灵魂不朽

原著翻译：灵魂不朽（Immortality of the Soul of Jacques Maritain） (2007-01-04 18:14:53)（1952年1月，纽约邮报的Olive Pilat写信给雅克·马里旦，请问在关于“不朽”的谈论中是否存在着理性不能认同的的某些观点？马里旦对“不朽”如何认识？就此，马里旦谈了几个相关的问题。

）通过对理性知识、自由意志、诸如“对美的永恒直觉”这种普遍感受以及Poe和Baudelaire 所涉及话题的足够深入的分析，我认为人类灵魂的不朽能够以一种令人信服的哲学推理的方式建立起来。

这里我们要谈的是本质上独立于物质的东西，精神性（灵性）。

人类精神活动的特性（理性、自由意志、美的直觉）使我们得出了关于灵性的第一原理，即作为实体存有的灵魂是不灭的。

不论这种哲学上的论证自身是多么令人信服，它也必然涉及那些最抽象和最难以理解的概念。

我认为这是人类对自身不朽性的另一种确证：人类具有一种与生俱来的非理性的本能直觉，在不自觉的经历中每个人都有他自己的对于存在以及与时间奋争的自我意图，并必然以某种未知的方式超越于时间和现象之流。

从原始人的丧礼中我们可以见证这种自然的、本能的、前哲学的关于不朽的知识，由此能使我们更好地理解他们的被神话想像所统治的原始思维模式。

（不过，正如Lecomte du Nou?所说，人类中的这种信仰越古老——不管这种原始表达是多么奇怪或粗糙——我们也越应当加以注意，因为人类的本性在某种程度上就是自我价值的保证。

）并且我认为这种自然的、本能的、前哲学的关于不朽的知识存在于我们每一个人之中，虽然它处于一种无意识的或前意识状态，难以用理性的观念加以表达，但往往在一些重大时刻的经历中呈现。

这种不朽的知识既存在于那些否定不朽的人中，也存在于那些肯定不朽的人中。

没有这种本能的确信，我们就不能理解一个人既珍惜自己的生命，同时又经历于各种危险之中的做法。

当这种不朽的信念是自觉的、凭理性可以推论得出的时候，它就将促使一个人竭尽所能将自己的生命奉献于高尚的事业，奉献于对自由、真理的追求之中，因此Gandi 认为“要相信，死亡并非意味着奋斗的结束而意味着顶点的到达”，这对于他自己的原则来说是必要的，因为灵魂使肉体存活。

最后，人类灵魂的不朽是宗教信仰的原则之一，尤其是基督宗教信仰——它坚持了灵魂的超自然性，并呼吁人们藉此与上帝进行“面对面”的交流。

实际上，宗教信仰和其他的重大哲学问题一起加强了人类理性，促使其有能力在追求真理的过程中获得自身的意义；当然，这也得冒犯错误的风险。

对于你特别提到的问题，我并不认为在东正教的信仰和苏格拉底派的信仰之间有任何基本的冲突或矛盾，它们都相信在一个有限肉体中存在着一个不朽的灵魂，并强调二者的统一，古希伯来人也如此认为。

在这种情况下，我们所谈的不朽的灵魂并不被认为（如同在柏拉图主义者和印度人的思想方式里一样）是禁锢于异己处的“囚徒”，如同关在笼中的鸟，而是赋予肉体生命的实质上的精神存在（根据亚里士多德关于“形式”和“生命圆满”的观念，圣·多玛斯·阿奎那在天主教神学里已经作出了经典说明）。

人出于自然又高于自然，这就是深深困扰Pascal的人类奥秘。

相比于任何来自神圣启示并为信仰所接受的事物来说，复活不再被认为是荒谬的。

理性知道对于自然来说没有什么东西不可能，但是理性同样知道对于上帝来说，除了荒谬，无所不能；因而，与肉体结合在一起的一个单独的灵魂实体的存有也绝非荒谬。

随着年龄的增长，一个人对于不朽的态度是否会改变呢？我认为：随着年龄的增长，一个人越想否认自己变老（除了身体因自然规律无法否认外），那么就会越来越确信：生命是一件多么严肃的事情，愚蠢地浪费生命根本没有任何意义；而那超越死亡的主的仁慈也绝非是不可理解的神秘。

