April 27, 2011: Einstein's God, and Mine

Note: This week’s column is dedicated to beloved JCOGS member, Amy Rubinstein. Zichronah livrachah. May her memory be for a blessing.

There are two reasons why I believe in God. The first is the overwhelming sensation that floods my entire being when I stand on a mountaintop or look up at the sky on a moonless night. It’s all so huge, but, somehow, it’s not frightening. I’m so insignificant, but, somehow, I feel that I belong. The second is my deep longing for Someone to watch over me and to care about every little choice that I make. Even when no one else is looking, even when I could “get away with it,” I need to know that some actions are fundamentally wrong and others are fundamentally right.

In a recent article in Reform Judaism magazine (“Einstein’s God,” Winter 2010), I was intrigued to read that Albert Einstein also formulated his religious views within two separate domains, the natural world and the ethical world. His scientific investigation of the laws of physics instilled lifelong feelings of devotion in the domain of Nature: “The fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true science… is the experience of the mysterious… It is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man.” (Einstein, Ideas and Opinions)

On the other hand, his religious views in the ethical domain were conflicted. Early in his career, he wrote that “a person with cosmic religious feeling has no use for social or moral religion.” Later on, no doubt in reaction to the atrocities committed by the most “scientifically advanced” society in the world—Nazi Germany, he came to embrace the need for religion to regulating human conduct: “Scientific method can teach us nothing beyond how facts are related to and conditioned by each other… [It] cannot teach us [how to live]… The highest principles are given to us in the Jewish-Christian tradition.”* Of course, there is a vast difference between religion and God. Einstein eventually valued organized religion as a moral force, but it is unclear whether he ever believed in God as the ultimate moral authority.

From the Bible onward, Jewish thought has always linked the God of Creation and the God of Revelation. No text expresses divine unity between the natural and ethical realms more beautifully than Psalm 19:

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the sky proclaims His handiwork.
Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make Him known…
The Torah (teaching) of God is perfect,
renewing life;
the precepts of God are just,
rejoicing the heart.” (Psalm 19:2-3, 8-9)

A contemporary rendition in our prayer book elaborates upon the psalm:

“The heavens proclaim Your glory,
and we, Your creatures on earth,
behold in wonder Your endless miracles.
Help us to recognize Your guiding power
in distant galaxies and in our own souls.
Teach us Your law of righteousness and love,
so that Your spirit may govern our lives
[as it governs the stars].” (Siddur Hadash, p. 51)

I don’t think the human race will ever unravel the mysteries of the universe. Einstein spent his life in a vain search for the so-called “unified field theory,” which would explain all of the forces of nature within a single, coherent set of principles. In the last few years, physicists have developed a comprehensive framework known as “M-Theory.” M-Theory appears to approximate the grand solution that eluded Einstein, according to Brian Greene in his new bestseller The Hidden Reality. I’m intrigued, but I remain dubious. In science, the answer to one question always spawns a dozen more. Instead, I believe in God, as the repository of the answers to all the questions we will ever think to ask and to all the questions we will never ask.

Likewise, I don’t think the human race will ever advance to a perfectly just society. As I have argued in a previous column, “the Evolution of Justice,” (January 26, 2011) the accepted norm of one generation becomes the outlawed practice of the next. Even the Torah, which I venerate, is flawed as a statement of ethical principles. Instead, I believe in God, as the transcendent source of absolute, and eternal, Truth.






*It’s interesting to compare Einstein’s views on ethics with those of Spinoza, whom Einstein greatly admired as the first proponent of rational positivism, a way of thinking that still dominates our modern outlook today. In contrast to Einstein, Spinoza argued that the Laws of Ethics could be derived scientifically, like the Laws of Nature.