Science and Religion
Albert Einstein
This article appears in Einstein's Ideas and
Opinions, pp.41 - 49. The first section is taken
from an address at Princeton Theological
Seminary, May 19, 1939. It was published in Out
of My Later Years, New York: Philosophical
Library, 1950. The second section is from
Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium,
published by the Conference on Science,
Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the
Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941.
1.
During the last century, and part of the one
before, it was widely held that there was an
unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and
belief. The opinion prevailed among advanced
minds that it was time that belief should be
replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that
did not itself rest on knowledge was
superstition, and as such had to be opposed.
According to this conception, the sole function
of education was to open the way to thinking and
knowing, and the school, as the outstanding
organ for the people's education, must serve
that end exclusively. One will probably find but
rarely, if at all, the rationalistic standpoint
expressed in such crass form; for any sensible
man would see at once how one-sided is such a
statement of the position. But it is just as
well to state a thesis starkly and nakedly, if
one wants to clear up one's mind as to its
nature.
It is true that convictions can best be supported
with experience and clear thinking. On this point
one must agree unreservedly with the extreme
rationalist. The weak point of his conception
is, however, this, that those convictions which
are necessary and determinant for our conduct
and judgments cannot be found solely along this
solid scientific way. For the scientific method
can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are
related to, and conditioned by, each other. The
aspiration toward such objective knowledge
belongs to the highest of which man is capabIe,
and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing
to belittle the achievements and the heroic
efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally
clear that knowledge of what is does not open
the door directly to what should be. One can
have the clearest and most complete knowledge of
what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that
what should be the goal of our human
aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us
with powerful instruments for the achievements
of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself
and the longing to reach it must come from
another source. And it is hardly necessary to
argue for the view that our existence and our
activity acquire meaning only by the setting up
of such a goal and of corresponding values. The
knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it
is so little capable of acting as a guide that
it cannot prove even the justification and the
value of the aspiration toward that very
knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the
limits of the purely rational conception of our
existence. But it must not be assumed that
intelligent thinking can play no part in the
formation of the goal and of ethical judgments.
When someone realizes that for the achievement
of an end certain means would be useful, the
means itself becomes thereby an end.
Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation
of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give
us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends.
To make clear these fundamental ends and
valuations, and to set them fast in the
emotional life of the individual, seems to me
precisely the most important function which
religion has to perform in the social life of
man. And if one asks whence derives the
authority of such fundamental ends, since they
cannot be stated and justified merely by reason,
one can only answer: they exist in a healthy
society as powerful traditions, which act upon
the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the
individuals; they are there, that is, as
something living, without its being necessary to
find justification for their existence. They
come into being not through demonstration but
through revelation, through the medium of
powerful personalities. One must not attempt to
justify them, but rather to sense their nature
simply and clearly. The highest principles for
our aspirations and judgments are given to us in
the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is
a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we
can reach only very inadequately, but which
gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and
valuations. If one were to take that goal out of
its religious form and look merely at its purely
human side, one might state it perhaps thus:
free and responsible development of the
individual, so that he may place his powers
freely and gladly in the service of all mankind.
There is no room in this for the divinization of
a nation, of a class, let alone of an
individual. Are we not all children of one
father, as it is said in religious language?
Indeed, even the divinization of humanity, as an
abstract totality, would not be in the spirit of
that ideal. It is only to the individual that a
soul is given. And the high destiny of the
individual is to serve rather than to rule, or
to impose himself in any other way. If one looks
at the substance rather than at the form, then
one can take these words as expressing also the
fundamental democratic position. The true
democrat can worship his nation as little as can
the man who is religious, in our sense of the
term. What, then, in all this, is the function
of education and of the school? They should help
the young person to grow up in such a spirit
that these fundamental principles should be to
him as the air which he breathes. Teaching alone
cannot do that. If one holds these high
principles clearly before one's eyes, and
compares them with the life and spirit of our
times, then it appears glaringly that civilized
mankind finds itself at present in grave danger,
In the totalitarian states it is the rulers
themselves who strive actually to destroy that
spirit of humanity. In less threatened parts it
is nationalism and intolerance, as well as the
oppression of the individuals by economic means,
which threaten to choke these most precious
traditions. A realization of how great is the
danger is spreading, however, among thinking
people, and there is much search for means with
which to meet the danger--means in the field of
national and international politics, of
legislation, or organization in general. Such
efforts are, no doubt, greatly needed. Yet the
ancients knew something- which we seem to have
forgotten. All means prove but a blunt
instrument, if they have not behind them a
living spirit. But if the longing for the
achievement of the goal is powerfully alive
within us, then shall we not lack the strength
to find the means for reaching the goal and for
translating it into deeds. Next Article Segment
II.
