of life in them for a set of doctrines the issue of which had been death. What happened at the Reformation, by means of which the forces of life were set at work through the seething, struggling mass, was the revival of vital Christianity; and this is the vera causa of all that has come out of that great revolution, in all departments of life. Men, no doubt, had long been longing and seeking after "a return of Christianity to something like primitive purity and simplicity." This was the way that an Erasmus, for example, pictured to himself the needs of his time. The difficulty was that, rather repelled by the Christianity they knew than attracted by Christianity in its primitive purity - of the true nature of which they really had no idea - they were simply feeling out in the dark. What Luther did was to rediscover vital Christianity and to give it afresh to the world. To do this was to put the spark to the train. We are feeling the explosion yet.

我们坚决主张,当时的宗教改革正是一系列神学教义的替代。这也正是路德的看法,也借由路德成为基督教界一贯的看法。其实路德所做的正是为了他自己——为平息他的良心和他越发强烈的罪恶感——重新发现那伟大的事实,是有罪的人所能意识到的所有伟大事实里最伟大的:救恩纯粹是唯独上帝的恩典。哦,但是,你会说,这是缘自路德的宗教体验。我们回答说,不,它首先是一个教义上的发现,离开这个发现或在这个发现之前,路德没有也不可能有这样的宗教体验。他所受教的是另一套教义,可以用当时流行的一个格言表达出来:“尽你所能做到最好,上帝会看顾你”。他试图按照这个教义去生活,却做不到,他无法相信。他告诉了我们他的绝望。他告诉了我们,这绝望变得越来越深,直到他所发现的新教义将他救拔出来,这教义就是:上帝,唯独上帝,在他无限的恩典中拯救我们,他成就了一切;我们除了是个待拯救的罪人,以及随后对我们唯一和独一的救主心存感激而发出的赞美之外,没有什么贡献。这是一个完全不同的教义,它对路德产生了根本不同的影响:僧侣路德和改教家路德是两个不同的人。它也在世界上产生了截然不同的影响:中世纪的世界和现代的世界是不同的世界。把它们区分开的东西,正是路德在维腾堡的修道院里发现的新教义——或者,它在埃尔福特(Erfurt[3]已经有了?——就是他所研读的罗马书第一章的伟大宣言:“义人必因信得生。”(罗1:17)埃米勒·杜梅格(Émile Doumergue)把整个故事变成了一句:“两个根本不同的宗教产生两个完全不同的文明。” The Reformation was then - we insist upon it - precisely the substitution of one set of theological doctrines for another. That is what it was to Luther; and that is what, through Luther, it has been to the Christian world. Exactly what Luther did was for himself - for the quieting of his aroused conscience and the healing of his deepened sense of sin - to rediscover the great fact, the greatest of all the great facts of which sinful man can ever become aware, that salvation is by the pure grace of God alone. O, but, you will say, that resulted from Luther's religious experience. No, we answer, it was primarily a doctrinal discovery of Luther's - the discovery of a doctrine apart from which, and prior to the discovery of which, Luther did not have and could never have had his religious experience. He had been taught another doctrine, a doctrine which had been embodied in a popular maxim, current in his day: Do the best you can, and God will see you through. He had tried to live that doctrine, and could not do it; he could not believe it. He has told us of his despair. He has told us how this despair grew deeper and deeper, until he was raised out of it precisely by his discovery of his new doctrine - that it is God and God alone who in His infinite grace saves us, that He does it all, and that we supply nothing but the sinners to be saved and the subsequent praises which our grateful hearts lift to Him, our sole and only Saviour. This is a radically different doctrine from that; and it produced radically different effects on Luther; Luther the monk and Luther the Reformer are two different men. And it has produced radically different effects in the world; the medieval world and the modern world are two different worlds. The thing that divides them is the new doctrine that Luther found in the monastery at Wittenberg - or was it already at Erfurt? - poring over the great declaration in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: "The righteous shall live by faith." Émile Doumergue puts the whole story into a sentence: "Two radically different religions give birth to two radically different civilizations."

路德自己知道得很清楚,他为自己所做的,他想为世界所做的,只是用一种新教义替代那旧教义——他和世界都不能从其中找到生命。所以,他自告奋勇地做了一名教师,做了一个教义的教师,做了一个为他的教义自豪的教师。他不只是在寻求真理,他拥有真理。他不是向世界提出一个可以考虑的建议;他所谈论的是(他喜欢称它们为)“断言”。对于像伊拉斯谟这样的优雅文人,是只能接受坐在精心布置的桌子旁一起思想开放地愉快地讨论的,“断言”自然是非常唐突的行为。他直接攻击路德,说“我对‘断言’没有什么胃口”,“我可以轻松地去了解任何怀疑论者的观点”,他得意地加上,“这是圣经神圣不可侵犯的权威和教会的法令允许我的,我都顺服,不管我是否明白。”而路德藉着这句话的机会向伊拉斯谟展示一个更迫切需要的关于基督教教义的教导。他说,你说不喜欢“断言”,就等于是说你不是基督徒。拿走“断言”,你就拿走了基督教。没有基督徒能忍受对断言的藐视,因为那就等于是否认了所有的宗教和虔诚,或宣称宗教、虔诚和所有教义什么都不是。基督教的教义不应该被放在跟人的观点同等的水平上。它们是上帝透过圣经赐予我们塑造基督徒生命运行的模具。Luther himself knew perfectly well that what he had done for himself, and what he would fain do for the world, was just to substitute a new doctrine for that old one in which neither he nor the world could find life. So he came forward as a teacher, as a dogmatic teacher, as a dogmatic teacher who gloried in his dogmatism. He was not merely seeking for truth; he had the truth. He did not make tentative suggestions to the world for its consideration; what he dealt in was - so he liked to call them - "assertions." This was naturally a mode of procedure very offensive to a man of polite letters, like Erasmus, say, who knew of nothing that men of culture could not sit around a well-furnished table and discuss together pleasurably with open minds. "I have so little stomach for 'assertions,'" he says, striking directly at Luther, "that I could easily go over to the opinion of the sceptics - wherever," he smugly adds, "it were allowed me by the inviolable authority of the Sacred Scriptures and the decrees of the Church, to which I everywhere submit, whether I follow what is presented or not." For this his Oliver he certainly got more than a Roland from Luther. For Luther takes occasion from this remark to read Erasmus a much-needed lecture on the place of dogma in Christianity. To say you have no pleasure in "assertions," he says, is all one with saying you are not a Christian. Take away "assertions," and you take away Christianity. No Christian could endure to have "assertions" despised, since that would be nothing else than to deny at once all religion and piety, or to declare that religion and piety and every dogma are nothing. Christian doctrines are not to be put on a level with human opinions. They are divinely given to us in Holy Scripture to form the molds in which Christian lives are to run.

