Listen to my teaching, and you will be wise; do not ignore it.
Proverbs 8:33
A Brilliant Mind Falls Short
Albert Einstein was arguably one of the most brilliant minds of all times, yet he admitted his short-comings and “limited mind” on the topic of God. He did not believe in a personal God. He considered himself an agnostic or a “religious unbeliever.”
Einstein was not an atheist. He could see the work of a Creator in the order of the cosmos. He often complained about being put into the atheist camp:
“In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.”5
“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. 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 arrangements 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.”6
Einstein also expressed his skepticism regarding the existence of an anthropomorphic God, such as the God of Abrahamic religions, often describing this view as “naïve”[3] and “childlike”.[11]
In a 1947 letter, he stated, “It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously.”[12] In a letter to Beatrice Frohlich on 17 December 1952, Einstein stated,
“The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve.”[13]
He also said, in an interview with the Saturday Evening Post (1929):
“As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.”
When asked,
“Do you accept the historical existence of Jesus?”, He replied emphatically,
“Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”7
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The Shortcoming of Scientific Intelligence-Lack of Knowledge
Here is the oxymoron of Einstein’s statements. It fits many who consider Jesus to be a wise teacher, but nothing more:
Albert had doubts about the existence of a personal God, but he found Jesus wise and appealing in many ways. That is personal. Despite all this, he would not follow God’s own instructions so that he could know him personally:
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13
God, Himself, tells the reader of His word that it is possible to know and understand Him.
But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these, I delight,” says the Lord.
Jeremiah 9:24
It is possible to have a personal relationship with One who delights in things. Being delightful is a very human emotion. It is an emotion that God possesses. There are human beings (like God) who are loving, kind, and always do the right thing for others, often sacrificing their desires and comforts. They did not come to be this way by themselves. God is the author of these qualities! But, there is another author at work that has opposite attributes.
Here is the big hangup in the scientific mind. Scientists won’t accept the fact that evil had a beginning and the flames of its passion are whipped up by this entity in the minds and hearts of people every day. He is the author of destruction and death.
The scientific mind can’t, or won’t, consider the Bible as a viable book to read and study; therefore, they will not search for spiritual knowledge. And since they won’t search its inspired writers, their skepticism grows. The converted Paul said,
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 2:14
They can’t see the order of the cosmos and life, as did Mr. Einstein. They would rather attribute it to chance and billions of years of blind luck. But, let’s be fair. There are some very good reasons for people to doubt the existence of God or, at the least, a personal God.
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Religion and Jesus-Two Different Things:
Real followers of Christ (not the religious) have found that the key to understanding God is Jesus. It is all about Him from Genesis to Revelation:
1 Corinthians 2:14
You search the Scriptures… these are they which testify of Me.-Jesus
John 5:39
At another time, Jesus revealed to his disciples an important truth about the God of the Old Testament and Himself.
“These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.
Luke 24: 44, 45
So if the scriptures are about Jesus, we can’t just say he is a “good teacher” or a “good moral man”….who suddenly and without warning appeared on the scene. He is the One who all the writers of the Old Testament wrote and sought over the millennia. But, when
“the time was right, God sent his Son…” Galatians 4:4
So, why wouldn’t a scientific mind desire to know Jesus and scripture? It is because it is not science and does not fit into the comfortable world of science and its sterile operational paradigms. The Bible is not a book of science, but rather a book about the human experience and spiritual truths. If God is all that He claims to be, then He is the author of science and the scientists are merely the discoverers of His science. For example, scientists did not create the laws of gravity, they discovered them.
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Religion is Its Own Worst Enemy
Another couple of reasons for the scientific mind to dismiss the book that provides insight into many of the human experiences not addressed by science is the radical religionists and suffering.
The religious people are their own worst enemy! The ones who are not real followers of Jesus, but people who are ”religious,” portray the God of mercy and loving-kindness and his truth into undesirable rounds of ceremonies, does and don’ts, eternal torment, and guilt trips. Some even feel God desires them to terrorize people into belief. I am not just talking about our friends in the middle east. How often is eternal burning hell used as a weapon to scare the uninformed into belief?
You can’t blame unbelievers. For a long time, this was my main reason for unbelief and disdain for churches. There are no answers or peace in such a religious world. But, there is a path to truth in Jesus, who invites people into a one-on-one experience with Him.
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
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Unbelief in God Because of Death and Suffering
Often I receive comments from readers of this blog and some of my Facebook sites who say that Jesus is “an imaginary friend.” While others ask, “Where was God’ when my (fill in a family member relationship) died from cancer or was killed in a car wreck, etc.
