C S LEWIS: Mere Christianity
12. Faith
11. The New Men
In the last chapter I compared Christ's work of making New Men to the process of turning a horse into a winged creature. I used that extreme example in order to emphasise the point that it is not mere improvement but Transformation. The nearest parallel to it in the world of nature is to be found in the remarkable transformations we can make in insects by applying certain rays to them. Some people think this is how Evolution worked.
The alterations in creatures on which it all depends may have been produced by rays coming from outer space. (Of course once the alterations are there, what they call "Natural Selection" gets to work on them: i.e., the useful alterations survive and the other ones get weeded out.)
Perhaps a modern man can understand the Christian idea best if he takes it in connection with Evolution. Everyone now knows about Evolution (though, of course, some educated people disbelieve it): everyone has been told that man has evolved from lower types of life.
Consequently, people often wonder "What is the next step? When is the thing beyond man going to appear?" Imaginative writers try sometimes to picture this next step—the "Superman" as they call him; but they usually only succeed in picturing someone a good deal nastier than man as we know him and then try to make up for that by sticking on extra legs or arms. But supposing the next step was to be something even more different from the earlier steps than they ever dreamed of? And is it not very likely it would be?
Thousands of centuries ago huge, very heavily armoured creatures were evolved. If anyone had at that time been watching the course of Evolution he would probably have expected that it was going to go on to heavier and heavier armour. But he would have been wrong.
The future had a card up its sleeve which nothing at that time would have led him to expect. It was going to spring on him little, naked, unarmoured animals which had better brains: and with those brains they were going to master the whole planet. They were not merely going to have more power than the prehistoric monsters, they were going to have a new kind of power.
The next step was not only going to be different, but different with a new kind of difference. The stream of Evolution was not going to flow on in the direction in which he saw it flowing: it was in fact going to take a sharp bend.
Now it seems to me that most of the popular guesses at the Next Step are making just the same sort of mistake. People see (or at any rate they think they see) men developing greater brains and getting greater mastery over nature. And because they think the stream is flowing in that direction, they imagine it will go on flowing in that direction. But I cannot help thinking that the Next Step will be really new; it will go off in a direction you could never have dreamed of. It would hardly be worth calling a New Step unless it did.
I should expect not merely difference but a new kind of difference. I should expect not merely change but a new method of producing the change. Or, to make an Irish bull, I should expect the next stage in Evolution not to be a stage in Evolution at all: should expect the Evolution itself as a method of producing change, will be superseded. And finally, I should not be surprised if, when the thing happened, very few people noticed that it was happening.
Now, if you care to talk in these terms, the Christian view is precisely that the Next Step has already appeared. And it is really new. It is not a change from brainy men to brainier men: it is a change that goes off in a totally different direction—a change from being creatures of God to being sons of God. The first instance appeared in Palestine two thousand years ago. In a sense, the change is not "Evolution" at all, because it is not something arising out of the natural process of events but something coming into nature from outside. But that is what I should expect.
We arrived at our idea of "Evolution" from studying the past. If there are real novelties in store then of course our idea, based on the past, will not really cover them. And in fact this New Step differs from all previous ones not only in coming from outside nature but in several other ways as well.
(1) It is not carried on by sexual reproduction. Need we be surprised at that? There was a time before sex had appeared; development used to go on by different methods. Consequently, we might have expected that there would come a time when sex disappeared, or else (which is what is actually happening) a time when sex, though it continued to exist, ceased to be the main channel of development.
(2) At the earlier stages living organisms have had either no choice or very little choice about taking the new step. Progress was, in the main, something that happened to them, not something that they did. But the new step, the step from being creatures to being sons, is voluntary. At least, voluntary in one sense. It is not voluntary in the sense that we, of ourselves, could have chosen to take it or could even have imagined it; but it is voluntary in the sense that when it is offered to us we can refuse it. We can, if we please, shrink back: we can dig in our heels and let the new Humanity go on without us.
(3) I have called Christ the "first instance" of the new man. But of course He is something much more than that. He is not merely a new man, one specimen of the species, but the new man. He is the origin and centre and life of all the new men. He came into the created universe, of His own will, bringing with Him the Zoe, the new life. (I mean new to us, of course: in its own place Zoe has existed for ever and ever.) And He transmits it not by heredity but by what I have called "good infection." Everyone who gets it gets it by personal contact with Him. Other men become "new" by being "in Him."
