Faith and Redemption – Shi Tiesheng’s Thought [信仰与救赎—史铁生思想研究], Doctoral dissertation, Literary Theory, Graduate School of Literature and Art, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing, China 2015 [application of Fromm's theories to art].

  • 史铁生是文学家中杰出的思想者,他的思想具有明确一贯的主题。在个体生命的层面,基于对生命三大根本困境的认识,即命运之无常、死亡之必然、孤独之不可逃避,史铁生对命运、死亡与孤独进行了探索,而爱情拯救孤独,由此孤独与爱情联系在一起;在社会政治层面,则是史铁生对人道主义思想的阐发;同时其创作后期以基督教上帝观为核心的信仰探索也体现了他社会政治层面的现实关切。这些主题涉及生命的本源性问题及社会、国族发展的根本性问题,>信仰与救赎<成为一根主线在个体救赎与群体救赎两个层面将这些问题串联起来。本文由绪论、本论六章、补编一章及结语构成。绪论分为三部分。第一部分选题意义,论述了从信仰的角度对史铁生的思想进行探索的理论与现实意义;第二部分对当前国内外关于史铁生的研究进行了归纳与分析,并在此基础上从三方面申明了本论文的创新之处;第三部分简单陈述了本论文的逻辑结构和思路。第一章题为>爱命运<——史铁生的命运观。联系他痛苦的肉身境遇,指出他早年对绝望处境的坦诚书写是有意义的,其表明一个人敢于直面生命的悲剧而不是逃避。并联系蒂利希的思想对绝望的意义作了本体论上的阐发,指出对绝望的接受,本身就是信仰,体现了存在的勇气,不过史铁生基于肉身境遇关于命运初步的理性探索尚无哲学家超然的理性气质。史铁生关于命运的进一步探索则是受到圣经中约伯故事的启发,由此领悟到一种涉及宇宙整体与作为部分之个体关系的形而上学。藉此形而上学,他论证了人类苦难存在的必然合理性,阐扬了一种更为释然的面对命运的态度。但针对其在苦难问题上形而上学的预设和演绎,又提出了两点反思。第二章题为意义与永恒——史铁生的死亡哲学。在1986年的《我之舞》中,史铁生第一次对死亡展开理性的探索。但是他由否定绝对的虚无,继而否定死是虚无,从而推证出>我<不死,只是一种逻辑性的自洽,其论证没有充足有效性;而在以1999年开始发表的>病隙碎笔<系列为代表的作品中,他的论述摆脱了逻辑抽象性,有了更为具体的内涵。他将论述的重点放到了>我<上,提供了以下思路:一是佛教的>无我<观;一是基于一种建立在等级序列上的宇宙观和历史观所提出的>小我<融入>大我<以获得永恒的思路,但这一思路却使得意义与永恒之间构成了一种循环论证;不过,史铁生随后的作品所阐发的关于意义与永恒的新的认知,则启发我们意识到>我<之不死,>我<之永恒是建立在对生命意义的道德认知上。永恒指向质的而非量的无限性,它是精神人格的永恒,而非生物学意义上的无限,由此证明了其思想在救赎论上的有效性。史铁生坚信>我<之不死,也是因为他相信人确有灵魂而灵魂不死,他为此提供了几条实证思路;同时,他也从道德意义上论证了灵魂不死这一信念的重要性。而爱与求知应该成为生命最基本、最重要的主题,是史铁生的死亡哲学给予我们的重大启示。第三章题为孤独与爱的救赎——史铁生的爱情观。孤独意识具有二重性,这也体现了人本质的二重性:一方面,人需要走出孤独,走向群体;另一方面,人又需要确认他的独特性与不可替代性,由此人需要在群体中享有自我内在的封闭性,也即人有渴望孤独的内在需求。史铁生强调第一方面,却忽略了第二方面,这是他在孤独与爱情的探讨中陷入困境的根本原因。在其生命境遇中,他领悟到残疾与爱情是上帝向人类隐喻的两条最本质的人性密码,在孤独的意义上,残疾即指人间的防备、歧视等造成的人心灵上的压迫和损伤。他在前后期一系列的探索中都表达了消除人间防备、歧视的强烈渴望,但伴随而来的却是孤独是人之宿命的悲观体认。在此基础上,他指出唯有爱才能拯救孤独,而基于对人之孤独的救赎,他的爱指向了广博的爱愿,博爱是难以实现的理想,爱情是其中可实现的部分,由此他通过对爱情的探讨去表达消除孤独的渴望。但爱情的理想远景既然指向了博爱,便陷入了>爱情能否n对n<的难题。在《爱情问题》、《务虚笔记》、《我的丁一之旅》中他对这一问题的探讨逐次推进,但终未能得出令人信服的答案。论文最后联系弗洛姆的观点,回顾反思史铁生的思想,指出其在爱情难题上陷入困境的原因,并提出解决思路。第四章题为>上帝<与政治——史铁生的人道主义思想。史铁生社会政治层面的关切是以他的人道主义思想为核心的。他从>叛徒<的困境、>我们<的位置中,看到了人道主义应有之义,并联系基督文化、基督精神对人道主义的自由、平等、博爱的思想进行了深入辨析。在他看来,政治问题和>上帝<信仰是不可分的,人道之上有>神在<、有>天命<,只有站在信仰的高度,才能真正击中时弊,找到出路。第五章题为>看不见而信<——史铁生的上帝观(一)。在后期,史铁生以基督教上帝观为核心阐发了他对信仰的认识。他的信仰观主要从两个方面启发了我们的思考:一是认识论上,他强调>看不见而信<,也即强调信仰的非理性特质,这是本章要阐述的问题;二是在救赎论的意义上,强调人神距离说,这是下一章的内容。在史铁生笔下,始终有两种上帝的形象:一是创世主、一是救世主。在早中期多是创世主的形象,而在后期,救世主的形象与精神得到了格外强调,正体现了他对基督文化与基督精神的赞赏。基于基督教>三位一体<的学说,史铁生通过救世主的存在领悟到创世主冷漠背后的恩慈,从而在不自由的宿命下找回了人的自由,并由此阐述了信仰的真意。但上帝的存在也即上帝的本体论问题是谈论上帝不可回避的问题,却没有引起史铁生特别的重视。他简单明了地指出信仰的本义是>看不见而信<,因为信仰在于人的信心、信念,一旦要求实证,就谈不上是信仰;同时,理性的有限也使之无能论证信仰。在他的作品中,上帝是以一正一反两条思路自然呈现的:正向的思路是,由对人之有限的认识,推到了无限之在,而这无限之在,即指上帝;反向的思路是指他基于救赎的意义强调了上帝存在的必要与价值。但这两条思路只建立了上帝存在的可能性及上帝存有的价值,却尚未建立起其真实性。而不能在心中建立起上帝的真实性,对于某些人而言,便无法真正地走近上帝信仰。但上帝的真实性终是不可证明的,在现代基督教思想家约翰.希克的启发下,我们由关于上帝存在的推论的健全性转换成对史铁生上帝信仰之合理性的研究。在这种考察中,我们看到了一种扩大了的经验和理性的范畴。正是在这广义的理性和经验里,史铁生的上帝信仰具有了合理性,也为我们走近上帝信仰提供了启示。第六章题为>人与神有着无限的距离<——史铁生的上帝观(二)。基于对人力有限的客观认识,更主要是基于对人性之恶的洞察及对中国历史、文化与现实的认识,史铁生在救赎论的意义上,突出强调了>人神距离说<,人与神的距离具体便体现在人力、人性、人智的有限或残缺与神的全能、绝对的圆满与美善的比照。史铁生明确指出他的>人神距离说<是在刘小枫的《走向十字架上的真》中找到的答案,他的这一思想也确实会让人联想到刘小枫在书中极为推崇的卡尔.巴特的思想。但通过与卡尔.巴特思想的比照可以发现,卡尔.巴特极端的神人隔绝理论无限地贬低了人,彻底取消了人的主体性;而史铁生在>人神距离说<的视野下,对有限(人)和无限(神)的辩证论述,则在认识论而根本上是生存本体论的意义上,建构了一种关于人的自由的辩证法,在神设定的>不自由<下,导向了人的超越的主体性。同时,基于社会现实的解决方案,我们将史铁生的>人神距离说<与别尔嘉耶夫以个体人格自由为核心的思想进行比较,以期引起对这一问题的思考,即病根是在极权文化上,还是根本源于人的奴性意识?