shizmo

A response to Albert Einstein's essay "Science and Religion" that was presented at The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in September 1940. In the conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion which met in September in New York Professor Albert Einstein delivered an address on "Science and Religion." His short and simple statements aroused a strong opposition amongst religious people and theologians because of his rejection of the idea of the Personal God. If it had not been Einstein, the great transformer of our physical world view, his arguments would have not produced any excitement. They are neither new nor powerful in themselves. But in the mouth of Einstein, as an expression of his intellectual and moral character, they are more significant than the highly sophisticated reasoning of somebody else. Therefore it is justified that philosophical or apologetic theology not only deals with Einstein's criticism but tries to sketch a solution in which this criticism is accepted and overcome at the same time.Einstein attacks the idea of a personal God from four angles: The idea is not essential for religion. It is the creation of primitive superstition. It is self-contradictory. It contradicts the scientific world view.The first argument presupposes a definition of the nature of religion leaving out everything in which religion differs from ethics: Religion is the acceptance of and devotion to superpersonal values. But the question, whether this is the adequate definition of religion cannot be answered before the question is answered whether the idea of the Personal God has some objective meaning or not. Therefore we must turn to the second argument, the historical. It does not show and cannot show why primitive imagination created just the idea of God. There is no doubt that this idea has been used and abused by all kinds of superstition and immorality. But in order to be abused it first must have been used. Its abuse does not tell anything about its genesis. Looking at the tremendous impact the idea of God always has made on human thought and behavior, the theory that all this was a product of an uneducated arbitrary imagination appears utterly inadequate. Mythological phantasy can create stories about Gods but it cannot create the idea of God itself, because the idea transcends all the elements of experience which constitute mythology. As Descartes argues: the infinite in our mind presupposes the infinity itself.The third argument of Einstein challenges the idea of an omnipotent God who creates moral and physical evil although, on the other hand, he is supposed to be good and righteous. This criticism presupposes a concept of omnipotence which identifies omnipotence with omni-activity in terms of physical causality. But it is an old and always emphasized theological doctrine that God acts in all beings according to their special nature, in man according to their rational nature, in animals and plants according to their inorganic nature. The symbol of omnipotence expresses the religious experience that no structure of reality and no event in nature and history has the power of preventing us from community with the infinite and unexhaustible ground of meaning and being. What "omnipotence" means should be found in the words Deutero — Isaiah (Is. 40) speaks to the exiled in Babylon when he describes the nothingness of the world-empires in comparison with the divine power to fulfil its historical aim through an infinitely small group of exiled people. Or what "omnipotence" means must be found in the words Paul (Rom. 8) speaks to the few Christians in the slums of the big cities when he pronounces that neither natural nor political powers, neither earthly nor heavenly forces can separate us from the "Love of God." If the idea of omnipotence is taken out of this context and transformed into the description of a special form of causality, it becomes not only self-contradicting — as Einstein rightly states — but also absurd and irreligious.This leads to the last and most important argument of Einstein: The idea of a Personal God contradicts the scientific interpretation of nature. Before dealing with this argument I like to make two methodological remarks: Firstly I agree entirely with Einstein when he warns the theologians not to build their doctrines in the dark spots of scientific research. This was the bad method of some apologetic fanatics of nineteenth century theology, but it never was the attitude of any great theologian. Theology, above all, must leave to science the description of the whole of objects and their interdependence in nature and history, in man and his world. And beyond this, theology must leave to philosophy the description of the structures and categories of being itself and of the logos in which being becomes manifest. Any interference of theology with these tasks of philosophy and science is destructive for theology itself. Secondly I want to ask Einstein and every critic of theology to deal with theology in the same fairness which is demanded from everyone who deals, for instance, with physics — namely, to attack the most advanced and not some obsolete forms of a discipline. After Schleiermacher and Hegel have received Spinoza's doctrine of God (to which Einstein refers) as an intrinsic element of any theological doctrine of God — as the early theologians, Origen and Augustine, had received Plato's idea of God as an inherent element in their doctrine of God, it is impossible to use the most primitive pattern of the concept of the Personal God in order to challenge the idea itself. The concept of a "Personal God," interfering with natural events, or being "an independent cause of natural events" makes God a natural object beside others, an object amongst objects, a being amongst beings, maybe the highest, but anyhow a being. This, indeed, is the destruction, not only of the physical system, but even more the destruction of any meaningful idea of God. It is the impure mixture of mythological elements (which are justified in their place, namely in the concrete religious life) and of rational elements (which are justified in their place, namely, in the theological interpretation of religious experience). No criticism of this distorted idea of God can be sharp enough.In order to indicate an idea of the Personal God, which by no means can interfere with science or philosophy as such, I quote some beautiful words of Einstein: He "attains that humble attitude of mind towards the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man." If I interpret these words rightly they point to a common ground of the whole of the physical world and of superpersonal values, a ground which, on the one hand, is manifest in the structure of being (the physical world) and meaning (the good, true, and beautiful) — which, on the other hand, is hidden in its unexhaustible depth. Now, this is the first and basic element of any developed idea of God from the earliest Greek philosophers to present day theology. The manifestation of this ground and abyss of being and meaning creates what modern theology calls "the experience of the numinous." Such an experience can occur in connection with the intuition of the "grandeur of reason incarnate in existence," it can occur in connection with the belief in "the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation" — as Einstein says. The same experience can occur — and occurs for the large majority of men — in connection with the impression some persons, historical or natural events, objects, words, pictures, tunes, dreams, etc. make on the human soul, creating the feeling of the holy, that is of the presence of the "numinous." In such experiences religion lives and tries to maintain the presence of and community with this divine depth of our existence. But since it is "inaccessible" to any objectivating concept it must be expressed in symbols. One of these symbols is "Personal God." It is the common opinion of classical theology, practically in all periods of Church history, that the predicate "personal" can be said of the Divine only symbolically or by analogy or if affirmed and negated at the same time. It is obvious that in the daily life of religion the symbolic character of the idea of the "Personal God" is not always realized. This is dangerous only if distorting theoretical or practical consequences are derived from the failure to realize it. Then attacks from outside and criticism from inside follow and must follow. They are demanded by religion itself. Without an element of "atheism" no "theism" can be maintained.But why must the symbol of the personal be used at all? The answer can be given through a term used by Einstein himself: "The supra-personal." The depth of being cannot be symbolized by objects taken from a realm which is lower than the personal, from the realm of things or sub-personal living beings. The supra-personal is not an "It," or more exactly, it is a "He" as much as it is an "It," and it is above both of them. But if the "He" element is left out, the "It" element transforms the alleged supra-personal into a sub-personal, as usually happens in monism and pantheism. And such a neutral sub-personal cannot grasp the center of our personality; it can satisfy our aesthetic feeling or our intellectual needs, but it cannot convert our will, it cannot overcome our loneliness, anxiety, and despair. For as the philosopher Schelling says: "Only a person can heal a person." This is the reason that the symbol of the Personal God is indispensable for living religion. It is a symbol, not an object, and it never should be interpreted as an object. And it is one symbol besides others indicating that our personal center is grasped by the manifestation of the unaccessible ground and abyss of being.Reprinted with permission from Yale Divinity School Library.©2007 American Public Media* Careers * Podcasts * Newsletters * RSS * Audio Help * Terms and Conditions * Privacy Policy