Einstein had similar feelings about the incompatibility of a caring God and the daily horrors of planet earth:
How many have asked….
“Why would God allow my family member to die of cancer?”
“Why has he allowed death and destruction to reign on this planet?”
“Where was God when...If there is a God, He is not in control.”
These questions pre-suppose that God should make our lives perfect and without sin, death, and destruction. To the uninformed, belief is contingent upon our feelings of what God should be to us. But, this is not according to what God reveals in His word. This author captures my next thoughts exactly:
God made man perfectly holy and happy; and the fair earth, as it came from the Creator’s hand, bore no blight of decay or shadow of the curse. It is transgression of God’s law–the law of love–that has brought woe and death. Yet even amid the suffering that results from sin, God’s love is revealed. It is written that God cursed the ground for man’s sake. Genesis 3:17. The thorn and the thistle–the difficulties and trials that make his life one of toil and care–were appointed for his good as a part of the training needful in God’s plan for his uplifting from the ruin and degradation that sin has wrought.
God’s Love for Man. Page 9
When God made man as described in the opening chapters of Genesis, everything He made, He declared “good” or “very good.” There was not death, decaying, or the curse. But something went wrong. Evil ( in the form of a rebellious angel called Lucifer), began our journey of sin, death, and decay. He is the author of the bad things in this life, not God for it is written:
Everything good comes from God. Every perfect gift is from him. These good gifts come down from the Father who made all the lights in the sky. But God never changes like the shadows from those lights. He is always the same.
James 1:17 (ERV)
So when we blame God for the evil in this world, we demonstrate we do so without a knowledge of God and what He has been revealed to us through his word.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55: 8, 9
Einstein’s failure to understand the motives of God are the result of his incorrect assumption that God intended this universe as His ultimate perfect creation. Einstein could not get past the moral problems that are present in our universe. He assumed, as most atheists do that a personal God would only create a universe that is both good morally and perfect physically. Where Einstein erred was in that thinking that there was a god who designed the universe, but designed it in such a way as to allow evil without a purpose
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It would be too inconvenient or dangerous to the dedicated scientist and to their worldview to consider there might be more to existence than what can be explained only through formulas, books, test tubes, and philosophies. Unbelieving professors that focus only on what can be seen and understood severely limit the God-created mind. Therefore, many won’t listen or follow any of Jesus’ words even though all are invited to follow Him down a path of discovery. So His words are chosen by unbelievers and religionists like fruit from the tree of knowledge to fit their own likeness of God. At the same time, other less palatable instructions are left to rot on the altar of narcissism and selfishness.
…while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
John 5:39
Ultimately, we cannot project limited human thoughts, philosophies, or reasoning upon God and create Him in our own image. He is supreme. We are not. He is omnipotent; we are not.
How can we intelligently base our decision to be an unbeliever based on cancer, which is often the result of our own actions i.e., smoking cigarettes or runaway eating of anything and everything?
The order and intelligence of the design of the universe leave us will little excuse for unbelief.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
Romans 1:20
Yes, you can know God personally, but you must search and desire to understand and gain knowledge, unlike what you will learn from the textbooks or even blog sites like this. Being a scientist does not mean you can’t study and read the Bible. If you do, at the least, you will find wisdom. Many scientists are believers in Jesus and have faith in God’s word.
I have concluded that unbelievers are uninformed! When I searched out Jesus through the Bible, I found Him. He is there if you will just look.
Listen to my teaching, and you will be wise; do not ignore it.
Proverbs 8:33
If you want to begin your Jesus journey through the Bible, I invite you to click on the site below to start a basic understanding of God’s word. These studies will lead you to a deeper understanding of spiritual things and the God who made the universe.
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References
- “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” (Albert Einstein, “Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium”, 1941)
- “My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.” (Albert Einstein in a letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950; Einstein Archive 59–215; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 206. )
- Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman (eds) (1981). Albert Einstein, The Human Side. Princeton University Press. p. 43.
- Cable reply to Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein’s (Institutional Synagogue in New York) question to Einstein, “Do you believe in God?”.
- Prinz Hubertus zu Lowenstein, Towards the Further Shore: An Autobiography (Victor Gollancz, London, 1968), p. 156.
- G. S. Viereck, Glimpses of the Great (Macauley, New York, 1930), quoted by D. Brian, Einstein: A Life , p. 186.
- G. S. Viereck, “What Life Means to Einstein,” Saturday Evening Post, 26 October 1929; Schlagschatten, Sechsundzwanzig Schicksalsfragen an Grosse der Zeit (Vogt-Schild, Solothurn, 1930), p. 60; Glimpses of the Great (Macauley, New York, 1930), pp. 373-374.