Serb. Astron. J. } 174 (2007), 61 - 72 UDC 524.8 DOI: 10.2298/SAJ0774061D Original scienti¯c paper ALBERT EINSTEIN, COSMOS AND RELIGION V. Dokovi¶c- 1 and P. Gruji¶c2 1Vin·caInstitute of Nuclear Sciences, 11001 Belgrade, Serbia 2Institute of Physics,11080 Belgrade, Serbia (Received: September 11, 2006; Accepted: December 27, 2006) SUMMARY: We consider Einstein's attitude regarding religious as such, from both cosmological and epistemological points of view. An attempt to put it into a wider socio-historical perspective was made, with the emphasis on ethnic and religious background. It turns out that the great scientist was neither atheist nor believer in the orthodox sense and the closest labels one might stick to him in this respect would be pantheism/cosmism (ontological aspect) and agnosticism (episte- mological aspect). His ideas on divine could be considered as a continuation of line traced by Philo of Alexandria, who himself followed Greek Stoics and (Neo-) Pla- tonists and especially Baruch Spinoza. It turns out that Einstein's both scienti¯c (rational aspects) and religious (intuitive aspects) thinking were deeply rooted in the Hellenic culture. His striving to unravel the secrets of the universe and the roots of cosmological order resembles much the ancient ideas of the role of knowledge in fathoming the divine as such, as ascribed to Gnostics. Key words. Cosmology: miscellaneous 1. INTRODUCTION damental concepts, like space, time, causality, put into standard frames of our contemplating the most elusive notions like faith, God(s) etc? We shall claim All science is cosmology, I believe. in the following that (i) Einstein was arguing for a Karl Popper new kind of religion and (ii) at the same time was As Einstein's annus mirabilis centenary playing a role, albeit subconsciously, of a prophet, evolved, the Number One personality of the previ- even a god himself. ous century became the focus of world's attention. Cosmology is intrinsically linked with mythol- Many aspects of his extraordinary personality were ogy and religion as a quasirational elaboration of the subjected to scrutinized analysis, including his rela- former. Einstein was the cosmologist par excellence, tion to religion. Although Einstein was not a pro- for it was him who made it a hard science. He was as fessional religious thinker, his fame and authority in well involved in the profound research of the under- pure science make his personal beliefs both interest- lying microstructure of the material world and has ing and influential. decisively contributed to our understanding of the Was Albert Einstein a religious man? But be- microcosm. In both aspects, presently strongly cou- fore we attempt to answer this question, another one pled in modern investigations of the ultimate nature seems in order: Is this a proper question at all? May of the material world, Einstein considered the possi- one expect from such a profound scienti¯c mind to ble role of divine, but with considerable e®orts made be analyzed in less profound terms? Particularly, in distinguishing the latter from banal religiosity. We could the mind that has transformed our most fun- shall consider his views of religious from both tempo- 61 V. DOKOVI- C¶ and P. GRUJIC¶ ral development point of view and their implications bound by covenant to his chosen people. This di- to his cosmological and epistemological views chotomy will be resolved by Christian teaching, what resulted in a quick spread of the Judaistic mythology over a large part of the globe. But apart from her 2. HELLENISM AND JUDAISM Christian "heresy" (minim) Judaistic common reli- gion retained its principal features up to now. We now turn to the more august religious When Albert was twelve a young student from sphere, that of thinkers and philosophers. Greek de- Poland, who used to come to Einsteins' for dinner, velopment on this more abstract level followed the brought to him a popular edition of Euclid's Ele- line of Xenophanes (Kirk et al. 1983), Plato and ments. It seems to have been a decisive instance Aristotle, who conceived an abstract deity, devoid of for the young boy, who was at the time obsessed by banal anthropic properties and disinterested in hu- the biblical fables. He must have already felt a suspi- man a®airs. To Aristotle the First Mover was nec- cion about the historical reality of biblical events and essary just to start the life of Nature, whose fur- the issue of the truth must have been raised in his ther history was to be governed by the laws of Na- mind, when he met Euclid. Unlike biblical authors ture, to be inferred by human mind. A particular who o®ered incredible fables and interpretations, Al- concept of supernatural Demiurge was conceived by bert found in Elements the absolute (mathematical) Anaxagoras (Kirk et al. 1983), who introduced the truth, exposed by an iron logic, ¯rm and undeniable. notion of Mind (Noυ&), engaged in creating Cosmos Incidentally, the