这里我们来到被称为宗教改革的形式原则面前。它的基本含义是,宗教改革主要是一场思想领域的革命,像所有伟大的革命一样。不是有一个智慧的人,他早就敦促我们要切切保守我们的心(在圣经里心是认知能力的器官),因为一生的果效是由心发出吗?宗教改革之战是在一个旗帜下进行的,这旗上刻着“唯独圣经的权威”。但是,唯独圣经权威的原则对于宗教改革并不是一个抽象的原则,它所感兴趣的是圣经中所教导的。唯独圣经权威意味着以圣经中所教导的为唯一权威。那当然是指教义。改教家所发现的圣经所教导的教义,胜过所有其他的教义,它总括了圣经中的所有教义,它就是救赎唯独上帝的功劳。这就是我们所说的宗教改革的内容原则。这并不是第一次提出“唯独因信称义”,但它是第一次充满激情地接受对人类所有功劳的抛弃,以及得救唯独依赖上帝的恩典。宗教改革生活、动作、存留都在乎它;在最高意义上说,它就是宗教改革。We are in the presence here of what is known as the formal principle of the Reformation. The fundamental meaning of it is that the Reformation was primarily, like all great revolutions, a revolution in the realm of ideas. Was it not a wise man who urged us long ago to give especial diligence to keeping our hearts (the heart is the cognitive faculty in Scripture), on the express ground that out of them are the issues of life? The battle of the Reformation was fought out under a banner on which the sole authority of Scripture was inscribed. But the principle of the sole authority of Scripture was not to the Reformation an abstract principle. What it was interested in was what is taught in Scripture; and the sole authority of Scripture meant to it the sole authority of what is taught in Scripture. This of course is dogma; and the dogma which the men of the Reformation found taught in Scripture above every other dogma, so much above every other dogma that in it is summed up all the teaching of Scripture, is the sole efficiency of God in salvation. This is what we call the material principle of the Reformation. It was not at first known by the name of justification by faith alone, but it was from the first passionately embraced as renunciation of all human works and dependence on the grace of God alone for salvation. In it the Reformation lived and moved and had its being; in a high sense of the words, it is the Reformation.

把宗教改革与修正教会或社会生活中的弊端相混淆,要么是可怜的,要么就是可笑的。路德从一开始就清楚地知道什么是他改教的中心,一刻也不让外围的事物影响它。事实上,在这点上,他和其他改革者(那些不能带来改变的改革者)之间有清晰的差异。例如,伊拉斯谟对当时代的弊病像路德一样有清晰的眼光,也像路德一样直言谴责。但他认为改革任务是纯粹负面的。他改教的基调是质朴,他希望回归到“简单的基督徒生活”,并以“简单的教义”作为一种手段,他满足于一个剥离过程,他预计仅仅通过彻底清除目前覆盖和隐藏的外壳就将达到真正的基督教核心。这假设在当时的腐败背后存在真正的基督教,只需要揭开,没有恢复的必要。这是真的:当他从事剥离的时候,他没有在什么地方停下来;他不仅一直剥到骨头,而且剔掉骨头,在他手上留下的只剩“基督教哲学”,一个纯粹的道德主义。彼得·卡尼修斯(Peter Canisius[4],从形式上评判,并非不恰当地称其为“皮洛士[5]神学。”路德,则从内容的角度评判说,伊拉斯谟制造了“伯拉纠福音”。因此伊拉斯谟之所为显明,存在在中世纪基督教巨大结构之下的支撑核心无非是赤裸裸的道德主义;并且通过将该道德主义拖出来标为“朴素的基督教”,让他自己成为今天许多呼喊 “回归基督”之人的鼻祖!他们将基督教削减到一个简单的信条:做好人你就可以得救。The confusion would be ludicrous, if it were not rather pathetic, by which the correction of abuses in the life whether of the Church or of society at-large, is confounded with the Reformation. Luther knew perfectly well from the beginning where the center of his Reformation lay, and did not for a moment confound its peripheral effects with it. Here, indeed, lay the precise difference between him and the other reformers of the time - those other reformers who could not reform. Erasmus, for example, was as clear of eye as Luther to see, and as outspoken as Luther to condemn, the crying abuses of the day. But he conceived the task of reform as a purely negative one. The note of his reform was simplicity; he wished to return to the "simplicity of the Christian life," and, as a means to that, to the "simplicity of doctrine." He was content with a process of stripping off, and he expected to reach the kernel of true Christianity merely by thoroughly removing the husk which at the moment covered and concealed it. The assumption being that true Christianity lay behind and beneath the corruptions of the day, no restoration was needed, only uncovering. When he came to do the stripping, it is true, Erasmus found no stopping-place; he stripped not only to the bone but through the bone, and nothing was left in his hand but a "philosophy of Christ," which was a mere moralism. Peter Canisius, looking at it formally, calls it not inaptly, "the theology of Pyrrhus." Luther, judging it from the material standpoint, says Erasmus has made "a gospel of Pelagius." Thus at all events Erasmus at once demonstrated that beneath the immense fabric of medieval Christianity there lay as its sustaining core nothing but a bald moralism; and by dragging this moralism out and labeling it "simple Christianity," has made himself the father of that great multitude in our day who, crying: Back to Christ! have reduced Christianity to the simple precept: Be good and it will be well with you.

与这些负面的改革者形成鲜明对比的是,在路德的手中出现的是一个正面的福音,他的敌人称之为“新宗教”,就像他们的子孙现在仍这样称呼它,他们称呼得如此准确。他不是对修正腐败特别感兴趣,虽然当它们阻碍他时他勇敢地劈开它们。说实话,这个必要的工作让他有点厌倦。他看到在它们之下并没有纯粹的福音要靠着清除掉它们而被发现或释放。他知道,他的新福音,一旦推展开,本身的力量就会消灭它们。他的心里充满了推展出这个新福音的愿望所燃起的火;单单恩典的福音替代掉行为的福音,人就会得到喂养。这个替换就构成了他的整个宗教改革。In sharp contrast with these negative reformers Luther came forward with a positive gospel in his hands; "a new religion" his adversaries called it then, as their descendants call it now, and they call it so truly. He was not particularly interested in the correction of abuses, though he hewed at them manfully when they stood in his way. To speak the whole truth, this necessary work bored him a little. He saw no pure gospel beneath them which their removal would uncover and release. He knew that his new gospel, once launched, had power of itself to abolish them. What his heart was aflame with was the desire to launch this new gospel; to substitute it, the gospel of grace, for the gospel of works, on which alone men were being fed. In that substitution consisted his whole Reformation.

 1520年,教廷颁发关于革除路德教籍的诏书,定罪他所写论纲的其中四十一条,路德著文回应,主张救赎唯独是恩典的功效,这清楚地表明对他来说争论的中心何在。当然,他确实诉诸于圣经,但他也不忘指出,他与奥古斯丁一致,而且有亲身的体验。他嘲笑他的对手试图通过区分适合的(congruity)善行和应受的(condignit)善行来标榜自己与伯拉纠不同。如果我们可以通过善行来确保恩典,他说,那么我们仔细地称这些善行是适合的而避免称它们为应受的就毫无疑义。“这有什么不同呢?”他说,“如果你否认恩典是从我们的善行来,但又教导它是通过我们的善行来?这给人不敬虔的意识:恩典不是无偿地给予的而是要视我们的善行而为。因为伯拉纠并没有教和做跟你所教和所做不同的其他善工而期望得到恩典。它们都是出于相同的自由意志和相同的构成,虽然你和他们给它们的名字不同。它们都是一样的禁食、祈祷和救济,但是你称它们为对恩典适合的善行,而他们的善行就对恩典是应受的。在这两种情况下是同一个伯拉纠得胜。” In his detailed answer to the Bull of Excommunication, published against him in 1520, in which forty-one propositions from his writings were condemned, Luther shows plainly enough where the center of controversy lay for him. It was in the article in which he asserts the sole efficiency of grace in salvation. He makes his real appeal to Scripture, of course, but he does not neglect to point out also that he has Augustine with him and also experience. He scoffs at his opponents' pretensions to separate themselves from the Pelagians by wire-drawn distinctions between works of congruity and works of condignity. If we may secure grace by works, he says, it means nothing that we carefully name these works works of congruity and refrain from calling them works of condignity. "For what is the difference," he cries, "if you deny that grace is from our works and yet teach that it is through our works? The impious sense remains that grace is held to be given not gratis but on account of our works. For the Pelagians did not teach and do any other works on account of which they expected grace to be given than you teach and do. They are the works of the same free will and the same members, although you and they give them different names. They are the same fasting and prayers and almsgiving - but you call them works congruous to grace, they works condign to grace. The same Pelagians remain victors in both cases."

