This is part of a series of posts where I subscribe and respond to a widely advertised theistic educational course.
I was disappointed by the opening email. It treads a path that’s been previously walked. The crux of their argument is Einstein regretted his “Steady State Universe” theory, following that (and let’s remember, Einstein was not infallible and had his theories subjected to the same amount of scientific scrutiny as any other scientist) Einstein stated:
“…the harmony of natural law “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 quote is taken from “The World as I See It”. Using this quote is malicious and misleading. Perhaps a better quote to use would be:
The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
That’s taken from a letter Einstein sent to Eric Gutkind. That quote fairly succinctly tells us what Einstein did not believe, but what did he believe? We have fair reason to believe he followed the teachings of Baruch Spinoza based on the following statement:
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.
That’s taken from a discussion with Rabbi Herbert Goldstein. Unfortunately for Einstein, an mention of God is latched on to by theists and re-purposed for their own end. To understand what Einstein meant, and his two quotes are aligned in this regard, you have to understand Spinoza’s God. Just to illustrate the difficulty theists have with understanding Spinoza’s God, and Einstein’s belief in this philosophical system, I’d like to use an example from this very blog. In a post entitled Wise and Logical Quotes from History, I included a quote from Einstein in which he addresses morality. A visitor going by the handle “Chrissy” first claimed that I mis-represented Einstein (read the article, that’s incorrect) because he “believed in God”, and then stated:
“…It makes no difference to me which religion he was or what characteristics he attributed to God… the point is that he believed in God..”
This is typical of the theist response to Einstein’s quotes. It must be comforting to convince yourself that one of the great minds of recent times believed what you believe, even if all the evidence states otherwise.
To give a bit of background on Spinoza, he was an atheist who had his entire body of work prohibited by the Catholic Church. He was considered a heretic and excommunicated (not technically excommunicated, but the Jewish equivalent. I use the term excommunicated for its familiarity) by the Jewish leaders. Not the profile of your typical theistic philosopher.
In fact, Spinoza’s God was not a personal God at all. Spinoza’s God was literally everything. Everything that exists is a part of God, a feature of God. Spinoza’s suggestion that God has a physical form (and is, in fact, all physical forms) is diametrically opposed to the Gods of the major religions (a physical God is very different to a transcendent God). Spinoza’s God has been referred to as “Nature”, but it’s actually more reflective of the system of the universe. It’s a difficult theory to understand, and certainly piqued Einstein’s curiosity. Judging by the first Einstein quote, it is possibly (likely, even) that he was won over by the interconnectivity of Spinoza’s theory, which goes some way to explain the rules of the holistic system Einstein was exploring (that system being out universe).
Whether you truly understand Spinoza’s theory or not, two facts remain and must be reiterated.
- Using Einstein in the way he has been used here is unfair, unhealthy, misleading and incorrect.
- Einstein’s beliefs are just that, his beliefs. He was just a scientist, a high profile scientist, but still just a scientist. His beliefs have no impact on my own. using Einstein in this manner seems to suggest that because Einstein believed something, we all should. If the authors of this course truly believed that, they would abandon their personal deity in favour of Spinozism.
Not a great start, and I hope it’s not a sign of things to come.
Atheist, as you do not give the actual posting, we have obviously only your response to go by.
Firstly, I agree entirely that Einstein’s religious belief is not simple. Nor is Spinoza’s – as a philosopher, however, I know much more about him. There are a few things that are not quite right there:
1. He was not an atheist. Indeed, for him unity with God was the highest of all things. However, you are right that his understanding of God, is rather quirky. For him there is only one substance in the universe (his philosophy is best described as ‘monadic’): God, who is intelligent, infinite, necessarily existing, and the cause of all existence. We are all part of this God, but it is not strictly pantheistic either. It’s too complicated (and unnecessary) to explain this further, I think, though, unless anyone is particularly interested…?
2. The Catholic Church’s opposition to Spinoza (please correct me if I’m wrong, my sources are not scholarly, but these were certainly his views) was that for him the law of the State must be absolute and this included control of external religious practice. He certainly was excommunicated by his own fellow Jews, which indicates that he certainly had very strong views about God.
3. Spinoza’s God was not personal? I don’t think (I’m hedging here, I know!) that’s true. It’s borderline. It’s also too facile to say that everything is ‘part’ of God. Moreover, he himself did equate God with Nature, but that too is confusing! (Nature has a different meaning for him than it does in general modern usage). His reflections were constantly based on the relationships between finite and infinite, and the nature of change (God, in his view, is immutable).
So now to Einstein.
Certainly his thought is influenced by Spinoza. It is also influenced strongly by Christianity and by Judaism. You are right that he rejected the historicity of the Bible early on, and many of his most anti-religious sentiments come from there. Later he was to be more moderate, but also more difficult to understand.
He was certainly no atheist, however. Some more quotes:
– The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.
– In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human understanding, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.
– I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional “opium of the people”—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.
– Everyone 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…. 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.
He was somewhat infatuated by Jesus. When asked whether he thought Jesus existed he replied: “Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.” Later he adds: “No man can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he.”
A particular favourite:
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
…. and so on….
All of this is also rather quirky. There is much in (all) these quotations of Einstein that has certainly made me think. I agree with your conclusions, that his beliefs are highly personal, as is our own. What I like is that he asked the important questions and was prepared to engage with them. Culture was important for him (as was his violin playing). He was also quite at home with mystery and understood (intuitively it seems) that the job of science is not to squash it (ie by proof), but that wonder is the very spark that moves a scientist to do what he does, and becomes no less even when he has solved the particular problem. Life is more than just equations, even if they are as important as e=mc2.
Perhaps my favourite quotation is this:
“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility…The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.”
Jonathan – I’m glad we see eye to eye on Einstein. As far as I can tell, we are in agreement that Einstein should not be used to confirm or deny deities or theism because 1) His beliefs are complex and not fully understood and 2) His beliefs, like everyone else’s, are personal. If Einstein was openly a Christian or a Buddhist or Muslim, it would have zero impact on my beliefs. Note that I only offer quotes from Einstein to counter the points in the email and to point out the dangers of using quotes in this way.
As for Spinoza, firstly I find it odd that you consider someone like Spinoza to have “quirky” beliefs – is this because they don’t neatly match your own? And yes, calling him an atheist is over simplifying it somewhat, but his beliefs certainly don’t align with those of modern, organised, mono-theistic religions. In that regard, he is what most casual observers would describe as an atheist (please bear in mind that I write this blog for a general audience who I do not consider to be well versed in the teachings of people like Spinoza) so I use the term for simplicity. I’ll add a clarification if that helps.
I would describe Spinoza’s God as “non-personal”, from what I’ve read. I’ve seen it compared to “Advaita Vedânta” with certain qualifiers attached, which in itself is interesting. It’s the holistic view of God that seems to form the foundation of his beliefs, and the concept, as you said, that everything that exists is part of God. One might consider that Spinoza saw God more as a system, the collection of rules that govern our universe. This fits with his concept that everything that exists is part of this system and exists because of it. This might go against the concept of Spinoza’s God “thinking”, but you could easily equate thinking to structured rules based on context, as seen in modern science.
When discussing Spinozism, one of the barriers to entry is always breaking out of the common concept of God as an invisible being in the sky. I was of the understanding that the main reason for Spinoza’s excommunication was his rejection of a transcendent God, a concept which is so entrenched in most mono-theistic religions.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on Spinoza. He’s a fascinating character and his ideas on God are so different to the Gods of the main organised religions (despite the similarities to Islam, Mediaeval Jewish Mysticism, Buddhism and and Reductionistic Scientism) that it warrants discussion.