【附英文原稿2006.11.29.】Immortality of the Soul [from Jacques Maritain Center of University of Notre Dame] In January of 1952, Oliver Pilat of the New York Post wrote to Jacques Maritain asking if there is "something intellectually disreputable in talking about immortality." What did Maritain think about immortality? He asked several related questions. Maritain replied:I think that the immortality of the human soul can be established in a demonstrative way by philosophical reason, through a sufficiently deep analysis of intellectual knowledge, of free will and of disinterested feelings such as that "immortal instinct for beauty", of which Poe and Baudelaire spoke. Here we are confronted with spirituality, or intrinsic independence from matter. And the spirituality characteristic of the activity in question makes us conclude to the spirituality of its first principle, - that is, the soul. Now a substance that is spiritual is indestructable.But this philosophical demonstration, however cogent in itself, puts into play most abstract and difficult notions. There is in man, I think, another certitude of his own immortality, a certitude born of the instinctive, non-conceptual functioning of intelligence in the obscure experience each man has of his own Self intent on existence and struggling with Time, which must be, in some unknown way, superior to the stream of Time and of phenomena. The funeral rites of primitive man witness to this natural, instinctive, pre-philosophical knowledge of immortality, which took in him forms adapted to the state of a thought dominated by mythical imagination. (But, as Lecomte du Nou? observed, the more a belief is ancient in mankind, the more we should pay attention to it, assuming that, queer and coarse as its various expressions might have been, human nature is somewhat a warrant of its value.)And this natural, instinctive, pre-philosophical knowledge of immortality exists, I think, in each one of us in an unconscious or preconscious state, inexpressible in terms of conceptual reason, but rooted in vital experience. It exists in those whose conceptual reason denies immortality as in those whose conceptual reason affirms it. And without such instinctive certitude we could not understand the manner in which men both cherish their life and expose it to all kinds of dangers. Yet when belief in immortality is conscious and reasoned out, it makes man more ready, as far as his intellect and reflection are concerned, to give his own life for the sake of superior causes, of freedom, of truth. thus Gandhi stated that it was necessary for his disciples "to believe that death does not mean cessation of the struggle but a culmination", because they knew that the soul survives the body.Finally the immortality of the human soul is a tenet of religious faith, particularly of Christian faith, which insists on the supernatural destiny of the soul, called to see God face to face. As a matter of fact, religious faith, here as with some other great philosophical problems, has strengthened human reason in the very grasping of truths which human reason is capable of attaining of itself, but at the risk of error. As concerns your more particular questions, I do not see any basic contradictionbetween the Greek and Socratic belief that there is an immortal mind in a mortal body, and the emphasis on unity of life which we find in ancient Hebrews, - on the condition that the immortal mind in question not be regarded (in the Platonic or Hindu manner) as a spirit prisoner in an alien place or a bird in a cage, but as a spirit substantially one with the body it animates (according to the Aristotelian notions of "form" or "entelechy", which Thomas Aquinas has made classical in Catholic theology). Man is both in nature and transcending nature, that's the mystery which struck Pascal so deeply in the human being.Resurrection is no more irrational than any datum received by faith from divine revelation. Reason sees that nothing is more impossible to nature. But reason knows that nothing is impossible to God, except absurdity; and there is no absurdity in the fact of a separate soul being united to matter anew.You ask me whether my attitude on immortality changed as I grew older? In growing older one feels more inclined to deny the reality of old age, except as regards the body, and more convinced that human life is at the same time so serious a thing and so foolishly used that nothing on earth would make sense were not an incomprehensible mystery of mercy involved in life beyond the grave.Jacques Maritain.。