Friday, February 12, 2010

Einstein on the Existence of God


It is hard to determine how to describe the view that Einstein had on God. There is doubt that he did believe in a "higher power", and it is also very clear that he was not an atheist. He's views therefore fall somewhere between that of an agnostic and a deist. I believe him to be more of what we today consider a deist. 

Einstein is quoted in an interview with Time Magazine as having said: "I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying laws but only dimly understand these laws."

Einstein seemed to have a great appreciation for the pure beauty of our universe's harmonized complexity. I believe he saw the its finely tuned order of our cosmos as something that should humble the mortal man when he said: "The fanatical atheists...are creatures who cannot her the music of the spheres. I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist. What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos."