List of Christian thinkers in science

Science and Religion: Did Einstein Believe in God?

by Unofre Pili, Aug 23, 2008
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”. This quote from Einstein is famous, but did he really believe in God?
“God doesn't play dice with the universe,” Einstein once remarked on the new science of quantum mechanics in one of his lifelong debates with Neils Bohr, one of the founders of the new science. On another occasion he said of science and religion, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” Did Einstein believe in God? Arguably, his now famous statements tell his seeming inclination towards God.


While at the pinnacle of his scientific greatness, the mainstream media in their many conversations with the creator of the famous Special and General Theory of Relativity was centered on his genius and scientific achievements, not more on his religious convictions which seemed out of question because of his countless allusions to some sort of divine that appeared to point out to the personal Christian God in which Einstein was known to be a devotee in his boyhood.
Despite of the initial successes of his theories at explaining previously observed yet unexplained natural phenomena such as the anomalous orbit of Mercury and the prediction of the bending of light passing at the vicinity of the Sun, his theory was not spared from adverse criticisms, maybe due to the theory having permeated almost every aspect of human intellectual endeavor -literature, philosophy and religion. The two grand scientific theories thus went into becoming a subject of heated debates among scholars from different fields.
Arising from the controversial nature of his theories, Einstein, perhaps the greatest theoretical physicist in science history would later saw himself at odds with many high-profile people from different facets of society including the once influential Catholic Church. For one, Cardinal O'Connel of the state of Boston openly attacked Einstein by giving a vehement warning to the youth of America that the General Theory of Relativity “cloaked the ghastly apparition of atheism and “befogged speculation, producing doubt about God and his Creation” (Clark,1971,413-414).
This adverse clerical pronouncement permeated the consciousness of the Cardinal's comrades in the church. On April 24, 1929, Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of New York dialed Einstein to inquire, “Do you believe in God?” (Sommerfield, 1949,103), Einstein's return message was a statement that would the next day hit the news headlines across the United States and shortly the world: “ I believe in Spinoza's God who concerns himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings ,” clarifying all his previous God-alluding statements. "I can not accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death or blind faith. I can not prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar."
Einstein went even more, revealing he was an agnostic. In one of his work, he wrote:"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or hasa 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. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature." [Albert Einstein, The World as I See It American Institute of Physics Online]. Judging him on the strength of this revelation, Einstein must be an atheist.
Until his death, Einstein maintained his belief of a God equated to the order and harmony in the universe or the natural laws that were gradually brought to light through deep research in science. Steven Weinberg (1992), an American astrophysicist noted on Einstein's religious conviction "But what possible difference does it make to anyone if we use the word "God" in place of "order" or "harmony," except perhaps to avoid the accusation of having no God?" Highly agreeable, and though Einstein's belief was glaringly at variance with most of us, still he deserved respect not only for his remarkable science but his being a product of his subtle personal opinions that we are perhaps incapable to comprehend.

Source : http://www.scienceray.com

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God?

By Dr. Francis Collins
Special to CNN
Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the Human Genome Project. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."




ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.
As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.
I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.
I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?" (Watch Francis Collins discuss how he came to believe in God )
I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."
But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.
For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.
So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?
Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.
But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.
I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.