我们将会看到路德所热心的是将善行从救恩中绝对逐出,以及将灵魂完全放置在上帝的恩典里。接近他的辩论结束时,他充分发挥他的口才,将他套对手的绳索勒紧。“因为当他们不能否认我们得救必须靠着神的恩典”,他说,“无法逃避这个真理,就不敬虔地想出另一种逃避的方式——装作虽然我们不能拯救我们自己,但我们能准备好自己得到上帝恩典的拯救。我要问,如果我们能努力达到一个上帝的恩典必须救我们的状态,上帝还有什么荣耀?这看起来是一个很小的能力吗?那些没有恩典的人却有足够的能力去获取他所希望的恩典?你把上帝的恩典放在人的意志之下,这与伯拉纠主义所说我们得救没有恩典之间有什么区别?你对我来说似乎比伯拉纠更糟,因为你将人的能力放在上帝恩典的必要条件中,而对于恩典的必要性人原本是完全否认的。我说,完全否认恩典似乎比将恩典描绘为靠我们的热情和努力而得到保障,并把它纳入我们的能力之下,还更加敬虔一些。” What Luther is zealous for, it will be seen, is the absolute exclusion of works from salvation, and the casting of the soul wholly upon the grace of God. He rises to full eloquence as he approaches the end of his argument, pushing his adversaries fairly to the ropes. "For when they could not deny that we must be saved by the grace of God," he exclaims, "and could not elude this truth, then impiety sought out another way of escape - pretending that, although we cannot save ourselves, we can nevertheless prepare for being saved by God's grace. What glory remains to God, I ask, if we are able to procure that we shall be saved by His grace? Does this seem a small ability - that he who has no grace shall nevertheless have power enough to obtain grace when he wishes? What is the difference between that, and saying with the Pelagians that we are saved without grace - since you place the grace of God within the power of man's will? You seem to me to be worse than Pelagius, since you put in the power of man the necessary grace of God, the necessity of which he simply denied. I say, it seems less impious wholly to deny grace than to represent it as secured by our zeal and effort, and to put it thus in our power."

这种剧烈的猛攻引出了路德著名的宣言,路德在其中清楚地表达了他对自己作为改教家的工作的看法,并表明他在争论中顺带谈到的几个问题的重要性有限。罗马教庭以各种方式教导因善行得救;而他只知道也将只知道因恩典得救,或者像他在此所说的,没有别的,只有基督并他钉十字架。正是为这十字架罗马教庭将他定罪,因为他信靠且唯独信靠这十字架。路德说,“在所有其他的条款”,就是所有其他受到谴责的四十一条中,“关于教皇、议会、赎罪券和其他小事(琐事!),教皇和他的追随者的轻率和愚蠢都可以忍受。但这一条(即自由意志和恩典)是最优先的也是我们的问题之所在,我们必须为这些悲惨的人的精神错乱而悲伤和哭泣。”对路德来说,正是这个条款带来整个冲突的转折。他希望他能主要就这方面多写一写。因为三百多年来,没有一个人或几乎没有一个人进行过关于恩典的写作;但是没有一个主题像这个主题有如此巨大的需要去谈论。“这些琐碎的教皇制度的小事和争吵跟教会没有任何关系,还会毁坏教会”,他补充说,“我常常想绕开它们,来处理(恩典)这个问题。” This tremendous onslaught prepares the way for a notable declaration in which Luther makes perfectly clear how he thought of his work as a reformer and the relative importance which he attached to the several matters in controversy. Rome taught, with whatever finessing, salvation by works; he knew and would know nothing but salvation by grace, or, as he phrases it here, nothing but Christ and Him crucified. It was the cross that Rome condemned in him; for it was the cross and it alone in which he put his trust. "In all the other articles," he says - that is to say, all the others of the forty-one propositions which had been condemned in the Bull - "those concerning the Papacy, Councils, Indulgences, and other nonnecessary trifles (nugae!)" - this is the way in which he enumerates them - "the levity and folly of the Pope and his
 followers may be endured. But in this article," - that is, the one on free will and grace - "which is the best of all and the sum of our matter, we must grieve and weep over the insanity of these miserable men." It is on this article, then, that for him the whole conflict turns as on its hinge. He wishes he could write more largely upon it. For more than three hundred years none, or next to none, have written in favor of grace; and there is no subject which is in so great need of treatment as this. "And I have often wished," he adds, "passing by these frivolous Papist trifles and brawls (nugis et negotiis), which have nothing to do with the Church but to destroy it - to deal with this."

四年之后他这样做的机会来了(1524年)。伊拉斯谟受赞助人和朋友的鼓动就此话题的讨论开头,发表了他迷人的书《论自由意志》。这是一本伟大的人道主义者的伟大的书,拥有典雅的风格、温和的语气、小心的建议、有说服力的诉求,并以精湛的技艺呈现了路德所反对的天主教的教导。伊拉斯谟一方面与伯拉纠和司各脱划清了界限,即使不算从根本上也是决绝地——在别的地方他曾说他厌恶“司各脱毛发直立的带刺的灵魂”;另一方面他也不愿与改教家为伍,他尤其把卡尔斯塔特(Carlstadt)和路德记在心上。伊拉斯谟把自己划归当时观点所认为的奥古斯丁主义,也就是经院哲学的神人合作说(synergism),可能最接近于黑尔斯的亚力山大(Alexander of Hales)曾教导的形式,实际上不久后就被天特会议官方定义为教会教义。对于这微妙的教义,他给以最有吸引力的陈述,并用他魅力的文采编织在它周围。路德并非对这本书的美没有感觉。他说,伊拉斯谟的声音在他听来像夜莺的歌唱。但路德搜寻的是本质,不是形式,他觉得必须承认,他读这本书的体验更多的是像寓言中的被夜莺的歌声迷住的狼,不能休息,直到他捕捉并贪婪地吞噬了它,之后只厌恶地说:“一个声音而已。” His opportunity to do so came when, four years afterward (1524), Erasmus, egged on by his patrons and friends, and taking his start from this very discussion, published his charmingly written book, "On Free Will." It is the great humanist's greatest book, elegant in style, suave in tone, delicate in suggestion, winning in its appeal; and it presents with consummate skill the case for the Romish teaching against which Luther had thrown himself. Separating himself as decisively if not as fundamentally on the one side from Pelagius and Scotus - in another place he speaks with distaste of "Scotus his bristling and prickly soul" - as on the other from the reformers - he has Carlstadt and Luther especially in mind  - Erasmus attaches himself to what he calls, in accordance with the point of view of his time, the Augustinian doctrine; that is to say, to the synergism of the scholastics, perhaps most nearly in the form in which it had been taught by Alexander of Hales, and at all events practically as it was soon to be authoritatively defined as the doctrine of the Church by the Council of Trent. To this subtle doctrine he gives its most attractive statement and weaves around it the charm of his literary grace. Luther was not insensible to the beauty of the book. He says the voice of Erasmus in it sounded to him like the song of a nightingale. But he was in search of substance, not form, and he felt bound to confess that his experience in reading the book was much that of the wolf in the fable, who, ravished by the song of a nightingale, could not rest till he had caught and greedily devoured it - only to remark disgustedly afterward: "Vox, et praeterea nihil."

