Truth Unites - Einstein on God, Jesus, and Religion

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Gavin Ortlund discusses how Einstein's views on God and religion are relevant to the current science-faith dialogue. Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

What Albert Einstein believed about God and Jesus and religion more generally is really interesting. It's somewhat unique, and I think it has a lot that is relevant to science and faith dialogue today. One of the popular ideas in our culture is that science and faith are warring with each other. The more science progresses, the less there is need for faith. And I've argued that it's just the opposite. The more you understand about physical reality, the more it gives you this sense that there's something beyond the physical. I gave in my recent video on fine-tuning, I talked about this, and I gave an example with the physicist Paul Davies, who's not a religious person. There's lots of examples of that you can give. One of them is Albert Einstein. And I want to develop that a little bit in this video. Basically, just, I'm going to draw from Walter Isaacson's outstanding biography of Einstein. And basically, we'll just do, this will be a short video. We'll describe Einstein's views. They're fascinating. And then I'll offer a response as a Christian theologian. Here's a good entry point into, Einstein's views. This is an anecdote that can get us into this. So Einstein and his wife are at a dinner

party one evening in Berlin, and one of the guests talks about astrology and professes belief in astrology. Einstein dismisses this and says, that's pure superstition. Another guest steps in and starts saying the same things about religion, saying basically belief in God, belief in astrology, same kind of stuff. And the host of the dinner party says, kind of pushes back against that and appeals to Einstein and says, look, even Einstein has some religious beliefs. Everyone looks at Einstein and says, is that true? Are you religious? Here's what he has to say. Yes, you can call it that. Try and penetrate with our limited means, the secrets of nature, and you will find that behind all the discernible laws and connections that remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force,

beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion, to that extent I am, in fact, religious. So there you have this idea that we've mentioned. You saw the preposition behind there. The more you penetrate into an understanding of the physical universe, the more you're left with this lingering sense of something else, something beyond animating and breathing life into the laws of the universe. The natural alluringly suggests the suprannatural. There's this kind of mysticism about physical reality. It's a really interesting way to think, actually, and as we'll talk about it, has a lot of resonance with a Christian way of thinking about physical objects.

But just to be clear, though, Einstein could be very critical of organized religion, and he didn't believe in a personal God. So just, I'll say more about that in a moment. But he was also very critical of aggressive forms of atheism, and he often spoke of the sense of humility and wonder that we should have, toward the laws of nature in almost religious terms. I don't have a great label for him. I've sometimes called him a mystical deist. Deist because he believes in an impersonal God who sort of structures the universe but doesn't intervene in it. He doesn't take any interest in human beings. He once said,

I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and doings of mankind. But then I say mystical deist, to try to get at something because his language and his attitude often seems to kind of border onto, on the realm of religious sentiment. And this is not a cold deism. Like, for example, once Einstein was asked by a little girl about prayer, okay? You don't, deists don't pray, right, or expect God to answer their prayers. And, but so this girl is saying, do scientists pray? And no, I mean, how would you answer that question? Or how would you expect a scientist to answer that question, do scientists pray? Well, here's what I love about Einstein is the otter. There is a sense of

more humility than you get in a lot of the more aggressive forms of atheism and scientism. Here's what Einstein said, but to this little girl in the question on prayer, 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, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. Now you might say, yeah, but that's not a personal God. True enough, but he doesn't rule out a personal God on scientific grounds, and some of his language seems a little bit more reconcilable with an agnosticism. Basically just saying, we don't know. For example, I think some of his clearest expressions of his views are in an

interview that he did just before his 50th birthday. So this is well into his career, into his mature thought. He had a lot of his famous discoveries fairly early on, and he was asked a simple question, do you believe in God? He didn't answer this like Jordan Peterson does. He gave a very direct answer, a very coherent answer, and it's a really interesting answer. Here's what he said. I'm not an atheist. 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. I love that metaphor. We'll talk about that a lot. The child knows someone must have written those books. We'll come back to that sentence. 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 certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. My wife just printed something long talking. I'll be curious to see if you could hear that coming through the audio there. But I love this passage. So this is the real meat of it here, okay? This metaphor of the child in the library, think about what is being communicated through this metaphor. It's very clear that Einstein thinks there's something out there. He just doesn't know what it is. The difference between Einstein and like a theist, for example, seems to be not the degree of likelihood that there's something beyond physical nature,

