我们现在应该如何生活

作者  Charles Colson，Nancy Pearcey

可能我们正为经济、政治和不同的天灾人祸担忧，这些都是生活中必须面对的困难。

《世界观的故事》没有迴避这些问题，因为只有基督教能提供解决之道。

// 我们必须让这个世界看见，基督教是一个整全的生活系统，足以回答所有人类古老长存的问题：我从哪裡来？为什麽我在这裡？我将往何处去？生命有任何意义和目的吗？

正如我们在接下来的讨论中所看见的，基督教对这些问题提供了唯一富有生命力、又能以理性辩护的答案。只有基督教提供了同时可以了解物理秩序和道德秩序的途径。只有基督教提供了一种整全的世界观，可以涵盖生活和思想中的每一领域，以及创造的每一层面。同时，也只有基督教可以提供一条途径，使人与眞实世界相容并存。

但是如果基督徒要将这个赐予生命的信息带给世界，首要任务是自己先了解这个信息，并身体力行地活出这个信息。我们必须了解神的啓示是一切真理的源头，是一切事实的理解架构。该柏尔（Abraham Kuyper）是十九世纪伟大的神学家，并曾担任荷兰总理。他说基督教眞理的最首要原则并不是救恩论（soteriology；也就是，「因信称义」），而是宇宙论（cosmological；也就是在整个宇宙之上，在所有领域和国度中，不论是可见的或不可见的，三一眞神拥有絶对的主权）我们只能在与神的关係之中才能了解整个宇宙。

近几十年来，教会最大的一个失败就是：没看出基督教是一套生活系统，是一种世界观，足以管理存在的任何领域。这个失败以各种方式偷偷地潜入教会。举个例子来说，我们无法回答孩子从学校带回家的问题，所以我们也无法装备他们去回应所面对的挑战。就我们自己来说，我们也无法对朋友或邻舍解释自己爲什麽要相信基督教，常常我们束手就擒，完全无法爲自己的信仰辩护。我们也不知道如何正确地组织自己的生活，而是让周遭的环境来影响我们做的每一个选择。

更糟糕的是，看不见基督教眞理存在于生活的每一层面，这使得我们错失了美丽和意义的深度：我们看不见神在大自然乱中有序的荣美，听不见神在雄伟交响乐曲演奏中的美妙声音，也无法体会到神在一井然有序的社群中的和谐特性。

最糟糕的是，没把基督教看成一全面的眞理架构，这使得我们的努力无法对周遭文化发挥救赎的果效。就其最根本的层面来说，所谓的「文化战争」，其实是不同信仰系统之间的衝撞。正如该柏尔说的，这是原则与原则的衝撞，世界观与世界观的衝撞。只有明白这一点，我们才能够在后基督教文化中有效地传讲福音，将神的公义带入周遭的世界。

福音运动和文化更新，二者都是属天的、神所命定的责任。神以两种方式运行祂的主权透过救赎恩典（saving grace）和普遍恩典（common grace）。我们都相当熟悉救赎恩典：救赎恩典是藉由神的大能，呼召在过犯和罪恶中死去的人们，归向基督，得著新生命。作为神的僕人，许多时候我们是祂救赎恩典的代理人，向人们传讲福音，并引领人归向基督。但是，只有少数人眞正了解什麽是普遍恩典：普遍恩典其实就是神的大能维持大自然运作的方法，阻止罪和邪恶因爲人类堕落所造成的恶果，要不然罪和邪恶可能就像大洪水一样淹没了祂的创造。作爲神的普遍恩典之媒介，我们被呼召协助、维持、并更新祂的创造，支持家庭和社会这个神所创造的机制，追求科学和学术成果，创造美丽的艺术作品，并医治和帮助那些因爲始祖堕落而受苦的人们。//

Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey 《世界观的故事》p.10-12 ,校园书房出版社

Maybe we are worrying about economic, political and different natural disasters and man-made disasters. These are the difficulties that must be faced in life.

“How Now Shall We Live” does not avoid these problems, because only Christianity can provide a solution.

// We must show the world that Christianity is more than a private belief, more than personal salvation. We must show that it is a comprehensive life system that answers all of humanity’s age-old questions: Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? Does life have any meaning and purpose?

As we will argue in these pages, Christianity offers the only viable, rationally defensible answers to these questions. Only Christianity offers a way to understand both the physical and the moral order. Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in line with the real world.

But if Christians are going to carry this life-giving message to the world, we must first understand it and live it ourselves. We must understand that God’s revelation is the source of all truth, a comprehensive framework for all of reality. Abraham Kuyper, the great nineteenth-century theologian who served as prime minister of Holland, said that the dominating principle of Christian truth is not soteriological (i.e., justification by faith) but rather cosmological (i.e., the sovereignty of the triune God over the whole cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible). The entire cosmos can be understood only in relation to God.

The church’s singular failure in recent decades has been the failure to see Christianity as a life system, or worldview, that governs every area of existence. This failure has been crippling in many ways. For one thing, we cannot answer the questions our children bring home from school, so we are incapable of preparing them to answer the challenges they face. For ourselves, we cannot explain to our friends and neighbors why we believe, and we often cannot defend our faith. And we do not know how to organize our lives correctly, allowing our choices to be shaped by the world around us.

What’s more, by failing to see Christian truth in every aspect of life, we miss great depths of beauty and meaning: the thrill of seeing God’s splendor in the intricacies of nature or hearing his voice in the performance of a great symphony or detecting his character in the harmony of a well-ordered community.

Most of all, our failure to see Christianity as a comprehensive framework of truth has crippled our efforts to have a redemptive effect on the surrounding culture. At its most fundamental level, the so-called culture war is a clash of belief systems. It is, as Kuyper put it, a clash of principle against principle, of worldview against worldview. Only when we see this can we effectively evangelize a post-Christian culture, bringing God’s righteousness to bear in the world around us.

Evangelism and cultural renewal are both divinely ordained duties. God exercises his sovereignty in two ways: through saving grace and common grace. We are all familiar with saving grace; it is the means by which God’s power calls people who are dead in their trespasses and sins to new life in Christ. As God’s servants, we may at times be agents of his saving grace, evangelizing and bringing people to Christ. But few of us really understand common grace, which is the means by which God’s power sustains creation, holding back the sin and evil that result from the Fall and that would otherwise overwhelm his creation like a great flood. As agents of God’s common grace, we are called to help sustain and renew his creation, to uphold the created institutions of family and society, to pursue science and scholarship, to create works of art and beauty, and to heal and help those suffering from the results of the Fall. //

#christianworldview #基督教世界观