Atheism and Pantheism, a Discussion

Many, Many Atheists have fallen for two lies.

1. That Albert Einstein was an atheist or a Pantheist.
2. That Pantheism is equivalent to Atheism.

I will deal with lie #2 first. Pantheism literally means “All God”, not “no God”. Atheists seem to think that “all God” means that God is a metaphor for the Universe. That is wrong. It means that God is all and all is God. Pantheists differ as to the nature of this God. Some say God is all, but still intelligent. Some say God is a force in the universe that is unintelligent. There are even some people called Pan-Deists who say God was an intelligent force while he created the universe and set in the laws, but afterward he became the universe and is in a dormant State.

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I think it is safe to say that no one in their reasonable minds would claim Einstein as a theist. He denied the Theist’s personal God over and over again. So, with that safe presupposition, we continue to explain what Einstein’s views on God were and why Atheists are wrong on this subject.

Now that Pantheism is cleared up, was Albert Einstein one? Or was he an Atheist? No. He was neither.

Many people believe that Einstein was a pantheist because of this quote from him, “I believe in Spinoza’s God,%uFEFF Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world.” Spinoza himself was a pantheist. But, Max Jammer a physicist and close friend of Einsteins wrote a book in which he explained that Einstein knew very little of Spinoza’s God. The most of Spinoza’s works he had read was on morality, rather then the nature of God. So, Jammer helps us to understand that Einstein was ignorant of Spinoza’s God, due to only getting glimpses of him from his works on morality.

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But, it goes a little further then this. Einstein said this, “I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist.” He fully denied ever being an Atheist (no God) or an Pantheist (God in Everything). In fact, The next section of the quote explains his views on God.

“We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations (Glimpses of the Great by G. S. Viereck) .”

That is the perfect Description of a Deist’s God, and as Einstein said, “The Attitude of the most Intelligent Human being toward God”