but just the difficulty in understanding it. That's what's emphasized in this metaphor. So you get the books are representative of the orderly laws of nature, and the books need an author. I mean, think about that sentence. The child knows someone must have written those books. That's an amazing sentence. He's saying the laws of the universe suggest something out there. But we just don't know what that is yet. But it's out there, you know? So in other words, he's saying, yeah, somebody wrote the books.

It's just we can't have a relation to it. So how would a Christian respond to this? I'll say three things. Appreciation, agreement, and extension. First, appreciation. I find Einstein's views so refreshing as an alternative from the science has replaced religion, sort of ethos that you get among the new atheists. atheists, for example. This is often accompanied by a very confident scientism, which is basically

an over-emphasis upon the role of science. Science can explain everything or almost everything. And so other disciplines sort of fall away. Einstein's attitude has more of a humility, and it's far more reasonable and sensible, I think. I've said this many times. It's my deep conviction that humility is the need on both sides in the science-faith dialogue. People of faith need more humility toward science, and people of science need more humility toward faith. We both need to try to help each other more and scorn each other less and so forth, and I've talked about that a lot. But I'll give an example. If you've heard of the book, The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking, and he had a co-author for that as well. I'll put up a picture of the book so you can see the book.

They start off the whole book saying philosophy is dead, scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge. This is a very common mentality right now. You also see it in, oh, more printing, hopefully you can hear it. See how my, it's a good test of my audio. You see this in Lawrence Cross, a universe from nothing. I'm going to do a separate video on him. What's so ironic about this is those assertions themselves are a philosophy of science. That's philosophy. When somebody says philosophy is dead, science can explain everything. That basically

is a philosophy. That's not an empirical observation. But that's part of the problem. The other part of the problem is just the lack of humility. Again, I think Einstein's approach is better, and I appreciate it, just for the humility. Second, there's a lot of agreement, okay, between Christian theology and this metaphor of Einstein, not total agreement, but a lot. We go a long way to together with this metaphor. The idea that the more we press into physical reality, the more we gather the impression of something else, sort of alluringly beyond the physical, that has a lot of resonance with Christian theology. One way to put it is that physical objects participate in a deeper spiritual reality that they have this kind of interconnection with. Theologians sometimes

talk about this as a sacramental ontology. Here's how the theologian Hans Borsma puts it. sacramental ontology of much of the Christian tradition. He's summarizing classic Christian thought. The created order was more than just an external or nominal symbol. Instead, it was a sign that pointed to and participated in a greater reality. The reason for the mysterious character of the world is this participation. You can read the full quote there. In other words, the reason, like if I was to do a basically study this desk that I'm sitting at right now, and with a microscope, basically understanding what it is physically with as much precision as possible for me to have. That would only yield more and more of a sense of mystery at the way that it is. What are the laws that are holding it together?

Why do the atoms function as they do and so forth? This is a kind of a classic Christian way of thinking about physical reality. It has this kind of suggestive element to it. So another theologian who's been really helpful on this is Thomas Torrance. If you want to read a great treatment of the relationship between Christian theology and the natural sciences, read Alistair McGrath's. I'll put up a picture of this great book, his biography of Thomas Torrance, and pages 232, 233 in there. I just have that in my notes here. If you want to take a look at another account of this, that's really good. And this is a classic Christian instinct. I've talked a lot about in previous videos Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and others in their view of angels, the way angels relate to stars.

