Lame and Blind

Though the voices for the harmony of science and religion have been swelling since 1927 (year of The Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle), the most clamorous voices and the general perception is still very much that the two are at loggerheads with each other and that only one of the two can ultimately win.  Max Jammer’s 1999 book Einstein and Religion has only recently come to my attention, though I along with many Bahá’ís have long been familiar with Einstein’s famous statement that “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”  It is easy to exult that the most famous mind of the twentieth century should utter such a quotable statement that so closely parallels Bahá’í teachings, but before we put him in front of the seventy-six trombones at the head of the parade, let’s take a closer look at his overall vision.

            Of course Einstein is not famous for his religious pronouncements, and we know of his views on the subject chiefly from three major papers he prepared upon request and written and spoken communications in which he responded to questions of religion.  In his book Max Jammer analyzes these in great detail, along with the reactions of the scientific and religious communities, as well as the implications to Physics of Einstein’s views.

            He was born into a non-religious German Jewish family and was educated in Catholic schools (with a Jewish tutor to balance things out).  He seems to have accepted his early religious training without rebellion.  He once said in an interview, “I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.”  When he began to involve himself seriously with philosophy and scientific books he began to express disdain for superstitions, rituals, and the kind of God of the popular imagination.  He found a deep affinity in his philosophical views with the seventeenth-century Dutch Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza.  The third major element in his spiritual views was music, a subject barely touched upon in this book.

            A personality trait that marked Einstein was his non-acceptance of authority, which served him well in science, and in the arena of religion, similarly, he followed his own best insights and his keen sense of conscience, accepting no doctrine at face value.  He had a strong identity as a Jew, but at his death, contrary to Jewish tradition, had his body cremated and his ashes scattered.

Einstein did not only use his powerful capacity for rational thought to form his personal theology, but also analyzed his perceptions and experience.  He told a critic at a 1927 Valentine’s Day dinner in Berlin: “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable.  Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.” (pg. 39-40)  He strongly suggested that the true scientist was also deeply religious:  “[Cosmic religious experience] “is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.” (pg. 80)  And, “I am of the opinion that all the finer speculations in the realm of science spring from a deep religious feeling, and without such feeling they would not be fruitful.”  (pg. 68-69)

We get the idea that science replaces religion in the minds of not only scientists, but a host of others for whom rational thought has been placed far above faith.   Einstein’s was far from this:  “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.  Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.  It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.  A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.  I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves.”  (pg. 73)

But did he see any connection between the two, or did he just happen to be both scientific and religious, just as someone could be both a jazz saxophonist and a basketball player to boot?

“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 . . .  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.”  (pg. 94)

It is easier to see how science helps religion, by dispelling superstitions or confirming Scripture.  How does religions help science?:  “Even science at an advanced stage, cannot define, let alone commend, ethical values.  For science is confined to what is and ethics to what should be, and no path leads from the knowledge of what is to the knowledge of what should be.”  (pg. 52)  Einstein declared that our moral judgements, our sense of beauty, and religious instincts are “tributary forms in helping the reasoning faculty towards its highest achievements.  You are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, but you cannot turn it around and speak of the scientific foundations of morality . . . every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulae must fail.”  (pg. 69)

He cautioned that the knowledge of science and religion is not mutually exclusive, and religious knowledge should not concern itself with only that which science cannot explain, something that has been called “God of the gaps”:  “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.”  (pg. 232)

In summary, Einstein shows the connection between science and religion in most persuasive terms, hard to argue with, though not conclusive if one stubbornly wishes to differ.  His view of God is very personal and intimate, and we immediately see how real God is to him as a benign presence, and we are cheered that he sees God at the beginning and end of all investigative enterprise, and scientific endeavour only strengthens his sense of mystery and wonder at what must lie behind this amazing Creation.  His is a faith many a Bahá’í strive for in vain.  He also asserted that we learn about God from special individuals, though he mentions only Moses and Christ.  He differed from Bahá’í teaching in at least two fundamental ways:  first, his his rejection of a personal God that rewards and punishes, to whom one may petition and hope for a direct result, and who suspends the very laws He Himself has created in order to answer these prayers; and secondly, he rejected the idea of free will in favour of determinism.  This philosophy suited his scientific and Spinozan views, and may seem rigid in its vehemence, yet is remarkably close in expression to the following passages from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh:  The decrees of the Sovereign Ordainer, as related to fate and predestination, are of two kinds . . . The one is irrevocable, the other is, as termed by men, impending. To the former all must unreservedly submit, inasmuch as it is fixed and settled. God, however, is able to alter or repeal it. As the harm that must result from such a change will be greater than if the decree had remained unaltered, all, therefore, should willingly acquiesce in what God hath willed and confidently abide by the same.  The decree that is impending, however, is such that prayer and entreaty can succeed in averting it. (Gleanings, pg. 132)

Every act ye meditate is as clear to Him as is that act when already accomplished . . . All stands revealed before Him; all is recorded in His holy and hidden Tablets. This fore-knowledge of God, however, should not be regarded as having caused the actions of men, just as your own previous knowledge that a certain event is to occur, or your desire that it should happen, is not and can never be the reason for its occurrence. (Gleanings, pg. 148)