Someone remarked lately that Einstein rejected Judaism for the Spinoza idea that God is the natural world, and that therefore God did not create the universe, since He is the universe. He also said that Einstein did not reject Judaism for deism.
My understanding of deism is exactly what Spinoza believed: God and Nature are the same. Perhaps I’m wrong, and if wrong, what is the difference between deism and Spinoza’s belief?
Also, when confronted with Quantum Theory, which he refused to believe in, Einstein remarked, “God doesn’t play dice with the Universe.” Is that a comment that someone who believed that God is the natural world would make? Hardly.
So, does anyone know (1) exactly how Einstein envisioned God and the difference between deism and God=Nature belief?
Well, Deists believe that an inpersonal G-d created the universe, and allows it to operate according to natural laws, while He goes and does something else…to a deist, G-d doesn’t get involved with the natural world.
As to what Einstein believed, that’s harder, because he sometimes gave different answers, and it’s possible that his beliefs changed over time, but from his writings, you get the idea that he believed that there was some sort of universal, natural religious feeling, and that he was awed by the order of the universe. On the other hand, in other writings, he says that people don’t have any “soul” or innate sense other than their body and what their experiences tell them.
Ah. A question I can answer on very good authority. My grandfather knew Einstein; the two of them hung out during the summer of 1939. Among other things, he asked Einstein if he believed in God.
Einstein said yes, but that he did not believe in an anthropomorphic God. That would seem to be a rejection of the usual image of God, and be close to a deist one.
I don’t know for sure (so why am I answering?) but my impression gleaned from many threads here is that he equated the whole universe and all its workings as God (not a human-like God). I don’t think he was particularly religious but he was awed by the universe. As everyone should be!
Anyway, Einstein’s biography is #4382 on my reading list. Maybe I’ll get to it someday.
As Captain Amazing noted, it sounds to me like Einstein’s and Spinoza’s beliefs are more in accordance with pantheism than deism.
As far as I understand it, deism still accords to God the status of a separate being. He’s basically a laissez-faire
sort of deity, as Captain Amazing said. He made the world and that’s it. It’s all up to us. No miracles. No divine intervention. Nothing, just let us be.
Pantheism has at least a couple of different interpretations, but all boils down to the concept of God is everything. The two ways of looking at it (that I know of) are this:
God is a spirit or force that runs through all living things. A little tiny bit like “the force” concept in Star Wars.
God is the sum of all living things. We are all orginisms in one greater organism which can be construed as God.
There’s subtle differences between the two, but it all boils down to the same thing. God is everywhere and a part of everything. Read back on Wordsworth or other Romantic-era poets, and you’ll see this philosophy all through their works. Take this from the poem popularly known as “Tintern Abbey”