伊拉斯谟的语句风雅对路德来说却是迷失。路德所希望的是一个清楚而明确的认信:救赎的工作是唯独上帝的恩典,人没有任何贡献——除此没有别的能满足他。伊拉斯谟不可能做出这样的认信。他写作的目的就是为维护人在他自己的救恩中有份,而且是决定性的部分。他可以用最高大的词汇把神的恩典放大。他也会声明,他也认为没有上帝的恩典,人不可能做什么善事,所以,恩典是救赎的开始、中间和结束。但是,当他被逼到墙角的时候,他就不得不承认,在“中间”的某个地方,人的行为出现了,而人的这个行为是成就他救赎的决定性因素。他可能将这一行为减至最低限度。他可能会指出,只在这个非常、非常小的部分他保留了人类的权力——正如人们可能会说,人只是必须推动按钮而恩典会完成所有其他的事。这不能使路德满意。除非救赎的一切——每一点滴——都归功于上帝的恩典,没有什么其他能使他满意。The refinements of Erasmus' statements were lost on Luther. What he wished - and nothing else would content him - was a clear and definite acknowledgment that the work of salvation is of the grace of God alone, and man contributes nothing whatever to it. This acknowledgment Erasmus could not make. The very purpose for which he was writing was to vindicate for man a part, and that the decisive part, in his own salvation. He might magnify the grace of God in the highest terms. He might protest that he too held that without the grace of God no good thing could be done by man, so that grace is the beginning and the middle and the end of salvation. But when pressed to the wall he was forced to allow that, somewhere in "the middle," an action of man came in, and that this action of man was the decisive thing that determined his salvation. He might minimize this action of man to the utmost. He might point out that it was a very, very little thing which he retained to human powers - only, as one might say, that man must push the button and grace had to do the rest. This did not satisfy Luther. Nothing would satisfy him but that all of salvation - every bit of it - should be attributed to the grace of God alone.

路德甚至将伊拉斯谟努力尽可能地减少救赎中人的部分、但在决定性时刻仍然保留它,当成嘲笑伊拉斯谟的机会。他说,用这样的权宜之计逃避伯拉纠主义,伊拉斯谟和他的随从者把自己更深地浸入伯拉纠主义的染缸,染了双倍的颜色。伯拉纠主义者至少是诚实地面对他们自己和我们。他们不闪烁其辞,用双重意义空洞地区分适合的善行和应受的善行。他们直言不讳,坦率地说功德就是功德。他们不通过贬低我们善行的功德而贬低我们的救赎。我们没有听到他们说我们为得救而积功德的东西“很小,几乎没有什么可取之处”。他们认为救赎是珍贵的;并警告我们,如果我们要得到它,只有付出巨大的努力。如果我们在这个问题上会陷入错误,路德说,但至少让我们不要贬低了上帝的恩典,并把它当作卑劣的和可鄙的。他的意思是,折中的企图,在保留伯拉纠的原则的同时,失去了伯拉纠学派的道德高尚的地位。寻求恩典和善行之间的中间地带,天真地为自己可以两边都坐而高兴,只会在两个凳子之间摔倒一边都坐不到。它像伯拉纠主义那样倚靠善行,但又把可以倚靠的善行降到一个几乎为零的点上。因此,将救恩悬挂于“一些小的、几乎没有的东西”之上,路德说,“是否认了买赎我们的主基督,比伯拉纠和任何异端都更甚。” Luther even made Erasmus' efforts to reduce man's part in salvation to as little as possible, while yet retaining it at the decisive point, the occasion of scoffing. Instead of escaping Pelagianism by such expedients, he says, Erasmus and his fellow sophists cast themselves more deeply into the vat and come out double-dyed Pelagians. The Pelagians are at least honest with themselves and us. They do not palter, in a double sense, with empty distinctions between works of condignity and works of congruity. They call a spade a spade and say candidly that merit is merit. And they do not belittle our salvation by belittling the works by which we merit it. We do not hear from them that we merit saving grace by something "very little, almost nothing." They hold salvation precious; and warn us that if we are to gain it, it can be at the cost only of great effort - "tota, plena, perfecta, magna et multa studia et opera." If we will fall into error in such a matter, says Luther, at least let us not cheapen the grace of God, and treat it as something vile and contemptible. What he means is that the attempted compromise, while remaining Pelagian in principle, yet loses the high ethical position of Pelagianism. Seeking some middle-place between grace and works, and fondly congratulating itself that it retains both, it merely falls between the stools and retains neither. It depends as truly as Pelagianism on works, but reduces these works on which it nevertheless depends to a vanishing-point. In thus suspending salvation on "some little thing, almost nothing," says Luther, it "denies the Lord Christ who has bought us, more than the Pelagians ever denied Him, or any heretics."