(4) This step is taken at a different speed from the previous ones. Compared with the development of man on this planet, the diffusion of Christianity over the human race seems to go like a flash of lightning—for two thousand years is almost nothing in the history of the universe. (Never forget that we are all still "the early Christians." The present wicked and wasteful divisions between us are, let us hope, a disease of infancy: we are still teething. The outer world, no doubt, thinks just the opposite. It thinks we are dying of old age. But it has drought that so often before! Again and again it has thought Christianity was dying, dying by persecutions from without or corruptions from within, by the rise of Mohammedanism, the rise of the physical sciences, the rise of great anti-Christian revolutionary movements. But every time the world has been disappointed. Its first disappointment was over the crucifixion. The Man came to life again. In a sense—and I quite realise how frightfully unfair it must seem to them—that has been happening ever since. They keep on killing the thing that He started: and each time, just as they are patting down the earth on its grave, they suddenly hear that it is still alive and has even broken out in some new place. No wonder they hate us.)
(5) The stakes are higher. By falling back at the earlier steps a creature lost, at the worst, its few years of life on this earth: very often it did not lose even that. By falling back at this step we lose a prize which is (in the strictest sense of the word) infinite. For now the critical moment has arrived. Century by century God has guided nature up to the point of producing creatures which can (if they will) be taken right out of nature, turned into "gods." Will they allow themselves to be taken? In a way, it is like the crisis of birth.
Until we rise and follow Christ we are still parts of Nature, still in the womb of our great mother. Her pregnancy has been long and painful and anxious, but it has reached its climax. The great moment has come. Everything is ready. The Doctor has arrived. Will the birth "go off all right"? But of course it differs from an ordinary birth in one important respect. In an ordinary birth the baby has not much choice: here it has. I wonder what an ordinary baby would do if it had the choice. It might prefer to stay in the dark and warmth and safety of the womb. For of course it would think the womb meant safety. That would be just where it was wrong; for if it stays there it will die.
On this view the thing has happened: the new step has been taken and is being taken. Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognisable: but others can be recognised. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours; stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off.
They are, I say, recognisable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of "religious people" which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. (We must get over wanting to be needed: in some goodish people, specially women, that is the hardest of all temptations to resist.) They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from.
When you have recognised one of them, you will recognise the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun.
But you must not imagine that the new men are, in the ordinary sense, all alike. A good deal of what I have been saying in this last book might make you suppose that that was bound to be so. To become new men means losing what we now call "ourselves." Out of ourselves, into Christ, we must go. His will is to become ours and we are to think His thoughts, to "have the mind of Christ" as the Bible says. And if Christ is one, and if He is thus to be "in" us all, shall we not be exactly the same? It certainly sounds like it; but in fact it is not so.
It is difficult here to get a good illustration; because, of course, no other two things are related to each other just as the Creator is related to one of His creatures. But I will try two very imperfect illustrations which may give a hint of the truth. Imagine a lot of people who have always lived in the dark. You come and try to describe to them what light is like. You might tell them that if they come into the light that same light would fall on them all and they would all reflect it and thus become what we call visible.
Is it not quite possible that they would imagine that, since they were all receiving the same light, and all reacting to it in the same way (i.e., all reflecting it), they would all look alike? Whereas you and I know that the light will in fact bring out, or show up, how different they are. Or again, suppose a person who knew nothing about salt. You give him a pinch to taste and he experiences a particular strong, sharp taste. You then tell him that in your country people use salt in all their cookery. Might he not reply "In that case I suppose all your dishes taste exactly the same: because the taste of that stuff you have just given me is so strong that it will kill the taste of everything else."
But you and I know that the real effect of salt is exactly the opposite. So far from killing the taste of the egg and the tripe and the cabbage, it actually brings it out. They do not show their real taste till you have added the salt. (Of course, as I warned you, this is not really a very good illustration, because you can, after all, kill the other tastes by putting in too much salt, whereas you cannot kill the taste of a human personality by putting in too much Christ. I am doing the best I can.)
It is something like that with Christ and us. The more we get what we now call "ourselves" out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of "little Christs," all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented—as an author invents characters in a novel—all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to "be myself" without Him.
The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call "Myself" becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call "My wishes" become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men's thoughts or even suggested to me by devils.
Eggs and alcohol and a good night's sleep will be the real origins of what I flatter myself by regarding as my own highly personal and discriminating decision to make love to the girl opposite to me in the railway carriage. Propaganda will be the real origin of what I regard as my own personal political ideals, I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call "me" can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
At the beginning I said there were Personalities in God. I will go further now. There are no real personalities anywhere else.
Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most "natural" men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away "blindly" so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all.
The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange?
The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom.
Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing.
Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
C.S.路易斯：返璞歸真-純粹的基督教,汪詠梅譯
在上一節，我把基督創造新人的工作比喻成將馬變成有翼的造物的過程。我用這樣一個極端的例子，旨在強調這一創造不是改進而是轉變。自然界中與之最近似的例子是，當我們將一定的光線照射到昆蟲身上時，昆蟲會發生顯著的變化。有些人認為進化就是這樣發生的，進化依靠的生物變化可能由來自太空的光線造成。（當然，一旦有了變化，他們所謂的“自然選擇”就開始發生作用，有用的變化保留了下來，其他的變化則被剔除出去。）
新人
如果與進化聯繫起來，現代人對基督教的新人觀念或許能有一個最好的理解。現在人人都知道進化（當然，有些學者不相信進化），都被灌輸這樣的觀念，即人是由低級的生命進化而來。因此，人們常常在想：“下一步是什麼？超越人的那個東西何時出現？”富有想象力的作家有時試圖描繪下一步，即他們所謂的“超人”，但是，他們描繪出來的往往只是一個比現在的人要難看得多的怪物，為了加以彌補，他們只好給他再添些腿或胳膊。可是，假如下一步與以前有更大的不同，超出了他們的想象？這豈不是很有可能嗎？幾千個世紀以前，地球上進化出體形龐大、身著重重盔甲的造物，當時，若有人一直在觀察進化的過程，他可能預計，未來的造物身上的盔甲會越來越重。但是他錯了。未來有著它隱秘的計劃，當時的事實沒有一件讓他預計到，未來會突然出現一群體形很小、全身赤裸、不披盔甲、頭腦發達的動物，憑借這樣的頭腦他們將要控制整個地球。他們不僅比史前時期的巨獸擁有更強的能力，而且擁有的是一種新型的能力。下一步非但不同，而且是一種全新的不同，進化的潮流不再往人類已經看見的方向發展，而是要來一個急轉彎。
我認為，常見的對“下一步”的猜測大多數都在犯同樣的錯誤。人們看到（至少認為自己看到）人類的智慧越來越發達，對自然的控制越來越強，因為認為進化的潮流正在朝那個方向發展，所以他們想象著它會繼續那樣發展下去。但是，我卻不由自主地認為“下一步”是全新的，它會朝一個你從未想到的方向發展，否則就幾乎不能稱之為新。我不但應該預料到不同，還應該預料到一種全新的不同，不但應該預料到變化，還應該預料到一種新的變化方式。用一種自相矛盾的說法，我應該預料到，進化的下一個階段根本不屬進化之列，進化自身作為一種變化方式將被取代。最後一點，當這件事發生時，若很少有人注意到它，我也不應該感到驚訝。
如果你願意運用這些術語，我們就可以說，基督教的觀點是：“下一步”已經出現。這確實是全新的一步，因為這不是由聰明人變為更加聰明的人，這個變化朝一個迥然不同的方向發展——從上帝的造物變成上帝的兒子。第一例變化發生在兩千年前的巴勒斯坦，從某種意義上說，這個變化根本不是“進化”，因為它不是從事件的自然過程中生發，而是從外界進入自然。但是，這應該在預料之中。我們從對過去的研究中得出“進化”的觀念，未來若蘊藏有真正新奇的事物，我們建立在過去基礎上的觀念當然無法真正涵蓋它們。實際上，“下一步”與以往各步的不同，不僅在於它來自自然之外，而且還體現在其他幾個方面。
（1）它不是通過兩性的繁衍進行。我們有必要對此感到驚訝嗎？歷史上曾經有過一段無性時期，那時繁衍是通過種種其他的手段。因此，我們也可以預料到，將來有一天兩性會消失，或者，性雖然繼續存在，但已經不再作為繁衍的主要手段（這種現象實際上現在就存在）。
（2）在以前的進化階段，生物在邁出新的一步上或無權選擇，或選擇的餘地很小，進步主要是發生在它們身上，不是它們自主的行動。但是，新的一步，從造物變為兒子的這一步是自願的，至少在一種意義上是自願的。這不是說，我們可以自願地選擇邁出這一步，甚至想象這一步，而是說，當這一步呈現在我們面前時，我們可以拒絕它。如果願意，我們可以從它面前退縮，堅持自己的立場，不加入新人類的行列。
