The question whether there are valid "proofs" of the existence of God has been confused by lack of clarity on what we mean by “proof” in this context. It has been too often assumed that "proof" must be what Kant called " apodeictic" that is of the kind that we used to be familiar within Euclid, where the argument could be concluded with a triumphant Q.E.D. because every rational person who understands the propositions is compelled to accept the inference. In my opinion, such arguments are possible only in mathematics, because there we make the assumptions on which the reasoning proceeds - we decide on the rules, so to speak, before the game starts.

　　对于上帝存在是否有明确“证据”的问题，已经跟我们在这种情况所意谓的“证据”缺乏明确性、纠缠在一起。我们常常假定，“证据”一定是康德所称之“绝对肯定的”——那种我们在欧氏推论中所熟悉的，那种可以把论据推演到成功地“证完”，因为每个懂得命题的具有理性的人都一定会接受那样的推断。在我看来，那类论据只在数学中有其可能，因为在数学中推论得以进行所依赖的假设，是我们拟定的——可以说，在游戏开始之前，我们先决定该游戏的规则。

The question whether the assumptions have any foundation in real existence is another matter. There is never any doubt about a check-mate in chess because the rules are understood and accepted by both players. Such a situation never obtains in ordinary life, or in science. We know that laws of nature that have seemed to be firmly established have often been either discarded or radically modified and that we are practically certain of many things which are quite incapable of being demonstrated by rigid logic. The determined sceptic can never be silenced. We can only say that we have to go on living and must act on beliefs which, though not logically certain, have a reasonable claim to be accepted. Thus no one has ever refuted the scepticism of David Hume about causation, the conception of personal identity and the existence of an external world of nature, but we all go on acting on the assumption that cause and effect are real and that we are the same persons as we were when we went to sleep last night and that the world around us is not a figment in a dream.

　　上述的假设是否具有真实存在的基础，是另一回事。在象棋中，把对手将军“将死”是没有任何怀疑的，因为双方都懂得也接受象棋规则。这样的情况，在日常生活中，甚或在科学研究中，无法获得。我们知道，有些似乎是已经确立的自然规律，常常有被迫放弃，或者是予以彻底修改的情形；我们几乎有把握的是，许多事物不可能用严格的逻辑来论证得一清二楚。坚决的怀疑分子是誓不罢休的。我们只能说，我们总得生活下去，有些信念虽然在逻辑上不怎么确定，但还是相当合理、值得我们接受，我们就必然会依据那些信念行事。休姆对于个人特性的构成与大自然外在世界的存在具有一定的因果关系、提出怀疑，并没有人加以驳斥，但我们仍然都按照一些假定生活下去：因果关系是真实的，今天的我跟昨晚就睡的我是同一个人，在我们周遭的世界并不是一个梦中的虚构事物。

The argument for the existence of God is a cumulative one. When we take up any aspect of our human experience and consider its implications we are led to the idea of God - nature, the moral consciousness, the aesthetic response to beauty and sublimity, the aspiration towards a just society, the spiritual life in its widest significance, and the history of religion as a persistent element in the human adventure, all, in different ways, converge on the idea of a Creative Mind. The kind of reasoning which, as I hold, should persuade any considering man to believe in God may be compared with that which we should employ if we were challenged to justify our belief in the real existence of other selves. It is a belief that we acquire in the course of our development and without which our lives would be rendered almost impossible. Yet we have to admit we cannot demonstrate its truth beyond all possible cavil and, further, we have to recognize that the communication which we have with other persons may be less complete than we imagine, but in spite of all this, we feel that it is more than a reasonable assumption - it is a practical certainty - that other persons exist and that we are able to communicate our thoughts to them. We act on a rational faith.

　　有关上帝存在的论据是渐次增加的。当我们着手处理人生阅历的任何层面、考虑到其牵连性，我们就会获致上帝的观念——大自然，道义感，对美和崇高的唯美感应，企望走向一个公正的社会，最广泛意义的精神生活，以及已经成为人类迈进中之持续成分的宗教史，所有这一切，其方式不同，都汇聚往一个“创始心灵”的观念。若是我们相信“他我”的存在，而有人要我们证明这一信念，我们应该使用的推理，正好可以用来比拟我所持有的这种应该能够说服肯思想的人相信上帝的推理。相信“他我”的存在，是在我们成长过程中所获得的，没有这一信念，我们生命的持续就变得几乎不可能。但是，我们必得承认，对此真实现象的证明不可能达到无懈可击，而且我们还需要进一步了解，我们跟他人的交谈，可能不像我们想象的那么完备，可是，尽管有这些顾虑，我们对于他人的存在，以及我们能够把自己的思想传达给他人之类的认定，觉得已经超出合乎常理的假定——它实际上是毫无疑问的事实。我们行动是根据合于理性的信念的。
　　[ a Creative Mind“（一个）创始心灵”：本文作者最先提出这个名词的形式是creative Mind，我们那时的中译是“有创始力的心灵”，接着所见的是one (eternal,) creative
　　Intelligence “一个（永恒的）有创始力的神明/智力”，这词语现在已进而演变成专用词的形式（因为两个字都以大写开始）；译者努力把开头的翻译压缩为四个字，不知是否还能表达愿意？
　　[ other selves“他我”：中文要求用语简洁，此处好像只能译为“他我”（与后面的other persons“他人”相对），我们可以用“其他的自己”来翻译other selves 吗？
　　[ cavil “（提出）吹毛求疵的反对([to raise] a trifling objection)”：这个来自拉丁语源的动词和名词，它所表达的精确概念，是我们汉语所缺乏的。beyond all possible cavil：译者在这里译为“达到无懈可击（超出所有可能的吹毛求疵的反对）”，也许勉强合格吧？]

There are writers who maintain that belief in God makes no difference to our general behaviour or our attitude towards life, unless perhaps, we believe in an unreasonable or cruel deity, and then they would readily admit our belief may affect our conduct for the worse. I cannot understand this view. To me it seems evident that belief in God must profoundly influence our whole reaction to the universe and our experience of it, and I would agree that belief in an evil deity can make us more evil than we should have been without it, but would insist on the logical consequence that, conversely, belief in a good God can make us better than otherwise we should have been.

　　有的著作家认为，“相信上帝”对我们的一般行为，或者对我们看待人生的态度，不会造成什么不同，除非我们相信的是不合理的或是残忍的神祗，他们只有在那样的情况中才承认我们的信念对行为起着坏影响。我无法明白这种看法。相信上帝一定会深远地影响我们对宇宙的整体认识以及我们在宇宙中可得的经验，这一点我认为是明显的；我也同意，相信邪恶的神祗会使得我们比之无该信念更为邪恶，但从另一面来说，我坚信逻辑上的相对推断：信仰一位至善的上帝，能使我们比之无该信仰的过去，要良好得多。
　　[神祗：“祗”（qi2）字的右边下面无点，翻译本文时所用的简体“Word”软件，似乎找不出这个字，只好在“zhi”下找一个近似的字形。]
（十之三完）