路德写了一本书回应伊拉斯谟的《论自由意志》。为了匹配伊拉斯谟的标题,他给出的名字是《论意志的捆绑》。这里自然看不到伟大的人道主义者的纯粹流畅的拉丁文和灵活优雅的风格。但这本书以足够好的拉丁文写成——清晰、有力、直截了当。路德显然花费了不寻常的辛劳,其展现的思想之丰厚和语言之气势远远弥补了任何文学魅力的欠缺。 A. 弗赖塔格(A. Freitag),这本书最新的编者,用了一个伟大的词“开拓(Grosstat)”来简要地评论它, 索德尔(Sodeur)则毫不顾忌地断然描述它为“辩证论战的杰作”;它的语言有手和脚。然而,真正的区别是在比这些评论更高的层面。这本书是路德的宗教改革观念的体现,近乎是对他所曾经提出的观念的一个系统声明。这是对宗教改革基本理念的第一次综合性的阐述。因此,这是一个真正意义上的改革宣言。路德自己也是这样看待它。路德总把它当作一个重大的成就,不是因为他把它当作“单纯的文学”来欣赏,而是因为它包含首要的福音教义——福音教导的核心原理。在他1537年写给出版者加比多(Capito)的信中,他写道,他可以不写所有的书,让它们都消失,但除了《论意志的捆绑》和《要理问答》——只有他们是正确的(战争)。劳特巴赫(Lauterbach-Aurifaber)在《桌边谈》中记载路德曾经有一次提到伊拉斯谟对这本书的反驳。他不承认伊拉斯谟驳倒了它;他不承认他能驳倒它,不,永远不可能。“我知道得很清楚”,他说,“我要对抗魔鬼和他所有要驳倒它的诡计。因为我知道这是神的不可改变的真理。”他再次说,谁碰这个教义就是碰他眼中的瞳仁。To the book in which Luther replied to Erasmus' "On Free Will," matching Erasmus' title, he gives the name of "On the Enslaved Will." Naturally, the flowing purity of the great humanist's Latinity and the flexible grace of his style are not to be found here. But the book is written in sufficiently good Latin - plain and strong and straightforward. Luther evidently took unusual pains with it, and it more than makes up for any lack of literary charm it may show by the fertility of its thought and the amazing vigor of its language. A. Freitag, its latest editor, characterizes it briefly, in one great word, as an "exploit" (Grosstat), and Sodeur does not scruple to describe it roundly as "a dialectic and polemic masterpiece"; its words have hands and feet. Its real distinction, however, is to be sought in a higher region than these things. It is the embodiment of Luther's reformation conceptions, the nearest to a systematic statement of them he ever made. It is the first exposition of the fundamental ideas of the Reformation in comprehensive presentation, and it is therefore in a true sense the manifesto of the Reformation. It was so that Luther himself looked upon it. It was not because he admired it as a piece of "mere literature" that he always thought of it as an achievement. It was because it contained the doctrinae evangelicae caput - the very head and principle of the evangelical teaching. He could well spare all that he had ever written, he wrote to Capito in 1537, let them all go, except the "On the Enslaved Will" and the "Catechism"; they only are right (justum). He is reported in the "Table Talk" (Lauterbach-Aurifaber) to have referred once to Erasmus' rejoinder to the book. He did not admit that Erasmus had confuted it; he did not admit that Erasmus ever could confute it, no, not to all eternity. "That I know full well," he said, "and I defy the devil and all his wiles to confute it. For I am certain that it is the unchangeable truth of God." He who touches this doctrine, he says again, touches the apple of his eye.

我们可以肯定路德是带着热情写下这本书。他写的时候很不容易。那是农民起义的一年(1525年),人们都知道,那使他心烦意乱和忧虑,给他带来精神和灵魂的痛苦。这也是他结婚的一年,他不是以他可爱的坦率告诉我们,在他婚姻生活的第一年中,他工作时凯蒂总是坐在他身边,想向他问问题吗?但他在这本书中所写的并不是他在写作的时候的思考。他是将他福音的核心之核心倾倒在他的页面上,他是以高涨的信心来写作,确信这不只是他的福音而是上帝的福音。他感谢伊拉斯谟选择这个主题来攻击他,使他暂时停止那些令人厌烦的不断地针对他的小冲突,从而使他能够一次直接说到点上。“我尤其要赞美并为此称颂你,”他在书的结尾写道,“与其他人相比,只有你独自一人,攻击事情本身和问题的尖端(summam caussae),而没有用关于教皇、炼狱、赎罪券之类的废话和不是问题的问题来烦我。迄今为止所有人都是徒劳地用这些追逐我,只有你一个人看到了事情的关键,并瞄准了咽喉要道,为此我衷心地感谢你。” We may be sure that Luther wrote this book con amore. It was not easy for him to write it when he wrote it. That was the year (1525) of the Peasants' Revolt; and what that was in the way of distraction and care, anguish of mind and soul, all know. It was also the year of his marriage, and has he not told us with his engaging frankness that, during the first year of his married life, Katie always sat by him as he worked, trying to think up questions to ask him? But what he was writing down in this book he was not thinking out as he wrote. He was pouring out upon the page the heart of the heart of his gospel, and he was doing it in the exulting confidence that it was not his gospel merely but the gospel of God. He thanks Erasmus for giving him, by selecting this theme to attack him upon, a respite from the wearing, petty strifes that were being thrust continually upon him, and thus enabling him to speak for once directly to the point. "I exceedingly praise and laud this in you," he writes at the end of his book, "that you alone, in contrast with all others, have attacked the thing itself, that is, the top of the question (summam caussae), and have not fatigued me with those irrelevant questions about the papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such like trumperies (nugae) rather than questions - in which hitherto all have vainly sought to pursue me. You and you alone have seen the hinge of things and have aimed at the throat; and for this I thank you heartily."

然而,尽管满有热情,路德进入讨论精神并不轻松。他以非常感人的语气写道:“我跟你说,我求你,让它进入你的心灵深处——在这件事上我所寻求的对我来说是庄严的、必要的和永恒的,它如此之伟大,必须宣告和捍卫,就算以死亡为代价——是的,就算全世界不只被丢在冲突和骚动中,甚至沦为混沌、销化成无有。因着上帝的恩典,我没有那么愚蠢和疯狂,不可能会愿意为了钱(我既没有也不希望有),或荣耀(在这个如此对我愤怒的世界上,就算我希望有也不可能获得),或身体的性命(对此我一刻都没有把握)继续维持这么长时间,还这么刚毅和坚定(你称之为固执)。我的生命中经过这么多的危险,经历了太多的仇恨, 那么多的陷阱——简言之,经过了世人与恶魔的愤怒。你认为只有你的心被这些骚乱搅动不安吗?我不是石头做的,也不是岩石里蹦出来的。但因为事情不得不如此,为了上帝的话语必须以不可征服、不能朽坏的勇气宣告的缘故,我宁愿被这种混乱磨损,在神的恩典中喜乐,而不是在永恒的混乱中在上帝的忿怒之难以忍受的痛苦中磨成粉末。”这是路德贯穿在他的论文《论意志的捆绑》中的精神。那是“如果不传福音我就有祸了”的精神。他手中握着的是福音,世人救恩的福音,他必须要宣讲它。It was in no light, however buoyant, spirit, however, that Luther entered upon the discussion. In a very moving context he writes: "I tell you and I beg you to let it sink into the depths of your mind - I am seeking in this matter something that is solemn, and necessary, and eternal to me, of such sort and so great that it must be asserted and defended at the cost of death itself - yea, if the whole world should not only be cast into strife and tumult, but even should be reduced to chaos and dissolved into nothingness. For by God's grace I am not so foolish and mad that I could be willing for the sake of money (which I neither have nor wish), or of glory (a thing I could not obtain if I wished it, in a world so incensed against me), or of the life of the body (of which I cannot be sure for a moment), to carry on and sustain this matter so long, with so much fortitude and so much constancy (you call it obstinacy), through so many perils to my life, through so much hatred, through so many snares - in short through the fury of men and devils. Do you think that you alone have a heart disturbed by these tumults? I am not made of stone either, nor was I either born of the Marpesian rocks. But since it cannot be done otherwise, I prefer to be battered in this tumult, joyful in the grace of God, for the sake of the word of God which must be asserted with invincible and incorruptible courage, rather than in eternal tumult to be ground to powder in intolerable torment under the wrath of God." This was the spirit in which Luther sustained his thesis of "the enslaved will." It is the spirit of "Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel." It is the gospel which he has in his hands, the gospel for the world's salvation, and necessity is laid upon him to preach it.

