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(The following article by Albert Einstein appeared in the New York Times
Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4. It has been reprinted in Ideas and
Opinions, Crown Publishers, Inc. 1954, pp 36 - 40. It also appears in Einstein's
book The World as I See It, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 24 - 28.)
Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the
satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep
this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and
their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human
endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present
themselves to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to
religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little
consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside
over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is
above all fear that evokes religious notions - fear of hunger, wild beasts,
sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal
connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates illusory beings
more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful
happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by
carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition
handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well
disposed toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear.
This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation
of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the
people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many
cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on other
factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make
the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make
common cause in their own interests.
The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of religion.
Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and
fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the
social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects,
disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the
believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human
race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing;
he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception
of God.
The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of
fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The
religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are
primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral
religion is a great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions
are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on
morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that
all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that
on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception
of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and
exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above
this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to
all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it
cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to
anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic
conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity
and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of
thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to
experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic
religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many
of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned
especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger
element of this.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of
religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so
that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is
precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with
this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their
contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light,
men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one
another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if
it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it
is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and
keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very
different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically, one is
inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and
for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal
operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a
being who interferes in the course of events - provided, of course, that he
takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the
religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who
rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's
actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's
eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible
for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with
undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should
be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no
religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be
restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.
It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and
persecuted its devotees.On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious
feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those
who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which
pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the
strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the
immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the
rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a
feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must
have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the
principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific
research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a
completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a
skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through
the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to
similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and
given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless
failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A
contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the
serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms." (Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955)
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