||||>>>Einstein and the God of Baruc Spinoza
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Albert Einstein was born at March 6
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Einstein's rejection of conventional theism
There is no personal God.
The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am
unable to
take seriously. [Letter of 1946, Hoffman and Dukas]
What I cannot understand is how there could possibly be a God who would
reward or punish his subjects or who could induce us to develop our will
in our
daily life. I cannot then believe in this concept of an anthropomorphic
God who
has the powers of interfering with these natural laws. [The Private
Albert
Einstein]
The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law
of
causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who
interferes in
the course of events - provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis
of
causality really seriously. [New York Times Magazine November 9, 1930]
The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the
firmer
becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this
ordered
regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of
human
nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural
events.
[Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A Symposium]
There is no freedom of will or separate soul.
In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a
disbeliever.
Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance
with
inner necessity. [The World as I See It]
But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The
future,
to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is
nothing
divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. [The World As I See
It]
Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions and combinations of
sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to
be
empty and devoid of meaning. [Letter of 5 February 1921]
There is no afterlife or punishment for sins after death.
An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my
comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears
or
absurd egoism of feeble souls. [The World as I See It]
If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human
action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is
also
His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for
their deeds
and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and
rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How
can
this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?
[Out of My Later Years]
Prayer is useless.
Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place
is
determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of
people.
For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe
that
events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a
wish addressed to a supernatural Being. [Einstein - The Human Side]
Einstein's pantheism
Einstein's belief in God.
I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of
what
exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of
human
beings. [Telegram of 1929, in Hoffman and Dukas]
The cosmic mystery.
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
fundamental
emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who
knows
it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as
dead,
a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery--even if mixed
with
fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something
we
cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the
most
radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most
elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute
the truly
religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply
religious man.
[The World as I See It]
The most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can
experience
is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of
all true
science. If there is any such concept as a God, it is a subtle spirit,
not an image
of a man that so many have fixed in their minds. In essence, my religion
consists of a humble admiration for this illimitable superior spirit that
reveals
itself in the slight details that we are able to perceive with our frail
and feeble
minds. [Interview with Peter Bucky]
It is very difficult to elucidate this [cosmic religious] feeling to
anyone who is
entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception
of God
corresponding to it. The individual feels the futility of human desires
and aims
and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in
nature
and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort
of
prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant
whole.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind
of
religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's
image;
so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it.
[New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930].
Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the
marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted
endeavour to
comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests
itself in
nature. [The World as I See It.]
Sheer being.
The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical
comprehensibility
of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the
feeling that
one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme
that is
manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the step
of
fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes
demands
of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this
neither a
will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. [Dukas and Hoffman]
A spirit or superior intelligence.
But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the
pursuit of
science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the
Universe -
a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we
with our
modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads
to a
religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from
the
religiosity of someone more naive. [c. Dukas and Hoffman]
His [the scientist's] religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous
amazement
at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such
superiority
that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human
beings is
an utterly insignificant reflection. [The World As I See It]
The grandeur of reason incarnate in existence.
[Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium]
Religion inspires science.
While it is true that scientific results are entirely independent from
religious or
moral considerations, those individuals to whom we owe the great creative
achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious
conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect and
susceptible to the
rational striving for knowledge. If this conviction had not been a
strongly
emotional one and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired
by
Spinoza's Amor Dei Intellectualis, they would hardly have been capable of
that
untiring devotion which alone enables man to attain his greatest
achievements.
[Ideas and Opinions]
The cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for
scientific
research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the
devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be
achieved
are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such
work,
remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a
deep
conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to
understand.
. . It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such
strength. [The World as I See It]
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Sources
[I am indebted to the Secular Web for assembling the documents from which
these materials are extracted.]
1. Banesh Hoffman and Helen Dukas, Albert Einstein, New York and London,
1973.
2. Peter A. Bucky and Allen G. Weakland, The Private Albert Einstein by
Andrews and McMeel, Kansas City, 1992.
3. Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, New York, 1954.
4. Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Albert Einstein - The Human
Side, Princeton University Press, 1979.
5. Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, published by the
Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the
Democratic Way of Life, New York, 1941.
6. Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, Philosophical Library, New
York,
1949.
7. Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, New York, Philosophical
Library,
1950.
SCIENTIFIC PANTHEISM
is the belief that the universe and nature are divine.
It fuses religion and science, and concern for humans with concern for
nature.
It provides the most realistic concept of life after death,
and the most solid basis for environmental ethics.
It is a religion that requires no faith other than common sense,
no revelation other than open eyes and a mind open to evidence,
no guru other than your own self.
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