（3）我稱基督為“第一例”新人，當然，他不僅如此。他不僅是新人，新物種的代表，他就是“那個”新人，所有新人的起源、核心和生命。他帶著Zoe——新生命（當然，這個“新”是對我們而言，Zoe在它本身所在的地方永遠存在），自願進入被造的宇宙，不借助遺傳，而借助“好的感染”傳遞這種新生命。每一個人都通過與他親自接觸獲得新生命，通過“在他裡面”成為“新”人。
（4）這一步邁出的速度也與以往各步不同。與人類在地球上的發展相比，基督教在人類的傳播如同閃電，因為兩千年在宇宙歷史中幾乎算不得什麼。（永遠不要忘記，我們都還是“早期的基督徒”。我們希望，我們之間現在這些無謂、有害的分裂是嬰兒期的疾病，我們正處在嚙合階段。外界的看法無疑與我們正相反，他們認為我們已經老朽，瀕臨死亡，以前他們就常常這樣認為。當基督教遭受外來的迫害和內部的腐敗，當有些物理學和大規模的反基督教革命運動興起時，他們都認為基督教即將死亡，但是每次他們都很失望。第一次失望來自基督被釘十字架，那個人死而復活了。在某種意義上說，自那以後復活事件就不斷發生，我知道，這在他們看來一定是極不公平。他們不斷想葬送他[21]開始的事業，可是，每次就在他們得意地拍拍墳頭的泥土時，他們又突然聽說那項事業仍然活著，甚至又在一個新地方發展起來。難怪他們會恨我們。）
（5）利害關係更加重大。在以往各步中退縮，造物損失的至多是塵世上的幾年生命，往往甚至連這些也不會損失。但是在這一步中退縮，我們損失的是無限的（最嚴格意義上的“無限”）賞賜，因為生死攸關的時刻已經到來。經過一個又一個世紀，上帝將自然引領到這樣一個階段，在這裡，自然產生出能直接從它之中提升、轉變為“眾神”的造物（如果造物願意）。造物同意自己被提升嗎？從某種角度來說，這如同出生所面臨的危險。我們若不起身跟隨基督，就仍然是自然的一部分，仍然位於自然母親的子宮中。她孕育已久，非常痛苦，急不可待，現在已經到了緊急關頭，偉大的時刻已經到來，一切準備就緒，醫生已經到達。分娩會“順利”嗎？當然，這與普通的分娩有一重要的不同，在普通的分娩中嬰兒沒有多少選擇，但是，在這場分娩中它有。我不知道，普通的嬰兒若有選擇權，它會做麼。也許它什寧願呆在子宮的黑暗、溫暖與安全之中，因為它理所當然地認為子宮是安全之地。而這恰恰是它的錯誤所在，因為留在那裡，它就會死亡。
基於這一認識，這樣的事件發生了：新的一步已經邁出，而且正在邁出，新人已經遍布世界各地。正如我前面承認的，有些新人還難以辨認，但有些是可以辨認的。我們不時會遇見他們，他們的聲音、面孔與我們不同，更洪亮，更平和，更快樂，更容光煥發。在大多數人停滯不前的地方，他們邁出了新的步伐。我說他們可以辨認，但你必須知道如何去辨認。他們不大符合你從泛泛的閱讀中形成的“敬虔之人”的觀念，他們不把目光引向自己，在他們善待你時，你往往認為自己是在善待他們。他們對你的愛比別人要多，對你的需要卻比別人要少（我們必須克服希望別人需要自己的心理，對一些不錯的人，尤其是女人，這是最難抗拒的誘惑），他們似乎常常有充裕的時間，你很奇怪這些時間來自何處。你一旦認出了一個新人，就很容易認出下一個。我有一種強烈的感覺，認為他們跨越一切的障礙——膚色、性別、階級、年齡、甚至信條，能夠立刻準確地認出彼此。從這個角度來說，成為聖潔頗像加入一個秘密會社，至少這是一件非常有趣的事。
你千萬不要認為，新人在普通的意義上彼此相像，這個部分的很多內容可能都讓你覺得，新人必定如此。成為新人意味著失去我們現在所謂的“自己”。我們必須走出自己，進入基督之中，他的意志要成為我們的意志，我們要以他的意念為自己的意念，如聖經所說，“以基督耶穌的心為心”。如果基督只有一位，他要進駐到我們所有人“里面”，我們不就是完全一樣嗎？聽起來確實如此，實際並不是這樣。