在路德心里他要传讲的福音,简短地说,就是得救唯赖上帝的恩典的福音。这福音围绕着两个焦点:罪中之人绝对的无能为力;救赎唯赖恩典。这两个互补的命题的神学表述为罪人无力行善的教义和救恩再造功效的教义。路德所谓的“被捆绑的意志”就是指罪人无力行善。他和伊拉斯谟对于意志的心理学都没有特别的兴趣。我们可以了解到,他所持的这一观点后来被称为哲学决定论,或道德的必要性。如果可以这样说,他和伊拉斯谟都不关心意志的活动机制。他们被罪人行善的能力这个伟大的问题所吸引。伊拉斯谟打算证明有罪的人有能力行善,足够好以至于他在神面前有功德,而人的得救就取决于他行出这样的善。路德的心里想要说明的是,罪人——因为他的罪性,而罪并非是很轻的邪恶而是败坏了所有的善——没有能力做任何上帝眼中的善事,因此救赎完全单单依赖于上帝的恩典。也就是说,路德决心严肃地看待罪、原罪、堕落以及堕落带来的人内心深深的败坏,而败坏的结果导致行善上的无能。他将认为人可以拯救自己或做任何事来寻求自己的救赎的教导,标识为可怕的谎言,“他将矛头直接对准这个谎言的源头,教导关于原罪和人心的败坏”。The gospel which Luther had it thus in his heart to preach was, to put it shortly, the gospel of salvation through the grace of God alone. There are two foci around which this gospel revolves: the absolute helplessness of man in his sin; the sole efficiency of grace in salvation. These complementary propositions are given expression theologically in the doctrines of the inability of sinful man to good, and of the creative operation of saving grace. It is the inability of sinful man to good that Luther means by his phrase "the enslaved will." Neither he nor Erasmus was particularly interested in the psychology of the will. We may learn incidentally that he held to the view which has come to be called philosophical determinism, or moral necessity. But we learn that only incidentally. Neither he nor Erasmus was concerned with the mechanism of the will's activity, if we may be allowed this mode of speech. They were absorbed in the great problem of the power of sinful man to good. Erasmus had it in mind to show that sinful man has the power to do good things, things so good that they have merit in the sight of God, and that man's salvation depends on his doing them. Luther had it in his heart to show that sinful man, just because he is sinful and sin is no light evil but destroys all goodness, has no power to do anything that is good in God's sight, and therefore is dependent utterly on God's grace alone for salvation. This is to say, Luther was determined to deal seriously with sin, with original sin, with the fall, with the deep corruption of heart which comes from the fall, with the inability to good which is the result of this corruption of heart. He branded the teaching that man can save himself, or do anything looking to his own salvation, as a hideous lie, and "he launched point-blank his dart at the head of this lie - taught original sin, the corruption of man's heart."

当然,伊拉斯谟不会错过指斥路德论辩中的这一点。他抱怨这些新教师,说他们“无限夸大了原罪,甚至将人性最高贵的能力都描绘得如此败坏,认为就它本身,除了忽视和恨恶神之外,什么都不能做,即使是一个已经被信心的恩典称义的人也不能产生任何不是罪的行为;他们将我们里面我们始祖传给我们的罪的倾向看作罪本身,并且这罪是如此难以战胜,以至于神的任何一条诫命即使一个已经因信称义的人也不可能守住,而神的诫命的目的都是为了更彰显上帝的恩典,这恩典就是与功德无关的救恩的赐予”。这激怒了他,也激怒了那些直到今天跟他有同样感受的人,他们认为路德如此严重透支“性欲”的邪恶,是侮辱了神以自己的形像创造的人性。路德被迫反复指出,他并不是在说人的本性和能力,而是在说关于罪与恩典的问题。路德说,我们不需要等伊拉斯谟告诉我们,“一个人有眼睛和鼻子,耳朵、骨骼和双手,以及头脑、意志和理性,”因为他有这些东西,他才是一个人;他要是没有这些就不是人。如果没有这些东西,我们就不能谈论跟他相关的罪;谈论恩典也是如此,不是甚至连谚语都说“上帝没有为鹅造天堂”吗?让我们把人性及其能力先放在一边;它们是预设好的前提。重要的是,人现在都是罪人。争论的要点在于,罪人是否可能在意志上没有罪,是否能够做那些本质上需要恩典来做的事。路德并没有贬低人性;是他的对手低估了罪的邪恶力量,及恩典的新创造作用的必要性;因为他们降低罪与恩典两者,他们期望人以自己的力量能做上帝自己——那位全能的工匠——才可以做的事。Erasmus, of course, does not fail to put his finger on the precise point of Luther's contention. He complains of the new teachers that they "immensely exaggerate original sin, representing even the noblest powers of human nature as so corrupt that of itself it can do nothing but ignore and hate God, and not even one who has been justified by the grace of faith can effect any work which is not sin; they make that tendency to sin in us, which has been transmitted to us from our first parents to be itself sin, and that so invincibly sin that there is no commandment of God which even a man who has been justified by faith can keep, but all the commandments of God serve no other end than to enhance the grace of God, which bestows salvation without regard to merits." It outraged him, as it has outraged all who feel with him up to to-day - as, for example, Hartmann Grisar - that Luther so grossly overdraws the evil of "concupiscence," and thus does despite to that human nature which God created in His own image. Luther was compelled to point out over and over again that he was not talking about human nature and its powers, but about sin and grace. We have not had to wait for Erasmus to tell us, he says, "that a man has eyes and nose, and ears, and bones, and hands - and a mind and a will and a reason," and that it is because he has these things that he is a man; he would not be a man without them. We could not talk of sin with reference to him, had he not these things; nor of grace either - for does not even the proverb say: "God did not make heaven for geese"? Let us leave human nature and its powers to one side then; they are all presupposed. The point of importance is that man is now a sinner. And the point in dispute is whether sinful man can be, at will, not sinful; whether he can do by nature what it requires grace to do. Luther does not depreciate human nature; his opponents depreciate the baleful power of sin, the necessity for a creative operation of grace; and because they depreciate both sin and grace they expect man in his own powers to do what God alone, the Almighty Worker, can do.

