Hippopotamus Post

第二章 第5段 I do not wish the reader to confuse me for a moment with those vague persons who imagine that Ibsen is what they call a pessimist. There are plenty of wholesome people in Ibsen, plenty of good people, plenty of happy people, plenty of examples of men acting wisely and things ending well. That is not my meaning. My meaning is that Ibsen has throughout, and does not disguise, a certain vagueness and a changing attitude as well as a doubting attitude towards what is really wisdom and virtue in this life—a vagueness which contrasts very remarkably with the decisiveness with which he pounces on something which he perceives to be a root of evil, some convention, some deception, some ignorance. We know that the hero of GHOSTS is mad, and we know why he is mad. We do also know that Dr. Stockman is sane; but we do not know why he is sane. Ibsen does not profess to know how virtue and happiness are brought about, in the sense that he professes to know how our modern sexual tragedies are ...

這是我不知道第幾次嘗試閱讀這本書，前幾次都因為一些技術或性格缺陷而中斷（例如：想利用搭車的時候讀英文版，結果...不知是行車的搖晃，還是Porject Gutenberg內的非現代英文，頭暈腦脹下，常常不知道自己讀了什麼....） 後來兩三年前，宗教改革五百週年紀念，麥種出了這本書，飽經電子書籍風霜後，終於意識還是需要一本拿在手中的書的我，決定好好買一本來讀（當然...若你有看過這本書就知道，這本書不太可能拿在手中讀，但若企圖一面鍛鍊體能一面培養知能...是可以考慮XDD） 令人讚嘆的是，這本書....遠比我想像的好讀！（無論加爾文的原書如何，「好讀」都該好好感謝一下譯者跟出版社。） 讀了一段時間，最近才突然想到，似乎應該也來做個筆記，雖然這本書不像<神學的故事>那樣容易讀了後面忘記前面（畢竟兩本書的性質不同、主旨也不同），但這本書包含的內容的確有點多.... 我有信心我會看完這本書！ Chesterton就等2039吧！ --- 在開始筆記的當下，正好讀到基督教要義中論自由意志的段落。那就從這裡開始筆記吧，過去的事情，以後再說....(先賢哲人是對的，未發生的現在，等於那不存在的過去與未來=現在沒有，等於沒有。XD) 第二卷第二章：人已經喪失意志的自由，悲慘地作罪的奴僕。 「所有人都認為必須向神求幸運，必須向自己求智慧。」 --西塞羅（取自：加爾文在基督教要義內之引用，中譯來源：麥種。） 這一章非常長，可見自由意志在加爾文思想脈絡中佔有多麽重要的地位（或更正確的說，在諸多神學思考、哲學辯證中，太過重要，以至於加爾文可能也不得不提.....） 初讀這章，前半段讀起來，整體架構讓我想到碩士生的論文（可見我中毒已深）——先以序論破題，陳述本章主旨（研究動機），接著回顧古代教父對自由意志的討論（文獻探討），對自由意志這詞進行探討（名詞釋義），然後開始導入自己的論述，嘗試說明論述結果之根據。 加爾文的立場一開始就很明確（看標題就知道），在整章中，不只一次提到：既然人所有一切都來自於神，怎感自詡任何正確的選擇、決定是出於自己的「自由意志」？ 但加爾文也明白這問題至關重要，最主要的原因即在於：按照「人」的思考邏輯，若「人靠自己沒有追求義的能力」，那人何必為不義承擔責任呢？ 另一方面，若人的義或不義皆出於自己的自由意志選擇，那意味著人在自己的得救上也有功勞（得救不再完...

第二章 第4段 （非常長的一段） Now, it is this great gap in modern ethics, the absence of vivid pictures of purity and spiritual triumph, which lies at the back of the real objection felt by so many sane men to the realistic literature of the nineteenth century. If any ordinary man ever said that he was horrified by the subjects discussed in Ibsen or Maupassant, or by the plain language in which they are spoken of, that ordinary man was lying. The average conversation of average men throughout the whole of modern civilization in every class or trade is such as Zola would never dream of printing. Nor is the habit of writing thus of these things a new habit. On the contrary, it is the Victorian prudery and silence which is new still, though it is already dying. The tradition of calling a spade a spade starts very early in our literature and comes down very late. But the truth is that the ordinary honest man, whatever vague account he may have given of his feelings, was not either disgusted or even ann...

