Albert Einstein and Religion

Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, upon receipt of Gutkind's book "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt." In this extraordinary letter Einstein writes,

"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"

Einstein was Jewish but went to a Catholic primary school, receiving private tuition in Judaism at home. He declined the offer from the newly formed state of Israel to be its second president. In this letter, which was written in German the year before his death, Einstein wrote, "For me the Jewish religion like all others is the incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity, have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them"

Although Einstein emphatically rejected conventional religion, he was affronted when his views were appropriated by atheists, whose lack of humility he found offensive, and once wrote. "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

Einstein was an intensely spiritual man and wrote extensively on the subject, perceiving a universe suffused with spirituality, while rejecting organized religion. In his later years he referred to a "cosmic religious feeling" that permeated and sustained his scientific work. In 1954, a year before his death, he spoke of wishing to "experience the universe as a single cosmic whole". He was also fond of using religious flourishes, in 1926 declaring that "He [God] does not throw dice" when referring to randomness thrown up by quantum theory.

Like other great scientists he does not fit the boxes in which popular polemicists like to pigeonhole him. It is clear, for example, that he had respect for the religious values enshrined within Judaic and Christian traditions ... but what he understood by religion was something far more subtle than what is usually meant by the word in popular discussion.

Einstein’s numerous and easily found pronouncements on the issues of God, faith and religion have revealed him to be the sort of peculiar hybrid not uncommon in scientific fields. No atheist, Einstein nevertheless characterized the notion of a personal and interactive God as a prideful one. The discoveries wrought through his curious mind reminded him, always, of all he did not know, and he wrote of the “superior spirit” and the “harmony” that connected and ran through everything with a genuine sense of wonder that could be described as a rather humble agnosticism.

“In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views.” (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000)

“My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.” (The Human Side, Princeton University Press)

German transcription of image

…Auffassung der Naturreligionen und im Prinzip durch Monopolisierung nicht aufgehoben. Durch solche Mauern können wir nur zu einer gewissen Selbsttäuschung gelangen; aber unsere moralischen Bemühungen werden durch sie nicht gefördert. Eher das Gegenteil.

Nachdem ich Ihnen nun ganz offen unsere Differenzen in den intellektuellen Überzeugungen ausgesprochen habe, ist es mir doch klar, dass wir uns im Wesentlichen ganz nahe stehen, nämlich in den Bewertungen menschlichen Verhaltens. Das Trennende ist nur intellektuelles Beiwerk oder die „Rationalisierung“ in Freud`scher Sprache. Deshalb denke ich, dass wir uns recht wohl verstehen würden, wenn wir uns über konkrete Dinge unterhielten.

Mit freundlichem Dank und besten Wünschen

Ihr A. Einstein

English translation of a more complete portion of the letter..

... I read a great deal in the last days of your book, and thank you very much for sending it to me. What especially struck me about it was this. With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common.

... 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. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e., in our evalutations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual 'props' and 'rationalisation' in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes

Yours, A. Einstein.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Einstein: Science and Religion highlights some of Albert Einstein's writing on science and religion, his views about God and his antipathy toward atheists ...

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Created May, 2008 in the Spirit of Love

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