他用一段长的比喻引出了他的教义:“作为一个人,在他被造之前,他没有为要成为一个人做任何事情、付出任何努力;在他被造之后,也没有为要继续成为人做任何事情、付出任何努力;所有这些事情都是全能和良善的上帝按照自己旨意做成的,没有我们的帮助,他独力创造和保守我们——但他在我们里面运行并非我们不可以与他协作,因为他创造和护理我们就是为了这个目的,为了他可以在我们里面运行以及为了我们与他协作,无论这是在他的国度之外通过普遍性的全能,或在他国度之内,由他非凡的圣灵的能力:所以我们说,一个人,在他被再造成为属灵国度的新创造之前,没有为其再造和这国度做任何事情、付出任何努力;在他被再造以后,也没有为要继续在国度里做任何事情、付出任何努力;只有圣灵独自在我们里面完成所有这些,没有我们的帮助,他独力再造我们并保守我们,像雅各说的:‘他按自己的旨意用真道生了我们,叫我们在他所造的万物中、好像初熟的果子。’(雅1:18,他说的是新的创造。)但他并没有离开我们而运作,因为他再造我们并保守我们就是为了他可以在我们里面运行以及我们可以与他协作。因此透过我们,他讲道、怜悯贫乏人、安慰痛苦人。但是,哪些可以归功于自由意志呢?或者说,哪些是留下给它的呢?确实什么都没有。”这个比喻所教导的是整个拯救工作是从上帝而来的,开始、中间和结束;自始至终都是超自然的工作。但我们得救让我们可以活在上帝里,并且在新生命的力量里,在世上行他的旨意。这是保罗所说的,不是出于善行,但是为叫我们行善,就是上帝所预备叫我们行的。He draws out his doctrine here in a long parallel. "As a man, before he is created, to be a man, does nothing and makes no effort to be a creature; and then, after he has been made and created, does nothing and makes no effort to continue a creature; but both these things alike are done solely by the will of the omnipotent power and goodness of God who without our aid creates and preserves us - but He does not operate in us without our cooperation, seeing that He created and preserved us for this very purpose, that He might operate in us and we cooperate with Him, whether this is done outside His kingdom by general omnipotence, or within His kingdom by the singular power of His Spirit: So then we say that a man before he is renovated into a new creature of the kingdom of the Spirit, does nothing and makes no effort to prepare himself for that renovation and kingdom; and then, after he has been renovated, does nothing, makes no effort to continue in that kingdom; but the Spirit alone does both alike in us, recreating us without our aid, and preserving us when recreated, as also James says, 'Of His own will begat He us by the word of His power, that we should be the beginning of His creation' (he is speaking of the renewed creature), but He does not operate apart from us, seeing that He has recreated and preserved us for this very purpose that He might operate in us and we cooperate with Him. Thus through us He preaches, has pity on the poor, consoles the afflicted. But what, then, is attributed to free will? Or rather what is left to it except nothing? Assuredly just nothing." What this parallel teaches is that the whole saving work is from God, in the beginning and middle and end; it is a supernatural work throughout. But we are saved that we may live in God; and, in the powers of our new life, do His will in the world. It is the Pauline, Not out of works, but unto good works, which God has afore prepared that we should live in them.

很明显,罪与恩典的对立是路德的基要神学全部主旨的总结:罪被视为绝对无能力行善;恩典被视为绝对有功效的再造。当然,他也教导了所有与这个伟大的罪与恩典教义成为一体的必要的思想。例如,理所当然地,他教导“不可抗拒的恩典”的教义,还以极度的纯正和果断教导预定的教义——得救如果纯粹是恩典不靠任何功德,那除了是出于上帝的主权和有效的恩赐外如何可能?《论意志的捆绑》花了大量篇幅坚持和阐明这一绝对预定论的教义,路德没有回避将它提高到宇宙范围和详细阐述它的每一个细节。然而,此刻对于我们来说重要且必须坚持的,就是我们前文中路德所谈论的。其实其他伟大的改教家也是如此。路德关于罪和恩典的教义并不是他所特有的。这是所有改革者的共同财产。慈运理、马丁·布塞珥和约翰·加尔文的教导跟路德同样清晰和有力。甚至在早年快乐的时期,“新教的伊拉斯谟”脆弱和不可靠的墨兰顿也教导过,他在奥斯堡事件中没有背叛整个基督教新教不是因为自己的忠诚,而只因为天主教的昏昧,他后来的确背叛新教,在信仰之核心的核心上退回到神人合作说——路德称此学说为教皇教导的精髓。一句话,罪与恩典这一教义就是新教本身。所有其他新教的主张,与之比较都必须退居第二级。It is obvious that the whole substance of Luther's fundamental theology was summed up in the antithesis of sin and grace: sin conceived as absolutely disabling to good; grace as absolutely recreative in effect. Of course he taught also all that is necessarily bound up in one bundle of thought with this great doctrine of sin and grace. He taught, for instance, as a matter of course, the doctrine of "irresistible grace," and also with great purity and decision the doctrine of predestination - for how can salvation be of pure grace alone apart from all merit, save by the sovereign and effective gift of God? A great part of "The Enslaved Will" is given to insistence upon and elucidation of this doctrine of absolute predestination, and Luther did not shrink from raising it into the cosmical region or from elaborating it in its every detail. What it is important for us at the moment to insist upon, however, is that what we have said of Luther we might just as well, mutatis mutandis, have said of every other of the great Reformers. Luther's doctrine of sin and grace was not peculiar to him. It was the common property of the whole body of the Reformers. It was taught with equal clarity and force by Zwingli as by Luther, and by Martin Bucer and by John Calvin. It was taught even, in his earlier and happier period, by that "Protestant Erasmus," the weak and unreliable Melanchthon, who was saved from betraying the whole Protestant cause at Augsburg by no staunchness in himself, but only by the fatuity of the Catholics, and who later did betray it in its heart of hearts by going over to that very synergism which Luther declared to be the very marrow of the Pope's teaching. In one word, this doctrine was Protestantism itself. All else that Protestantism stood for, in comparison with this, must be relegated to the second rank.

在亚力山大·施瓦茨(Alexander Schweizer)的《新教的中心教义》的前面部分有一些有趣的段落,他谈到新教的口号,并指出这些口号与所谓新教的形式和内容原则之间的区别,是在于它们更深思和细化。施瓦茨说,历史上每一个改革运动都有自己的口号,作为其拥护者互相鼓励的象征以及聚集的旗帜。它们渗透到事情的本质,并对运动的精确中枢给予通俗、精简和生动的表达。在新教革命中,“不是传统而是圣经”成为其中的一个口号,但不是最重要的一个,只是作为从属,表达了关于在主要问题“如何才能得救”上互相冲突的双方之间的对比;施瓦茨说,最重要的口号可能类似于:不是善行,而是信心;不是我们的功德,而是上帝在基督里的恩典;不是我们的苦修和偿还,而是唯独基督的功德。当我们听到这些口号,我们听到的是改革的脉搏在人群中跳动的力量,看到它们我们就看到纯正的改教运动。There are some interesting paragraphs in the earlier pages of Alexander Schweizer's "Central Doctrines of Protestantism," in which he speaks of the watchwords of Protestantism, and points out the distinction between them and the so-called formal and material principles of Protestantism, which are, in point of fact, their more considered elaboration. Every reformatory movement in history, he says, has its watchwords, which serve as the symbol by which its adherents encourage one another, and as the banner about which they gather. They penetrate to the very essence of the matter, and give, if popular, yet compressed and vivid, expression to the precise pivot on which the movement turns. In the case of the Protestant revolution the antithesis, Not tradition but Scripture, emerged as one of these watchwords, but not as the ultimate one, but only as subordinate to another in which was expressed the contrast between the parties at strife with respect to the chief matter, how shall sinful man be saved? This ultimate watchword, says Schweizer, ran somewhat like this: Not works, but faith; not our merit, but God's grace in Christ; not our own penances and satisfactions, but the merit of Christ only. When we hear these cries we are hearing the very pulse-beats of the Reformation as a force among men. In their presence we are in the presence of the Reformation in its purity.