第2章 第3段 I remember a pamphlet by that able and sincere secularist, Mr. G. W. Foote, which contained a phrase sharply symbolizing and dividing these two methods. The pamphlet was called BEER AND BIBLE, those two very noble things, all the nobler for a conjunction which Mr. Foote, in his stern old Puritan way, seemed to think sardonic, but which I confess to thinking appropriate and charming. I have not the work by me, but I remember that Mr. Foote dismissed very contemptuously any attempts to deal with the problem of strong drink by religious offices or intercessions, and said that a picture of a drunkard's liver would be more efficacious in the matter of temperance than any prayer or praise. In that picturesque expression, it seems to me, is perfectly embodied the incurable morbidity of modern ethics. In that temple the lights are low, the crowds kneel, the solemn anthems are uplifted. But that upon the altar to which all men kneel is no longer the perfect flesh, the body and subst...

終於要進入第二章....(按此速度，「樂觀」推想大約2029年之前可以看完這本書...) II. On the negative spirit Much has been said, and said truly, of the monkish morbidity, of the hysteria which as often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns. But let us never forget that this visionary religion is, in one sense, necessarily more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality. It is more wholesome for this reason, that it can contemplate the idea of success or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal, in what Stevenson called, with his usual startling felicity, "the lost fight of virtue." A modern morality, on the other hand, can only point with absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law; its only certainty is a certainty of ill. It can only point to imperfection. It has no perfection to point to. But the monk meditating upon Christ or Buddha has in his mind an image of perfect health, a thing of clear colours and clean air. He may contemplate this id...

  忘記多少年前開始使用這圖作為電腦桌布，已好久沒留意....（生命中似乎很多狀態也是如此，習以為常到麻木）   某日，上課提早到教室，在埋頭數據頭暈腦脹之時，轉頭看到這張圖，突然心中湧出一股感恩....   「我們不致消滅，是出於耶和華諸般的慈愛；是因他的憐憫不致斷絕。每早晨，這都是新的；你的誠實極其廣大！」--耶利米哀歌3:22-23   或許C. S. Lewis說的沒錯，苦難是為喚醒那麻痺沈睡的耳朵，耶利米哀歌這段被引用到氾濫的台詞出現的場景，根本也不是什麼看起來值得歡慶鼓舞的歷史背景，反而是苦難、是戰爭、是背叛、是死亡（所以稱之為「哀歌」)。   對照我們的生命時常也是如此...   在那一股感恩湧出的當下，可能工作不順、研究不順、午餐也沒吃飽....，但卻真真實實、毫無可拒絕空間地明白，這一路以來，上帝以其奇妙豐富的恩慈，因著祂的信實，以恩典環抱、引領我。   當下很想記錄那刻的感動，但隨即要上課(課程內容很有趣的...提到了Kierkegaard，這位我很喜歡的哲學家)， (很多事當下沒做，就也沒有之後了...)   Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. --Kierkegaard    Moving forward... May God ride with us.     

光陰似箭，歲月如梭（這網一不小心就又曬了半個月....） carry on carry on! 第一章最後三段(10-12)   And having discovered that opportunism does fail, I have been induced to look at it more largely, and in consequence to see that it must fail. I perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the beginning and discuss theories. I see that the men who killed each other about the orthodoxy of the Homoousion were far more sensible than the people who are quarrelling about the Education Act. For the Christian dogmatists were trying to establish a reign of holiness, and trying to get defined, first of all, what was really holy. But our modern educationists are trying to bring about a religious liberty without attempting to settle what is religion or what is liberty. If the old priests forced a statement on mankind, at least they previously took some trouble to make it lucid. It has been left for the modern mobs of Anglicans and Nonconformists to persecute for a doctrine without even stating it. 在了解機會主義曾經失敗後，...