最后针对学界关于史铁生是个无神论者或无神论意义上的泛神论者的普遍观点提出进一步的思考,指出从认识论的角度,我们无法对史铁生是否相信上帝作出准确判断,但从救赎论的角度,也是基于史铁生自己的明确表述,我们可以给史铁生一个准确的赋名,即史铁生是一个宗教精神的信仰者,这也是学者们的普遍共识。史铁生的信仰观尽管是在耶佛的比照下,以基督教上帝观为核心进行阐发的,但他信仰的并非某一具体宗教而是一种宗教精神,文中从五个方面对其宗教精神进行了概述。补编是史铁生的佛教思想,史铁生对信仰观的阐述是在耶佛的比照下展开的,不过佛教思想经常是被作为反例来运用的。但总体来看,史铁生所批评的并非原旨意义上的佛教思想,而是流于世俗化、功利化的民间信仰,由此他对佛教的批判有失公允,这是需要指出并加以澄清的。按照史铁生的论述逻辑,应把其对佛教的认识放在上帝观的两章,但在具体论述中会破坏这两章的逻辑和结构平衡,因此将之作为补编。史铁生基于他的信仰观,对佛教的理性主义、佛教的>灭欲说<以及佛教的功利性提出了他的批评。不过,在他的论述中,我们看到其思想及精神实质与大乘佛教是契合的,大乘佛教的的利他精神、忧悲情怀也正是史铁生明确表示赞赏的。而从大乘佛教思想出发,能够激发我们对佛教的积极认识,以此也能回应史铁生对佛教的质疑。结语题为>未完成式<——思想的文学性书写。对史铁生的信仰之路作出总结,指出理性的精神是其主要的特征,也是其思想及思想的探索之于我们的最大意义;同时,就思想与文学性书写的关系,在昆德拉和陀思妥耶夫斯基的比照下,对史铁生的创作进行了简单的考察,指出在如何更好地融合思想的表达与文学性书写的关系上,史铁生的艺术探索仍是>未完成式的<,值得我们在此问题上继续思考。
  • Shi Tiesheng is an outstanding thinker in writers, and his ideas had clear and consistent themes. About individual life, Shi Tiesheng explored fate, death and loneliness, which was based on the un-derstanding of three fundamental living difficulties containing impermanent fate, death and inesca-pable loneliness. And love saves the loneliness, thus loneliness and love get the reactions; on the social and political level, Shi Tiesheng elucidated the humanism; and the Christian view of God as the core belief in Shi Tiesheng’s later writing reflected his practical concerning about social and political problems. These themes pointed to the origin of life and the fundamental issues of social and national development, which are connected by >faith and redemption< as a main line from the aspects of individual redemption and group redemption. This paper consists of the introduction, six chapters, a supplement and conclusion. Introduction is divided into three parts. The first part explores the theoretical and practical significance of Shi Tiesheng’s thoughts from the perspective of faith; the second part summarizes the local and foreign researches about Shi Dishing and introduces three aspects of this paper’s innovation; the third part statement’s the logic structure and the train of thoughts in this paper. The first chapter is entitled >loving fate – Shi Tiesheng’s view of fate<. Based on his painful body situation, this chapter points out that his early sincere writing without hopeless is significant, which shows that a person dare to face the tragedy y of life, and illustrates meanings of the ontology of despair in relation of Tillich’s thoughts, then points out the acceptance of despair itself is belief – which reflects the courage of existence, but these preliminary rational explorations about the fate had no a philosopher’s detached rational temperament. Shi Tiesheng’s further exploration was inspired by Job’s story in the Bible, thus realized one type of metaphysics relating to the universe as a whole and an distinct part. From this, he demonstrated the inevitable rationality of Human suffering, and expound s a more relieved attitude to face the fate. This chapter also puts forward two reflections based on his metaphysical presupposition and deduction about suffering Issues. The second chapter is entitled >the meaning and eternity – Shi Tiesheng’s philosophy of death<. In >My Dancing<(1986), Shi Dishing firstly launched the rational exploration of death. But he denied ab-solute nothingness and fatherly denied death is nothing, thus derived >I< won’t die, which was just a self consistent logic but without enough validity. In his representative