馬丁·赫格倫德 MARTIN HÄGGLUND 《今生的世俗信仰與精神自由》
This Life Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom


宗教信仰與世俗信仰

宗教信仰是對永恆存在或超越存在的永恆的任何形式的信仰，要麼是永恆的休息（例如涅槃），要麼是超越的上帝，要麼是內在的神聖本質。我並不試圖反駁宗教信仰，亦非要證明永恆不存在。對於捍衛宗教信仰的人，永恆是值得奉獻的。對永恆抱持信心，就是相信它可以為失去所愛的人物，提供一種有意義的安慰、替代或逃避。

世俗信仰的核心就是有限感 - 我們所關心的一切事物最終的脆弱感覺。擁有世俗的信仰就是獻身於即將結束的生命，獻身於可能失敗或崩潰的事工。世俗信仰的現象學，可從最困難和最痛苦的事件開始：所愛的人的死亡。我的目的是表明世俗信仰是重要問題的核心，即使對於那些自稱有宗教信仰的人也是如此。只有世俗信仰才能公正地對待愛和哀悼的經驗。

奧古斯丁揭示了世俗信仰在我們生活的各個方面發揮作用。無論是幸福還是哀悼，快樂還是痛苦，我們都活在已經不存在的過去之後及可能不會出現的未來之前。事實上，奧古斯丁所描述的所有活動的意義都取決於生活的暫時經驗。相反地，若奧古斯丁堅持以永恆存在作為宗教願望的目標的話，那麼，這些活動就會結束。在永恆中不可能有任何有意義的活動，因為沒有任何事物可以在永恆的存在中繼續存在，也沒有任何事物可以在永恆的存在中變得重要。

p.34
What I call religious faith is any form of belief in an eternal being or an eternity beyond being, either in the form of a timeless repose (such as nirvana), a transcendent God, or an immanent, divine Nature. Religious faith is not a system of belief that I am trying to disprove, in the sense of demonstrating the nonexistence of eternity. What I am calling into question is the idea that eternity is desirable.

the idea that eternity is worth being devoted to is indispensable for the defense of religious faith. There is no reason to have faith in eternity unless one believes that it offers a meaningful consolation for, alternative to, or escape from the loss of what we love.

p.11
The sense of finitude-the sense of the ultimate fragility of everything we care about-is at the heart of what I call secular faith. To have secular faith is to be devoted to a life that will end, to be dedicated to projects that can fail or break down.

p.35
To make vivid the phenomenology of secular faith, I proceed from the most difficult and agonizing event: the death of the beloved. My aim is to show that secular faith lies at the heart of what matters, even for those who claim to have religious faith. Only secular faith can do justice to the experience of love as well as mourning.

Augustine reveals that secular faith is at work in every aspect of our lives. Whether in bliss or in mourning, in joy or in pain, we live on after a past that has ceased to be and before a future that may not come to be. Indeed, all the activities that Augustine describes-from speaking and singing to loving, hoping, and remembering-depend for their meaning on the temporal experience of living on. Inversely, the eternal presence that Augustine holds out as the goal of religious aspiration would put an end to these activities. There cannot be any meaningful activities in eternity, since nothing can live on in a timeless presence and nothing can matter in an everlasting existence.