几乎无需明确提及,在宗教改革中我们面对的就是奥古斯丁主义的复兴。奥古斯丁的罪与恩典的根本对立是整个宗教改革的灵魂。因此,如果我们想用一个词汇来描述改教运动的神学,称它是奥古斯丁教义的伟大复兴是恰当的。当然,如果我们考虑陈述的准确性,还需要给出一些限定条件。但这些限定条件并不改变其特性,而只使它更加精确。我们应当记得,改教运动绝不是仅仅回到中世纪晚期或当时的奥古斯丁主义。那个时代是以对当前对待和谈论神圣事情的模式深深的不满为特征的;由占主导地位的唯名论退回到遥远的奥古斯丁主义、至少也是回到托马斯主义的运动,是很普遍的和强大的。我们应当知道,奥古斯丁主义作为一个术语不加限制就用来指宗教改革的基本教义,是太过宽泛的。其完整的内涵中包括的倾向和教导的成分,有令改教家厌恶的部分,也有让天主教徒与新教徒有同等权利被称为奥古斯丁真正后代的部分。因此,有人建议可以这样恰当地说,宗教改革,作为一个时代所孕育的运动,代表对当时腐败的普遍反感,在所有回头向奥古斯丁寻求指导和力量的整体中,因其以宗教为动机和愿望的独特性,单单抓住奥古斯丁罪与恩典的教义,并专注地建基于此重整并归回生命。It scarcely requires explicit mention that what we are, then, face to face with in the Reformation is simply a revival of Augustinianism. The fundamental Augustinian antithesis of sin and grace is the soul of the whole Reformation movement. If we wish to characterize the movement on its theological side in one word, therefore, it is adequately done by declaring it a great revival of Augustinianism. Of course, if we study exactness of statement, there are qualifications to be made. But these qualifications serve not to modify the characterization but only to bring it to its utmost precision. We are bidden to remember that the Reformation was not the only movement back toward Augustinianism of the later Middle Ages or of its own day. The times were marked by a deep dissatisfaction with current modes of treating and speaking of divine things; and a movement away from the dominant nominalism, so far back toward Augustinianism as at least to Thomism, was widespread and powerful. And we are bidden to remember that Augustinianism is too broad a term to apply undefined to the doctrinal basis of the Reformation. In its complete connotation it included not only tendencies but elements of explicit teaching which were abhorrent to the Reformers, and by virtue of which the Romanists have an equal right with the Protestants to be called the true children of Augustine. It is suggested therefore that all that can properly be said is that the Reformation, conceived as a movement of its time, represented that part of the general revulsion from the corruptions of the day - the whole of which looked back toward Augustine for guidance and strength - which, because it was distinctively religious in its motives and aspirations, laid hold purely of the Augustinian doctrines of sin and grace, and built exclusively on them in its readjustments to life.

我们可以对这样的说明满意。宗教改革,以弗·卢福斯(Fr. Loofs)的话来说,单纯从其本身来看,呈现给我们的是“基督教作为宗教的再发现”,这是十分正确的。同样千真万确的是,宗教改革的纯粹奥古斯丁主义是在于其宗教观,不是奥古斯丁的全部统治一切,而是只有“奥古斯丁的罪与恩典的教义”,所以当我们说宗教改革是奥古斯丁教义的复兴时,必须知道这只是奥古斯丁恩典教义的复兴。但奥古斯丁的恩典教义代表了最正确意义上的“真正的奥古斯丁”;我们称他是“后保罗和前路德”并没有歪曲这件事情本质的历史真实。我们只能用这样一个短语揭示真理的传承。保罗、奥古斯丁、路德,在教义的实质上这三个是一个,而宗教改革在教义方面被认为仅仅是将保罗神学还给了世界。We may content ourselves with such a statement. It is quite true that the Reformation, when looked at purely in itself, presents itself to our view as, in the words of Fr. Loofs, "the rediscovery of Christianity as religion." And it is quite true that purely Augustinian as the Reformation is in its conception of religion, it is not the whole of Augustine that it takes over but only "the Augustine of sin and grace," so that when we speak of it as a revival of Augustinianism we must have in mind only the Augustinianism of grace. But the Augustinianism of grace in the truest sense represents "the real Augustine"; no injustice is done to historical verity in the essence of the matter when we speak of him as "a post-Pauline Paul and a pre-Lutheran Luther." We have only in such a phrase uncovered the true succession. Paul, Augustine, Luther; for substance of doctrine these three are one, and the Reformation is perceived to be, on its doctrinal side, mere Paulinism given back to the world.

要了解这是否完全正确,我们只要看看路德在1515-1516年写作的关于罗马书的那些讲义——这些手稿到1903年仍然躺在柏林图书馆的陈列柜里无人问津。 当然,路德自己完全明白这一切。劳特巴赫记载路德在1538年的桌边谈话曾说:“在罗马,有红衣主教就福音的开端密谋很多事情反对我。一个教庭的弄臣在一侧旁观并这样评论:‘我的主啊,接受我的建议,先从使徒里废黜保罗;是他带给我们这一切的麻烦。’”路德有意识地要复苏的正是保罗,嘴里不断呼喊“恩典!恩典!恩典!”的保罗(路德这样表述)。路德满有特点地补充道:“尽管魔鬼横行”——“恩典,尽管魔鬼横行”;观察到路德的整个工作就是在世上重建救赎唯独恩典论,而且他深知是冒着魔鬼的攻击做这些,对我们来说是很有价值的。他觉得自己是在与天空中执政的、掌权的、属灵的恶魔争战;他的胜利不依赖人血肉的膀臂。这一切在他伟大的圣诗——那首改教圣诗里不是都显著地表达出来了吗?To realize how completely this is true we have only to look into the pages of those lecture notes on Romans which Luther wrote down in 1515-1516, and the manuscript of which was still lying in 1903 unregarded in a showcase of the Berlin Library. Luther himself, of course, fully understood it all. He is reported to have said in his table talk in 1538 (Lauterbach): "There was a certain cardinal in the beginning of the Gospel plotting many things against me in Rome. A court fool, looking on, is said to have remarked: 'My Lord, take my advice and first depose Paul from the company of the Apostles; it is he who is giving us all this trouble.'" It was Paul whom Luther was consciously resurrecting, Paul with the constant cry on his lips - so Luther puts it - of "Grace! Grace! Grace!" Luther characteristically adds: "In spite of the devil" - "grace, in spite of the devil"; and perhaps it will not be without its value for us to observe that Luther did his whole work of reestablishing the doctrine of salvation by pure grace in the world, in the clear conviction that he was doing it in the teeth of the devil. It was against principalities and powers and spiritual wickednesses in high places that he felt himself to be fighting; and he depended for victory on no human arm. Has he not expressed it all in his great hymn - the Reformation hymn by way of eminence? -

上主是我坚固保障……
虽恶魔盘踞世上。
A trusty stronghold is our God . . .
Yea, were the world with devils filled.


[1] 原文刊载于:The Biblical Review, ii. 1917, pp.490-512, New York: The Bible Teachers School。转载翻译自:https://www.monergism.com/theology-reformation20151230日存取)。特此致谢。——编者注

[2] 希伯特讲座是一个非宗派的神学问题系列讲座,鼓吹“对宗教问题私人观点的自由探讨”。——译者注

[3] 路德读大学和加入奥古斯丁修会的地方。曾有几年路德相继在埃尔福特和维腾堡生活。——译者注

[4] 荷兰耶稣会人士,宗教改革期间因强烈支持天主教知名。——译者注


[5] 古希腊的一位国王。“皮洛士式胜利”为西方谚语,指代价太昂贵的胜利。——译者注