works such as the >Bing Xi Sui Bi<, his discussions got rid of logical abstraction and had a more specific meaning. He focused on the >I< and provided the following ideas: one was >without me< of Buddhist concept; one was putting forward the >ego< into >I< which was based on the conception of universe and history according to a hierarchical sequence, but this idea made a circular argument between the eternity and significance; however, Shi Tiesheng’s subsequent works with analyses on the new cognition about significance and eternity enlightened us to realize that >I< won’t die and the eternal >I< were based on the moral cognition of life meaning. The eternity pointed to the matter of essence rather amount, and it was the eternal spirit of personality rather than the biological meaning of the infinite, which proved the validity of the thought of redemption. Shi Tiesheng believed that the >I< won’t die because he believed that people have the soul and the soul is deathless, and he provided a few empirical ideas; at the same time, he also demonstrated the importance of belief on the immortal soul from the moral sense. Love and knowledge should become the most basic and important themes, which was the inspiration provided by Shi Tiesheng’s philosophy of the death for us. The third chapter is entitled >loneliness and redemption of love – Shi Tiesheng’s love view<. Loneli-ness has duality to people, it also reflects the duality of human nature: on the one hand, people need to get out of loneliness, towards the community; on the other hand, people also need to confirm his uniqueness, so people eager to internal loneliness. Shi Tiesheng stressed that the first aspect, but ignored the second, which was the fundamental reason he was in trouble in the discussion on loneliness and love. Based on his life circumstances, he realized the disability and love were the two most essential humanity passwords which was the metaphor God gives to human. In the sense of loneliness, disability refers to oppression and damage on heart caused by human’s defense and discrimination. His exploration all expressed a strong desire to eliminate defense and discrimination against the world. Nevertheless, it was accompanied with the pessimistic recognition that loneliness was the human fate. On this basis, he pointed out that only love could save the loneliness. Based on salvation towards human loneliness, his love pointed to fraternity, but is difficult to achieve the fraternity, love is one of the parts can be realized. Thus he expressed the desire to eliminate lone-liness through the discussion of love. But the ideal vision of love pointed to fraternity, then it was in a problem of >love could n vs. n<. In >Love Problem<, >Ideological Notes>, >My Trip as Ding Yi< to explore the topic of successive advance, but failed to draw a convincing answer. The last part reviews Shi Tiesheng’s thoughts with the view of Fromm, points out the cause of the trouble in love problems, and puts forward the solution. The fourth chapter is entitled >God and Politics – Shi Tiesheng’s humanism<. For Shi Tiesheng, the social and political level was concerned with his humanitarian ideas as the core. From the >traitor dilemma< and >our position<, he saw the humanitarian meaning, analyzed the humanitarian freedom, equality, fraternity in