Einstein: Science, Religion, Theology - Review

Judaism, Summer, 2001 by Stanley M. Flatte

Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology. By MAX JAMMER. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

"Einstein used to speak so often about God that I tend to believe he has been a disguised theologian," Frederick Duerrenmatt said. If Einstein were only a physicist, even a great one, he would not have been picked by Time magazine as the Man of the Century. His deeply eloquent ability to explain not only his physical theories, but also his philosophy, religion, and politics enabled people to have simultaneously two seemingly opposed views of him: as a cultural icon and as a full human being. He not only made clear his support of Judaism and the State of Israel, so much so that he was offered the Presidency of Israel, but he always had compassion for the innocent or the downtrodden; he answered letters from grade-schoolers and provided letters of support to groups who appealed as the underdog.

Max Jammer was personally acquainted with Einstein during the development of quantum mechanics. Yet he says "I regretted of course that I never raised the subject [Einstein's religious beliefs] in any of my conversations with Einstein." Jammer wrote an important introduction to the interpretation of quantum mechanics that was required reading for many physics students in the 1960s called "The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics." Since then he has written many books on the philosophy of physics, and has received awards for his writing. He was formerly a professor of physics and the Rector of Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He has the scholarly credentials to write this book.

This book had its origins in a public lecture delivered at the Einstein House in Caputh, Germany in 1993. The audience response was so strong that it induced Jammer to write a book, in German, whose success further encouraged him to write a considerably enlarged version in English.

The book's three chapters deal with Einstein's personal attitude toward religion (Chapter 1); his writings on the nature of religion and its role in human society, both in essays and in correspondence (Chapter 2); and the influence of his scientific thought on theology (Chapter 3). Jammer states at the outset that Chapter 3 is controversial, as it involves ideas set out after Einstein's death, and that "it is possible that he would have rejected all of the arguments in Chapter 3 if he were alive."

Chapter 1

People often repeat stories about Einstein's supposed failures in school, so it is remarkable that there are no common stories about Einstein's religious upbringing. The very young Einstein received the kind of early religious education that is often criticized by psychologists: namely receiving instruction in two religions simultaneously. According to the compulsory laws of Bavaria, Einstein studied the Catholic catechism, and stories from both the Tanakh and the New Testament. His parents were overtly irreligious, but they hired tutors to teach Albert about Judaism, including Hebrew, apparently to counteract his Catholic instruction.

During this period Albert piously followed religious prescriptions from Judaism, such as not eating pork. He accepted the stories in the Bible as revealed truth. At the age of ten or so, he transferred to the secular city schools, where every religious group had their appointed instructors providing instruction for two hours each week. At the age of 12, a major change, whose source is in dispute, came to Albert. Einstein himself wrote "Through the reading of popular scientific books, I soon reached the conviction that much of the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude towards the convictions which were alive in any specific social environment--an attitude which has never again left me, even though later on, because of a better in sight into the causal connections, it lost some of its original poignancy."

This experience has been cited as reason for Einstein's antiauthoritarianism, his rebellion, and his ability to "think outside the box" in overthrowing conventional beliefs. In any case, it induced him to suddenly refuse to go through with his bar mitzvah only a few months before his 13th birthday, and after much study.

An important part of Chapter 1 is taken with the question of whether Einstein's special theory of relativity, and its coupling of space and time, was influenced by his religious or philosophical ideas. Einstein repeatedly emphasized that the theory was not a revolutionary break with the past, but rather built on the work of Newton, Maxwell, and Lorentz. Thus a connection with rebellion and rejection of religion is not supported.

However, it is true that Einstein was reading David Hume and Immanuel Kant just before his arrival at the theory. Recall that Hume stated the basis of science as observation, and Einstein's understanding of relativity was based on definable events with clocks and measuring rods.