It would not be difficult to come to an
agreement as to what we understand by science.
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. To put
it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior
reconstruction of existence by the process of
conceptualization. But when asking myself what
religion is I cannot think of the answer so
easily. And even after finding an answer which
may satisfy me at this particular moment, I
still remain convinced that I can never under
any circumstances bring together, even to a
slight extent, the thoughts of all those who
have given this question serious consideration.
At first, then, instead of asking what religion
is I should prefer to ask what characterizes the
aspirations of a person who gives me the
impression of being religious: a person who is
religiously enlightened appears to me to be one
who has, to the best of his ability, liberated
himself from the fetters of his selfish desires
and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and
aspirations to which he clings because of their
superpersonal value. It seems to me that what is
important is the force of this superpersonal
content and the depth of the conviction
concerning its overpowering meaningfulness,
regardless of whether any attempt is made to
unite this content with a divine Being, for
otherwise it would not be possible to count
Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities.
Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the
sense that he has no doubt of the significance
and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and
goals which neither require nor are capable of
rational foundation. They exist with the same
necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself.
In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor
of mankind to become clearly and completely
conscious of these values and goals and
constantly to strengthen and extend their
effect. If one conceives of religion and science
according to these definitions then a conflict
between them appears impossible. For science can
only ascertain what is, but not what should be,
and outside of its domain value judgments of all
kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other
hand, deals only with evaluations of human
thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak
of facts and relationships between facts.
According to this interpretation the well-known
conflicts between religion and science in the
past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension
of the situation which has been described. For
example, a conflict arises when a religious
community insists on the absolute truthfulness
of all statements recorded in the Bible. This
means an intervention on the part of religion
into the sphere of science; this is where the
struggle of the Church against the doctrines of
Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand,
representatives of science have often made an
attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with
respect to values and ends on the basis of
scientific method, and in this way have set
themselves in opposition to religion. These
conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.
Now, even though the realms of religion and
science in themselves are clearly marked off
from each other, nevertheless there exist
between the two strong reciprocal relationships
and dependencies. Though religion may be that
which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless,
learned from science, in the broadest sense,
what means will contribute to the attainment of
the goals it has set up. But science can only be
created by those who are thoroughly imbued with
the aspiration toward truth and understanding.
This source of feeling, however, springs from
the sphere of religion. To this there also
belongs the faith in the possibility that the
regulations valid for the world of existence are
rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I
cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without
that profound faith. The situation may be
expressed by an image: science without religion
is lame, religion without science is blind.
Though I have asserted above that in truth a
legitimate conflict between religion and science
cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this
assertion once again on an essential point, with
reference to the actual content of historical
religions. This qualification has to do with the
concept of God. During the youthful period of
mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy
created gods in man's own image, who, by the
operations of their will were supposed to
determine, or at any rate to influence, the
phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the
disposition of these gods in his own favor by
means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in
the religions taught at present is a sublimation
of that old concept of the gods. Its
anthropomorphic character is shown, for
instance, by the fact that men appeal to the
Divine Being in prayers and plead for the
fulfillment of their wishes. Nobody, certainly,
will deny that the idea of the existence of an
omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal
God is able to accord man solace, help, and
guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it
is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But,
on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses
attached to this idea in itself, which have been
painfully felt since the beginning of history.