depth associated with Christ culture and Christ spirit. In his opinion, political issues and >God< belief were inseparable, >God< and >destiny< were beyond humanity. Only standing on the height of the faith, can really hit the mark, to find a way out. The fifth chapter is entitled >belief because of invisibility – Shi Tiesheng’s concept of God (a)<. He expressed his understanding of faith based on the concept of God. His belief aroused our thinking mainly from two aspects: One is the epistemology, he stressed >belief because of invisibility<, which emphasized the irrational characteristics of faith, which this chapter is to elaborate. The other stress¬sed the eternal distance between human and God, which is discussed in the next chapter. In Shi Tiesheng’s works, there were always two kinds of God: one is the creator, the other is a savior. The creator appeared in the early stage, and in the later period, the image and spiritual of savior was particularly emphasized. This embodied his personal appreciation to Christian spirit and Christian culture. Based on Christian tritheism, Shi Tiesheng realized that the creator’s kindness behind indif-ference through saviors, so to find the human’s freedom in the fettered destiny. And thus he expound¬ded the meaning of faith. But the existence of God which is also called the ontology of the God cannot be avoided, but did not cause Shi Tiesheng special attention. He simply pointed out that the original meaning of faith was >belief because of invisibility<. Because faith is the confidence and belief of human, once it is empirical, there would be no faith. At the same time, the limited rationality also ma¬kes it impossible to demonstrate faith. In his works, God is presented through the pro and con ideas: the pro thinking is, by the limited knowledge of human, the infinite is realized. And this infinite being, refers to God. The reverse thinking is based on the significance of salvation that he stressed the ne¬cessity and value of the existence of God. But the two ideas only set up the possibility of the exis¬tence of God and God’s value, thus did not yet established its authenticity. However, it is not to establish the truth of God in mind, some people cannot really approach the belief in God. But it cannot be proved the authenticity of God, inspired by the modern Christian thinker John Hick, we transform the soundness of inference about the existence of God to the study of the rationality about the faith of God of Shi Tiesheng. In this study, we saw an expanded experience and rational category. It is in this broad sense and experience, Shi Tiesheng’s belief in God has rationality, also provides enlightenment for us to approach God faith. The sixth chapter is entitled >The hypothesis of distance between human and God – Shi Tiesheng’s view of God (b)<. Including the objective understanding of limited manpower, it is more mainly based on the understanding on the evil of human nature and China’s history, culture and reality. Shi Tiesheng, in the sense of salvation, highlighted the eternal distance between human and God. The distance between human and God is specifically embodied in the contrast, between the limited human power, human nature, human intelligence and the Go d Almighty, absolute perfection and goodness. Shi Tiesheng pointed out that >the