Einstein’s Great Letter on Creation, the Bible, and the Nature of the God

We have never seen another letter of Einstein on either of these subjects; indeed it is one of the most illuminating letters ever written on the subject that so defines him: the creation of the universe

 

The letter is directed to a woman who, like him, had fled Nazi Germany; her husband, a Rabbi, was the first Rabbi of Berlin after the Holocaust, his task being to guide the re-establishment of Jewish religious life there

 

“The person who is more or less trained in scientific thinking is alien to the religious creation (in the original sense) of the cosmos, because he applies the standard of causal conditionality to everything. This does not refute the religious attitude but, in a certain sense, replaces and supersedes it.”

 

“If you are however to interpret the Bible symbolically (metaphorically), it is not clear anymore whether God is in fact to be thought of as a person”

 

This letter was acquired from the heirs of the recipient and has never been offered for sale before; letters of Einstein not just dealing with religion but discussing God and elements of the Torah are very uncommon

Since Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, people sought to reconcile the idea of religion with newly developing concepts of science. This meant, in many cases, taking a new scientific idea, one that was increasingly accepted, and looking backward to ideas of religion to find their relation.

No one in history, perhaps, received more attention on this subject than Albert Einstein, a Jewish German whose flight from that country for safety, and his subsequent career in the United States as scientist and thinker, are now famous. His joint connection with the religion of his people and status as scientist meant that people turned to him to understand the religion-science nexus.

Einstein early developed a great interest in the observation of nature, the stunning beauty and symmetry of which was compelling to him. He instinctively believed that there is a complete rationality to the universe, a causal conditionality, whereby things had reasons, and that its logical order precluded its being random. To him this implied a “pre-established harmony” linking all things that could be observed, experienced, felt and studied. It was up to man, through science, to unravel and understand the workings and relationships of this schema. As he wrote, “Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thoroughgoing an association as possible.” The laws of nature, such as those of relativity theory, were waiting to be plucked out of the cosmos by someone with the right eyes to see and discover them. But he recognized the power of religion. Though not a believer in the God of the Bible, he is well known for saying God does not roll dice with the universe, showing his understanding that there was some force at work in the universe. Yet in a sense he believed religion and science answered very different questions.

Einstein was asked about his personal religious views from time to time but seldom from someone of such a prominent religious position, by a family whose name he would have known.

Before the Holocaust, Michael L. Munk was one of the leading voices in the struggle of orthodox Rabbis, arguing for the unique religious acts that stood at the core of Judaism in the Old World, among them kosher preparation of food. He was in the belly of the proverbial beast, and the course of history acted on him and his family, including his wife, Martha, a psychologist he had married before the war. On November 9, 1938, Rabbi Munk managed to escape from Germany, first to the Netherlands, where he received a passport, and from there he traveled on to Great Britain in December. In 1939, he founded the Hedon Adath Yisrael Synagogue in London, which still exists today. In 1941 he migrated to the USA, where he worked as a rabbi in the Beth Hamidrash Hagadol congregation in Boston until 1944. In 1944 he became the founding director of the Beth Jacob School of Boro Park in Brooklyn, one of the largest Orthodox schools for girls today.

In 1947, the people of Berlin invited Rabbi Munk back to that city to be the first Rabbi there since the terrible events of war and Holocaust. Rabbi Munk traveled to Europe on May 6, 1947 on the RMS Mauretania. His task was to guide the re-establishment of Jewish religious life there.

In late March of 1950, Mrs. Munk, now a religious teacher in the United States, wrote Einstein, “On behalf of the students of a series of lectures on religion, I would like to ask you whether you think that it is possible for a modern scientist to reconcile the idea of the creation of the world by God, a higher power, with his scientific knowledge.”

Einstein responded with little time wasted, in this letter, which was acquired from his heirs and has never before been offered for sale. In it he states that he believes that the literal interpretation of the Bible sees God as universe creator. But he observes that scientists, who believe that things result from a particular observable cause, would not adopt the original sense of the Torah’s creation story, but that such a belief is not designed to destroy such a belief, it replaces and supersedes it. He therefore states that he does not accept the creation story, not because it is disproved but because there is a proper scientific explanation.

Typed letter signed, Princeton, April 11, 1950, to Mrs. Munk. “As long as the stories in the Bible had been taken literally, it was obvious what kind of faith was expected from the readers. If you are however to interpret the Bible symbolically (metaphorically), it is not clear anymore whether God is in fact to be thought of as a person [and therefore not a monotheistic diety], which is somehow analogous to humans. In that case it is difficult to assess what remains of the faith in its original sense.

“I think, however, that the person who is more or less trained in scientific thinking is alien to the religious creation (in the original sense) of the cosmos, because he applies the standard of causal conditionality to everything. This does not refute the religious attitude but, in a certain sense, replaces and supersedes it.

“With best regards, Albert Einstein”

Clearly one of the most interesting letters we have ever seen comparing science and religion, with the spectacularly important observation that science in a sense replaces and supersedes literal religion.