Albert Einstein’s Views on the Concept of a Creator
God
The concept that universe was created by a “Creator God”, had
haunted the minds of human beings since many generations. When
we review this concept of a “Creator God” in the light of modern
science, some of the obvious questions that arise in our minds are
- Who is this creator god, who had created this “Creator God” and
how did he come into existence? Albert Einstein had also never
accepted the principle of a “Creator God”. He had clearly expressed
his views as, “I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes
his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in
ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an
individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from
fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts.
Maybe u forgot to finish reading his later experience.
Einstein himself stated quite clearly that he did not believe in
a personal God:
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious
convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not
believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have
expressed it clearly."
So, the quick answer to the question is that Einstein did
not believe in a personal God. It is however, interesting
how he arrived at that conclusion. In developing the theory of
relativity, Einstein realized that the equations led to the
conclusion that the universe had a beginning. He didn't like the
idea of a beginning, because he thought one would have to conclude
that the universe was created by God. So, he added a cosmological
constant to the equation to attempt to get rid of the beginning. He
said this was one of the worst mistakes of his life. Of course, the
results of Edwin Hubble confirmed that the universe was expanding
and had a beginning at some point in the past. So,
Einstein became a deist - a believer in an impersonal creator
God:
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly
harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with
fates and actions of human beings."
However, it would also seem that Einstein was not an atheist,
since he also complained about being put into that 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."
"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."
It is the second part of the quote that reveals the reason
Einstein rejected the existence of a personal God.
Einstein compared the remarkable design and order of the cosmos and
could not reconcile those characteristics with the evil and suffering he found in human existence.
How could an all-powerful God allow the suffering that exists on
earth?
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
which is both good morally and perfect physically. However,
according to Christianity, the purpose of the universe is not to be
morally or physically perfect, but to provide a place where
spiritual creatures can choose to love or reject God - to live with
Him forever in a new, perfect universe, or reject Him and live apart from Him for eternity. It would not be
possible to make this choice in a universe in which all moral
choices are restricted to only good choices. Einstein didn't seem
to understand that one could not choose between good and bad if bad
did not exist. It's amazing that such a brilliant man could not
understand such a simple logical principle.
These days, those who fail to understand the purpose of evil not
only reject the concept of a personal God, but also reject the
concept of God's existence altogether. If you are an agnostic or
atheist, my goal for you would be to recognize what Albert Einstein
understood about the universe - that its amazing design demands the existence of a creator
God. Then, go beyond Einstein's faulty understanding of the purpose
of the universe and consider the Christian explanation for the
purpose of human life and why evil must exist in this world.
Something to balance often one sided argument. I shall
entertain.
But whatever it is, all are still an interesting read
nevertheless.