Religion and Science
The following article by Albert Einstein appeared in the New York Times
Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4. It has been reprinted in Ideas and
Opinions, Crown Publishers, Inc. 1954, pp 36 - 40. It also appears in Einstein's
book The World as I See It, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 24 - 28.
Everything that the human race has done
and thought is concerned with the
satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the
assuagement of pain. One has to keep this
constantly in mind if one wishes to
understand spiritual movements and their
development. Feeling and longing are the
motive force behind all human endeavor
and human creation, in however exalted a
guise the latter may present themselves to
us. Now what are the feelings and needs
that have led men to religious thought and
belief in the widest sense of the words? A
little consideration will suffice to show us
that the most varying emotions preside over
the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is above all fear
that evokes religious notions - fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at
this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly
developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself
on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to
secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices
which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation,
propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense I am
speaking of a religion of fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree
stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a
mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on
this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests
on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to
make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make
common cause in their own interests.
The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and
mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The
desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral
conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes,
rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer's
outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even or
life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the
souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God.
The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear
to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of
all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral
religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in
peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the
religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we
must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both
types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of
morality predominates.
Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of
God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally
high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But
there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even
though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is
very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially
as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and
marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of
thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to
experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic
religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of
the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned
especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger
element of this.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious
feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that
there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely
among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest
kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries
as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus,
Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be
communicated from one person to
another, if it can give rise to no definite
notion of a God and no theology? In my
view, it is the most important function of
art and science to awaken this feeling and
keep it alive in those who are receptive to
it.
We thus arrive at a conception of the
relation of science to religion very
different from the usual one. When one
views the matter historically, one is
inclined to look upon science and religion
as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is
thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a
moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events -
provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He
has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A
God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a
man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's
eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for
the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining
morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based
effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is
necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of
punishment and hopes of reward after death.
It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and
persecuted its devotees.On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious
feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who
realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer
work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the
emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities
of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what
a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this
world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary
labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose
acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results
easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who,
surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered
wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his
life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and
given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures.
It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has
said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers
are the only profoundly religious people. |
