Priest Advises Einstein

AN Associated Press dispatch of April 13 from Atlantic City said: “A top Catholic educator today urged scientists, including Albert Einstein, to tend to their neutrons and stop ‘philosophizing.’ The Rev. Robert Henle, dean of the St. Louis University Graduate School, said the nation was ‘getting a lot of scientists’ who start ‘philosophizing at the age of 40.’ Most, he said, are ‘not trained to do so.’ In a news conference at the annual convention of the National Catholic Educational Assn., Henle said Einstein in recent years has philosophized about the ‘nature and existence of God.’ ‘I object to his making an authoritative statement about an absolute,’ said Henle. ‘He has no training to talk about the existence or non-existence of God.’”—New York Post, April 13, 1955.

The late Albert Einstein said, according to Life magazine of May 2, 1955: “I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. . . . I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death, or blind faith.” From all reports Einstein was of gentle disposition, and it is understandable that he could not believe in the God of theology, a God that eternally tortures souls in a fiery hell, or burns them for centuries in a flaming purgatory until priests on earth are paid enough to pray enough to get these souls released.

This same issue of Life reported that Einstein said: “The presence of a superior reasoning power . . . revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.” Because the God of theology taught by orthodox religions was unacceptable, Einstein groped for another God. He did believe in a supreme spirit or intelligence in back of all the created wonders and was impressed with the order in the universe, as Time magazine of May 2, 1955, shows. It quoted him: “I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos.” The magazine continued: “Albert Einstein, who often said he could not accept the doctrine of immortality of the soul, traveled the rim of mystery and at times, he admitted, it made him feel close to God. ‘I assert,’ he once said, ‘that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force . . . My religion consists of a humble admiration for the illimitable superior spirit who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.’” The Bible agrees with Einstein when “he could not accept the doctrine of immortality of the soul,” for it states, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” and reports that even the sinless Jesus “poured out his soul unto death.”—Ezek. 18:4; Isa. 53:12.

Einstein said he could not accept any concept of God based on “blind faith.” A Biblical faith in Jehovah God is not blind in the sense of having absolutely no basis for it. Faith is “the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.” (Heb. 11:1, NW) Without seeing electricity or gravitation Einstein believed in their existence because he had seen evidence demonstrating their reality. Without seeing “the illimitable superior spirit” Einstein believed in his existence because of the majesty and power and orderliness he had seen in the universe. The Bible points to these created wonders as evidence of the invisible Creator: “His invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are understood by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship.” (Rom. 1:20, NW) That knowledge and understanding of the reports in the Bible are necessary for faith in the God of the Bible is shown by Romans 10:17 (NW): “So faith follows the report.” But faith in the God of orthodox theology is a blind faith because it is not based on Bible truths, but rather in the pagan imaginings of ancient priests or in the opinionated philosophizings of modern ministers. No reasoning person should accept such a concept of God based on blind faith. However, they should not let the false concept of God that orthodox religions teach turn them away from the God of the Bible. They should study the Bible to learn of the God that created the universe, not being prejudiced against him by religious falsehoods.

If orthodox religions had stuck to the Bible perhaps Einstein would have stuck to his neutrons. If these religions had taught the God of the Bible, and not some repulsive pagan deity that supposedly tortures imaginary souls in nonexistent purgatories and hells of fire and brimstone, perhaps Einstein would not have felt the need of looking for another concept of God. Perhaps Henle should remove the rafter from his own eye before fretting about the straw in Einstein’s. He might try sticking to the God of the Bible he claims to serve, and drop pagan doctrines and human traditions, forego the flattering titles of Reverend and Father that the Bible limits to Jehovah God, and give up the unscriptural money-making schemes of purgatorial prayers and bingo gambling. (Job 32:21, 22; Matt. 7:1-5; 21:13; 23:9) Henle accuses Einstein of not sticking to his business of science, but he himself is guilty of straying from his claimed work of serving God. Pointedly Romans 2:1 (NW) says: “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are, if you judge; for in the thing in which you judge another, you condemn yourself, inasmuch as you that judge practice the same things.”

The Foundation of Education

Time never outdates the Bible; it is always modern because it is the very basis for education. Germany’s great writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, talked about education and the Bible. Goethe, one of the most eminent in all world literature, said: “I am convinced that the Bible becomes even more beautiful the more one understands it. Let culture and science go on advancing, and the mind progress as it may, it will never go beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it glistens and shines forth in the Gospels. It is to the intrinsic value that the Bible owes the extraordinary veneration in which it is held by so many nations and generations. It is not only a popular book, it is the book of the people. The greater the intellectual progress of ages, the more fully possible will it also become to employ the Bible both as the foundation and as the instrument of education—of that education by which not pedants but truly wise men are formed.”—The Supremacy of the Bible, p. xxviii.