That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every
occurrence, including every human action, every
human thought, and every human feeling and
aspiration is also His work; how is it possible
to think of holding men responsible for their
deeds and thoughts before such an almighty
Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He
would to a certain extent be passing judgment on
Himself. How can this be combined with the
goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him? The
main source of the present-day conflicts between
the spheres of religion and of science lies in
this concept of a personal God. It is the aim of
science to establish general rules which
determine the reciprocal connection of objects
and events in time and space. For these rules,
or laws of nature, absolutely general validity
is required--not proven. It is mainly a program,
and faith in the possibility of its
accomplishment in principle is only founded on
partial successes. But hardly anyone could be
found who would deny these partial successes and
ascribe them to human self-deception. The fact
that on the basis of such laws we are able to
predict the temporal behavior of phenomena in
certain domains with great precision and
certainty is deeply embedded in the
consciousness of the modern man, even though he
may have grasped very little of the contents of
those laws. He need only consider that planetary
courses within the solar system may be
calculated in advance with great exactitude on
the basis of a limited number of simple laws. In
a similar way, though not with the same
precision, it is possible to calculate in
advance the mode of operation of an electric
motor, a transmission system, or of a wireless
apparatus, even when dealing with a novel
development. To be sure, when the number of
factors coming into play in a phenomenological
complex is too large, scientific method in most
cases fails us. One need only think of the
weather, in which case prediction even for a few
days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless no one
doubts that we are confronted with a causal
connection whose causal components are in the
main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are
beyond the reach of exact prediction because of
the variety of factors in operation, not because
of any lack of order in nature. We have
penetrated far less deeply into the regularities
obtaining within the realm of living things, but
deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the
rule of fixed necessity. One need only think of
the systematic order in heredity, and in the
effect of poisons, as for instance alcohol, on
the behavior of organic beings. What is still
lacking here is a grasp of connections of
profound generality, but not a knowledge of
order in itself. The more a man is imbued with
the ordered regularity of all events the firmer
becomes his conviction that there is no room
left by the side of this ordered regularity for
causes of a different nature. For him neither
the rule of human nor the rule of divine will
exists as an independent cause of natural
events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal
God interfering with natural events could never
be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for
this doctrine can always take refuge in those
domains in which scientific knowledge has not
yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded
that such behavior on the part of the
representatives of religion would not only be
unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is
able to maintain itself not in clear light but
only in the dark, will of necessity lose its
effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to
human progress. In their struggle for the
ethical good, teachers of religion must have the
stature to give up the doctrine of a personal
God, that is, give up that source of fear and
hope which in the past placed such vast power in
the hands of priests. In their labors they will
have to avail themselves of those forces which
are capable of cultivating the Good, the True,
and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is,
to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably
more worthy task. (This thought is convincingly
presented in Herbert Samuel's book, Belief and
Action.) After religious teachers accomplish the
refining process indicated they will surely
recognize with joy that true religion has been
ennobled and made more profound by scientific
knowledge. If it is one of the goals of religion
to liberate mankind as far as possible from the
bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and
fears, scientific reasoning can aid religion in
yet another sense. Although it is true that it
is the goal of science to discover rules which
permit the association and foretelling of facts,
this is not its only aim. It also seeks to
reduce the connections discovered to the
smallest possible number of mutually independent
conceptual elements. It is in this striving
after the rational unification of the manifold
that it encounters its greatest successes, even
though it is precisely this attempt which causes
it to run the greatest risk of falling a prey to
illusions. But whoever has undergone the intense
experience of successful advances made in this
domain is moved by profound reverence for the
rationality made manifest in existence. By way
of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching
emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes
and desires, and thereby attains that humble
attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason
incarnate in existence, and which, in its
profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This
attitude, however, appears to me to be
religious, in the highest sense of the word. And
so it seems to me that science not only purifies
the religious impulse of the dross of its
anthropomorphism but also contributes to a
religious spiritualization of our understanding
of life. The further the spiritual evolution of
mankind advances, the more certain it seems to
me that the path to genuine religiosity does not
lie through the fear of life, and the fear of
death, and blind faith, but through striving
after rational knowledge. In this sense I
believe that the priest must become a teacher if
he wishes to do justice to his lofty educational
mission.
Read the
Top 10 Reasons the Big Bang Theory is False.