Einstein

Yesterday’s quote research took me along another path.  Many famous people have been asked, and have responded, about their beliefs.

Albert Einstein made very known his religious views on many occasions, clearly stated in a 1954 quote: 

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. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. [Letter to an atheist 1954]

There were other years, other quotes.  This one gives a bit more definition to his beliefs on the intelligence behind the universe.

I'm absolutely not an atheist. ... The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds.  ... We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.

Mankind as a whole has benefited from the time Einstein spent working on those laws that define the moving of the constellations. He was able to formulate concepts that keep scientists busy today searching for proof, building on his foundations. 

He also was quoted:

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.

In this and the earlier quotes I can see his search for the physical laws that control the dancing stars, and the understanding of a “mysterious force” that includes “immutable laws.”

Christians, too, see a mystery:

Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, (Romans 16:25 KJV)

Christians, too, see a God who instituted immutable laws.  Breaking one of the universe’s immutable laws has consequences. Why limit the “mysterious force that moves the constellations” to the physical? Why should men deny there are also “immutable laws” within the spiritual?

Einstein’s religious concepts were partially shaped in a Catholic school in Germany, a culture that at that same time was incubating Nazism, filled with anti-Semitism.  When Christians compromise God’s laws for comfort within a culture, His will is not accomplished and the affect on others has lasting, wide-spread consequences.

The Bible tell us:

Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. (John 4:48 KJV)

Einstein saw signs and wonders through the movement of constellations, but could not accept the concept of a personal loving God:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)

There’s nothing more personal than this, and the combination of an all powerful yet loving God is awesome. This is what Christians should be teaching through their lives.  Often we are the Bible others read.