treatise was composed in the same rd out of a primordial mixture of seeds (σ¼"½¹®¿®). period (3 century BC) as the translation of Holy It seems that Anaxagoras' Mind was something be- Scriptures (Septuagint) was made. Both books epit- tween moving agency and natural principle. In any omized the Judaistic and Hellenistic ideologies, as case this Greek philosophical line was interrupted by the paradigms of ¯ctitious and rational as such. The the Christian faith and was never canonized into a further intellectual development of the young Albert common religion. was determined by the interplay of his Jewish ethni- Judaistic tradition followed two main streams. cal origin and rational Hellenistic education. One was orthodox rabbinic one, mainly present to- Technically speaking, Einstein remained day within Jewish milieu, the other adopting an es- within the sphere of the Judaistic tradition. But oteric rout, developing somewhat extravagant ideas his personal development led him to depart from on divinity, as the case with Cabbala is. Extravagant the Orthodox Judaism, and this evolution resulted as they appear, some of the esoteric concepts resem- in two main accomplishments. First, his religious ble remarkably well modern cosmological scenarios of evolution started with the traditional common re- the World creation. The case in point is Cabbalistic ligion, as practiced by clergymen, to progressively constructs of Ain Soph and Zimzum (Masson 1970), abstract concept of piety, and second, he found in with its striking similarity to Big Bang inflationary retrospective that the mankind followed the same paradigm. The case of Baruch Spinoza stands some- route. One might consider this sort of individual where between the orthodox and esoteric lines and and historical correlation as another manifestation deserves our particular attention here. of the famous Hoeckel's thesis: Ontogeny is a reca- pitulation of phylogeny. This development was by no means original, and could be traced in at least two 3. SPINOZA AND PANTHEISM Western traditions: Hellenic and Judaistic. Since these two traditions turn out crucial for understand- ing Einstein's view on the religious phenomena, it Broadly speaking Spinoza's doctrine may be seems in order here to sketch common features and di®erences regarding their content and ultimate his- considered as a continuation of the Judaistic philo- torical fates. sophical tradition, whose beginnings may be traced Both traditions followed the same evolution back to Philo of Alexandria (Saunders 1997, Si- pattern, starting from common religions, more pre- mon et Benoit 1998). Living in the metropolis of cisely { religions designed for common people. The the Hellenistic world, with a large Greek popula- principal feature of these stages is personalized, even tion and numerous Jewish community, Philo's con- anthropic gods. Greeks had a well-developed, though cern was mainly in reconcilliating the Jewish faith, not unique and ¯xed Pantheon, whereas early He- based on the Torah mythology, and the superior brews started with a number of henotheistic gods Greek philosophical teachings. Squeezed between too. But after this initial phase, these two tra- the elaborated rational systems of Plato, Aristotle, ditions diverged. Greek people's religion remained (neo) Pythagoreans etc, from one side, and the scle- polytheistic up to the appearance of Christianity rotic canonized religious dogmas and tradition of the (Veyne 1983) as a quasi-monotheistic faith, Hebrews Holy Scripts, which were not to be modi¯ed, Philo soon reduced their concept of divine oligarchy to the resorted to the old way out to save the phenomena { monotheistic one, their own tribal god, (Jehovah). to the allegorical interpretation of the written sacro- At further stages this god became the God, a unique sanct texts. One of his ¯rst tasks was to deperson- deity, which acquired two principal, albeit contradic- alize the God, interpreting the assertion that God tory, attributes. He was the God of all mankind, the created man according to his own image as not re- universal Demiurge, and yet the tribal, Jewish god, ferring to a physical appearance of the Creator, but 62 ALBERT EINSTEIN, COSMOS AND RELIGION to his ethical essence. This departure from the liter- remark does not hit far from the target. Einstein's ary meaning was a big step from the common faith most fundamental contributions to the physical sci- toward more rational, abstract religion, making it a ences may be focused on one single pursuit, that on philosophical subject. It is this new concept of God, fathoming the nature of light. It is well known, ac- which Spinoza took over and developed further to cording to testimony of Einstein himself, how young the extreme rational and logical limits. Albert was occupied running in front of a light beam. Spinoza was Einstein's religious hero, and for His inquiries on the subject resulted in Theory of the good reason.