hypothesis of distance between human and God< was the answer found from >The Truth on The Cross< of Liu Xiaofeng. His thought was indeed associated Carle Barth’s thought Liu Xiaofeng extremely respected. But with the comparison of Carle Barth can be found that, Carle Barth’s extreme isolation theory belittled human infinitely, completely dismantled human subjectivity. Shi Tiesheng set up the dialectic of human’s freedom through the dialectical discussion about Limited (person) and infinite (God) under the >The hypothesis of distance between human and God< At the same time, based on the social reality, we compares Shi Tiesheng’s >The hypothesis of distance between human and God< with Berdyaev’s individual personality freedom as the core idea, and think about such question: which is the root cause of the problem, the totalitarian culture or the person’s servility consciousness? At last, we put forward further thinking on that Shi Tiesheng is an atheist or a pantheistic on atheistic sense. From the perspective of epistemology, we cannot make accurate judgments whether Shi Tiesheng believed in God, but based on the per¬spective of redemption, and his own clear interpretation, we could give Shi Tiesheng an accurate name. He was a believer on religious spirit, which is also the consensus of scholars. An d we outline his religious spirit from five aspects. The supplement is Shi Tiesheng’s Buddhist ideas, and his exploration about the belief is in contrast between the Christian and Buddhism, but the latter is often to be used as counterexamples. But in general, Buddhism criticized by Shi Tiesheng is not the Buddhism in original sense, but a secular, utilitarian folk belief, thus his criticism of Buddhism is unfair, which is necessary to point out. According to Shi Tiesheng’s treatment logic, this chapter should be put in the two chapters about God, but will destroy the logic and the balance of the structure of those two chapters, so it is put as a supplement. According to Shi Tiesheng’s conception of belief, he critiqued Buddhism’s rationalism, utility and the conception of >extinguishing desires<. However, in his works, we can see the connection between his spirit and Mahayana Buddhism, and Shi Tiesheng ever clearly expressed his admiration to Mahayana Buddhism. From the perspective of Mahayana Buddhism, we can achieve the active understanding of Buddhism, which can responds to Shi Tiesheng questions on Buddhism. The conclusion is titled >unfinished – literary writing on thoughts<. This chapter mainly focused on the relationship between thoughts and literary writing. In contrast to Kundera and Dostojevskij, this chapter points out that Shi Tiesheng’s artistic exploration is still unfinished in how to better deal with the relationship between thoughts and literary writing, and we should continue to think about this issue. [Author’s translation]

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Metadaten
Author:Lin Gu
Document Type:Dissertations
Language:Chinese
Year of first Publication:2015
Release Date:2016/09/29
Format:no download and copy possible
IdNo:Gao_Caihong_2014
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Dissertations / Dissertationen
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Dissertations / Dissertationen
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