So you look up at the stars on a cloudless night, what are you seeing? Pre-modern Christians just took it for granted that it's the angels who are governing the stars. The only questions they're having is do the angels inhabit the stars or are they merely directing the stars? That's the question Augustine talks about, you can see my video on the Angelic Fall Theodicy for more on that. But the point is, Christians have always held that physical objects, whether stars or atoms or anything else, are revelatory. Physical reality is not like a cement wall that closes us in. Physical reality is more like a sign or even like a window. It has this porous relation to something else beyond the physical realm.

and this is a really intriguing way of looking at the world. I find it a much more emotionally satisfying way of living in this physical world. And it's interesting that this Christian way of thinking has a lot of resonance with some scientific perspectives like that of Einstein. Obviously not all scientific perspectives, but I think Einstein is the better way to do science and to think about science. Lastly, extension. So in other words, I think we just want to go a step further than Einstein's here. So there's a lot of agreement, the sense of humility, the sense that in ourselves, we are like a child in the library, we can't read the books, God is beyond us, God is transcendent, much agreement with all of that. On the other hand, what Christianity

proclaims is this amazing. Christianity doesn't leave you with an agnosticism either because what it proclaims is this amazing thing. Ah, it's so beautiful, I might even cry when I say it. So had such happy news. The one who wrote the books is still talking. He's still around. In other words, put it like this, there's a librarian. The child is not just up to him or herself to try to figure out all these languages. There's a librarian who's still around who can communicate verbally to the child to teach them how to read the books and to kind of condescend down to their level and bridge that gap between the smallness of the child and the bigness of the library. So what I like about this is we're not dishonoring the metaphor. We're not doing disruption to what the metaphor is

trying to communicate. We are indeed small and helpless in relation to an infinite God, but it seems like it's a possibility that if this person has been capable of writing the books, that they're also capable of talking. If you can write books, you can talk, right? You can communicate in other ways. And so in this metaphor, what we're saying is the book, are like general revelation. That's the laws of the universe, but that's also your conscience. And the verbal communication from a librarian walking over to the child and revealing himself to the child is like special revelation. This is like God's deeds in Israel. This is ultimately what comes in the person of Christ. So go back to Einstein's sentence. The child knows someone

must have written those books. If that's really true, why couldn't the same thing? person speak again, not just through the books, but speak in other ways. If there's a God beyond nature, why couldn't he show up in other ways like a baby in a manger? And what Christian theology professes is so wonderfully joyful and beautiful, the thought that the one, you know, this transcendent reality that structured all of the laws of nature, that Einstein was right to sort of feel humble before, has come into our world in this tiny baby, and he's come to us in humility and in love for our salvation. Amazing thought. How do you relate to him? How do you respond to a God like that? I think the key is humility.

We come before him like a little child, and we just pray, and we ask him, if, you know, this is one concern I have a lot for people who watch my videos. I think a lot of people are in the middle. They're just not sure. They're just stuck with anxieties and trying to figure it out. And the key is humble prayer and sincere prayer. In Matthew 7-7 is, a wonderful promise of all the promises we have in the Bible. Matthew 7-7 is a great one. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and the door will be open to you. That is one of the most wonderful promises. So if you're uncertain about whether it's really true that there is a God and that he's communicated to us through Christ, the simple thing you do

is with all of you put everything in your, that makes you, you into this prayer. God, reveal yourself to me. Help me. Show you and give me. Give me that. that certainty, you know, work in my life. Just like the librarian is capable of going and talking to the child. You're capable of working. You're capable of hearing prayer. So you put everything that you are into this prayer, into this hope of God, show yourself to me, show that you're real. And it's the promise of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Scripture that I just quoted that that prayer will be answered. I really love Matthew 7.7. It's a great verse to deal with the anxieties that a lot of people have because a lot of my purpose with Truth Unites is to address intellectual anxiety.

Hope this video is of interest to you and help to you. I have other videos related to this kind of topic. I just put one out on the fine tuning. I have a few other videos addressing testimonies of God, trying to approach these testimonies in a little different angle, but I hope they're helpful to people. So I tend to ramble at the end of videos, so I'll just cut it off there and say, I hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you think in the comments.