Einstein and Religion
One of the first posts I wrote for this site covered Einstein’s religious beliefs. Recently, the comment thread has taken on a life of it’s own.
Yesterday Penny pointed me to a recent TIME article that follows the development of Einstein’s beliefs from early childhood to his complicated relationship with the religious and political figures of his time.
It’s a great article and well worth reading. It even goes into Einstein’s beliefs (or lack their of) regarding free will.
“Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions,” Einstein declared in a statement to a Spinoza Society in 1932. It was a concept he drew also from his reading of Schopenhauer. “Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity,” he wrote in his famous credo. “Schopenhauer’s saying, ‘A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills,’ has been a real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life’s hardships, my own and others’, and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance.”
But despite his conviction in a mechanized universe, Einstein was capable of believing in free will for practical purposes.
“I am compelled to act as if free will existed,” he explained, “because if I wish to live in a civilized society I must act responsibly.” He could even hold people responsible for their good or evil, since that was both a pragmatic and sensible approach to life, while still believing intellectually that everyone’s actions were predetermined. “I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime,” he said, “but I prefer not to take tea with him.”
Really makes you wonder.
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