护教学的诱惑

護教學的誘惑﹕適切性，與學術界的尊重
THE TEMPTATIONS FACED BY APOLOGETICS:
RELEVANCE AND ACADEMIC RESPECTABILITY


「護教為講道」的涵義﹕我們必須講真理，只講真理。
Implication of apologetics as preaching: we must not preach falsehoods.
新約常斥責那些宣講錯誤道理的人 (提後3章﹔彼後2章) 。
Preaching falsehood is condemned in the New Testament (2 Tim. 3; 2 Peter 2).

歷史上不少異端，起源都是因為某種護教的動機。有人想﹕我若要說服知識分子信基督教，我必須證明基督教是符合當代思潮。我必須給知識分子看到基督教在理性上可以被尊重。因此《聖經》的教義就被妥協了，以流行的哲學理念取代之。第二世紀的護教者多是很愛主的信徒，可是妥協了《聖經》的創造論，與諾斯底主義的神、存有、世界觀妥協混合。神變成沒有位格，三位一體有了高低之分。
It is remarkable how many heresies are traceable to apologetic motives. Someone will think, “If I am going to present Christianity more persuasively, I will have to show that it is compatible with the intellectual movements of my time. I must present Christianity as ‘intellectually respectable.’” Thus, various Christian doctrines are compromised, replaced by the doctrines of popular philosophy. 2nd century apologists (Justin, Aristides, Atheagoras) were mostly deeply committed Christians, but they compromised the Christian doctrine of creation, accommodating it to the Gnostic philosophical notions of a continuum of being between God and the world. This led to an almost impersonal concept of God (the unknowable being at the top of the scale) and a subordinate view of the Trinity (the Son and Spirit subordinate to God the Father, so that they could interact with the world, as the Father could not).

歷史上還有不少從護教的動機出發的﹕革利免、俄利根、阿奎那﹐和現代的士萊馬赫、20世紀的神學家 (Bultmann, Tillich, Pannenberg) ，他們都想在文化知識界裏表示基督教有理性的價值 。這並不表示他們的護教動機是錯的。可是前車之鑒，還有《聖經》的警告，我們不得不謹慎。
Similar motivations are evident in Clement of Alexandria and Origen, in Thomas Aquinas, and more recently in Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Speeches to the Learning Despisers of Christiniaty, and the many modern theologians from Bultmann to Tillich to Pannenberg who want to show “modern man” the intellectual value of Christianity. Very often the apologetic motive has led to doctrinal compromise. That doesn’t mean that the apologetic motive was wrong. But the historical pattern and Scripture’s explicit admonitions should lead us to be highly cautious.

你至終的效忠是否對神﹖還是對 「理性上被知識分子尊重」﹖或對一個抽象的真理﹖或對某一個哲學傳統﹖若不是效忠於神的話，就不要作護教者。
Don’t be an apologist unless your first loyalty is to God – not to intellectual respectability, to truth in the abstract, to the unbeliever as such, to some philosophical tradition. (from John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God. 林慈信節譯。)