在此我們很難找到一個合適的例子，因為任何兩物之間的關係和造物主與其造物之間的關係都不完全一樣。但是，我會試著舉兩個很不貼切的例子，或許能讓你瞭解一點實情。假定有很多人一直生活在黑暗中，你來了，極力向他們描述光。你可能說，他們若來到光中，同一個光就會照到他們所有人身上，他們就都會反射光，變成“可見的”了。你不覺得他們可能會認為，既然大家接受的是同樣的光，對光的反應方式也相同（即，都反射光），因此大家看上去都一模一樣嗎？但是你我都知道，這光實際上顯示出他們是如何地不同。再舉一個例子。假定一個人對鹽一無所知。你給了他一小撮鹽，他品嘗到一種獨特、強烈的味道，然後你告訴他，在你們國家，燒一切菜都放鹽。他難道不會回答說：“既然如此，我想，你們所有的菜嘗起來都是一個味道，因為你剛才給我的那個東西味道很強，會遮蓋一切其他東西的味道”？但是你我都知道，鹽真正的作用恰恰相反。它非但不會遮蓋雞蛋、牛肉和洋白菜的味道，實際上還會把這些味道突顯出來，不加鹽，這些東西真正的味道便顯現不出。（當然，正如我剛才提醒的，這不是一個貼切的例子。因為鹽加得太多，最終會把其他的味道都遮蓋掉，但是，一個人身上基督的成分再多，也不會喪失他人格的味道。我這樣舉例，是要盡最大的努力，讓你明白這點。）
基督與我們的關係也與此類似。我們越讓現在所謂的“自己”退居一邊，讓基督掌管我們，就越成為真實的自己。基督是如此地豐富，成千上萬個迥然相異的“小基督”也永遠不足以將他完全彰顯出來。他創造了他們，就像小說家創造小說中的各種人物，他創造了所有這些迥然相異的人，原本就打算讓彼此不同。從這種意義上來說，我們真正的自我都在他之中，等待著我們去實現。不想要基督，只想“成為我自己”是沒有用處的。我越抵制他，越想靠自己而活，就越受自己的遺傳、養育、環境和自然慾望的約束。實際上，我如此驕傲地稱為“我自己”的那個東西，只是眾多事件的交匯處，這些事件既非由我引發，也非我能阻止；而我所謂的“自己的願望”不過是一些慾望，這些慾望或由我自己的生理機制產生，或由他人的思想注入，甚至是魔鬼的暗中指使。我把向火車上坐在對面的女孩求愛視為自己極其個性、極具鑒賞力的決定，而它真正的起因則可能是我吃了雞蛋，喝了點酒，睡了一夜好覺；我自認為是個人的政治主張，其真正的來源可能是輿論宣傳。在自然的狀態下，我遠非像自己喜歡認為的那樣，是一個人，所謂的“我”大部分都很容易從別處找到解釋。只有當我轉向基督，接受他的人格時，我才第一次開始有了自己真正的人格。
在本章的開頭，我談到上帝有三個人格。現在我要進一步說，在上帝之外沒有真正的人格，人不將自我交付給上帝，便不會有真正的自我。在最“自然的”人中最能找到相同，在順服基督的人中卻不能，古往今來的大暴君、大征服者千篇一律地相像，而那些聖徒卻令人矚目地不同。
必須徹底放棄自我，可以說，必須“盲目地”拋棄自我。基督確實會賦予你一個真正的人格，但你千萬不要為了人格去尋求他，只要你關注的仍然是自己的人格，你就沒有真正去尋求他。你要做的第一件事就是要努力徹底地忘記自我。只要你在尋求自我，真正的、嶄新的自我（這個自我是基督的，也是你的，正因為是他的，所以才是你的）就不會出現。只有在你尋找他時，這個真正的、嶄新的自我才會出現。這聽起來很奇怪，是嗎？要知道，在一些普通的事情上，道理也是如此。在社交生活中，除非你不去考慮自己在給別人留下麼印什象，否則，你絕不能給別人留下好印象。在文學、藝術中，一心想有獨創性的人絕不會有任何的獨創性，但是，如果你只想講出真理（一點也不在意這個真理以前怎樣頻繁地被人講述），十有八九在無意之中，你就已經有了獨創性。這個原則貫穿整個生活的始終。放棄自我，你就會找到真正的自我，喪失生命，你就會得到生命。每天順服於死亡，順服於自己的抱負、摯愛的心願的死亡，最終順服於整個身體的死亡，全心全意地順服，你就會發現永恆的生命。要毫無保留，你尚未放棄的東西沒有一樣真正屬於你，你身上尚未死去的東西沒有一樣能從死裡復活。尋找自我，最終你只會找到仇恨、孤獨、絕望、狂怒、毀滅、朽壞，但是，尋找基督，你就會找到他，還會找到附帶贈送給你的一切。