Science deals with the natural world, religion with the supernatural

That Einstein believed in God does not establish the existence of that elusive entity. The syllogism “Einstein believed in God; Einstein was very smart; therefore God exists” is a fallacy. It is possible for a person to be really smart in one area of discourse and very dumb in others. The most superficial glance at photographs of Einstein in his old age suggests that, while he may have been a brilliant physicist, he didn’t know much about good haircuts.

Everything I’ve read about Einstein indicates that he believed in Spinoza’s God – a pantheistic pure substance, a sort of “Ground of Being”, from which and within which the universe arises, unembellished by imputations of personality. 

“I do not believe in a personal God,” Einstein flatly declared. 

The God of Spinoza and Einstein has more in common with Brahman in Hinduism and the Tao in Taoism than with the more robust personal deity of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Those three faiths believe in a God who is a Spirit, disembodied but omnipotent, who presides over the universe, and who has a distinct personality with identifiable likes and dislikes. It may be remarked that such a deity, if he exists, does not seem to be doing a very good job on our particular planet at present, and needs to upgrade his performance.

Elaine Ecklund’s observation that “The ‘insurmountable hostility’ between science and religion is a caricature … hardly representative of reality” is itself a caricature of a different kind. I can’t count the number of soothing articles I’ve read claiming that there is no conflict between science and religion, and that religion is not only compatible with science – it is “scientific”. This claim usually masks a shameless attempt to ingratiate religion with science and steal some of its prestige.

As I understand things, science deals with empirically observable and measurable phenomena. Religion deals with hypothetical, supernatural phenomena that are immune to empirical investigation, hence whose existence cannot be empirically verified. These are two entirely different realms of discourse. 

They clash when people claim to have witnessed miracles, or to have had experiences in which a supernatural entity revealed itself or communicated with them. That’s where the conflict between science and religion begins. Believers will attribute such phenomena to supernatural activity. Non-believers will attribute them to aberrations (at best, misperceptions) in the minds that experience them. If there’s any way to bridge this gulf, I’d like to hear about it.

William Page