Existence, morality and the meaning of life

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 - 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum theory. His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 , which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for "his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". Born as a subject to the Kingdom of Württemberg, part of the German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his citizenship the following year. In 1896, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss federal polytechnic school in Zurich, graduating in 1900. He acquired Swiss citizenship a year later, which he kept for the rest of his life, and afterwards secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. In 1914, he moved to Berlin to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin, becoming director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in 1917; he also became a Prussian and consequently also German citizen again. In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Horrified by the Nazi persecution of his fellow Jews he decided to remain in the US, and was granted American citizenship in 1940. There is a question that bothered people for more than a hundred years now. One of the most brilliant men who ever lived. The scientist who rewrote the laws of the universe, who understood time and space, in a way no one before him ever had. What did he think about Jesus? Have you ever stopped to wonder about that? Because the answer exists, it was recorded , published and preserved in one of the most read interviews in the history of science. And what Albert Einstein there said, dear reader, is not what most people expect to hear because this story is going to make you see Einstein, faith and even science itself in a different light. Before reading exactly what he said we need to place you in a specific moment in his life, in 1929. Einstein was already, without any exaggeration, the most famous scientist on the planet. A few years earlier, he had published the general theory of relativity, an idea so revolutionary, it changed forever how humanity understands, gravity, time and space. Newspapers around the world published his face. He was treated almost like a celebrity, not just a scientist. And it was exactly during this, at the height of his fame, that a journalist, named George Sylvester Virek managed to get an exclusive interview with him. That interview was published in an American magazine called “The Saturday Evening Post” on October 26, 1929, under the title “What life means to Einstein”. And it wasn’t just an interview about physics. Virek wanted to understand the human side of that genius, he asked about nationalism, about Einstein’s Jewish identity, about belief in God, about the meaning of life. And at one point he asked a direct question, no beating around the bush. To what extend he had been influenced by Christianity? And this is where the story gets interesting, because Einstein was born into a Jewish family. He was raised within the Jewish tradition, studied the Thora, had contact with the Talmud since childhood. He never hid this, and on several occasions in his life he spoke proudly about his identity as a Jew. So it would be natural to imagine that, faced with this question about Jesus, he would give a distant answer, maybe even a bit cold, typical of someone who belongs to another different tradition, but that’s not what happened. Einstein’s answer began like this; As a child he received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. And than he said something that, decades later is still repeated, and studied and qoted by historians, theologians and curious minds all over the world. He stated that even though he was Jewish, he was enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene. That expression has gone down as one of the most surprising things ever said by a scientist about Jesus Christ. But Einstein didn’t stop there. Virek sensed that he had touched on something important, asked directly: Do you accept the historical existence of Jesus? And Einstein’s answer was even more striking than the question. He answered without hesitation that yes, unquestionably, and he added that no one can read Gospel without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. According to him, Jesus’s personality pulsates in every word of this texts. No myth, Einstein said , is filled with as much life as what is written about Jesus in the Gospels. Think about that for a moment. We are talking about the man who created the theory of the relativity. A theoretical physicist, a mathematician, someone who trained to demand proof, equations, tests, and confirmation before accepting any claim is true. He spoke like someone who had genuinely felt while reading those texts that carries enormous weight, because we would normally expect that kind of reaction from a theologian, a pastor, someone devoted to faith, not from the most respected physicist of the 20th century. And there is more; Einstein went further and compared Jesus to other figures from antiquity who also are surrounded by legends and heroic tales. He mentioned for example, Theseus, that Greek mythological hero, known for facing the Minotaur in the labyrinth of Crete. And Einstein said there is a huge difference between the impression we get, reading about legendary heroes like Theseus and the Impress. We get reading about Jesus. According to him, these heroes of antiquity, fascinating as they are, lack the authentic vitality found in the accounts of Jesus. In other words, for Einstein there is something tangible, something different about the figure of Jesus that isn’t found in traditional myths and legends. Virek, curious wanted to test this opinion even further. He brought up a writer Ludwig Lewison who had suggested that many of Jesus’ teachings were in fact paraphrases of other prophets and sages who came before Him. In other words, he was questioning the originality of Jesus words and Einstein’s response, once again is surprising. He said that no one can deny that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. And he added that even if some of those ideas had already been said by others. No one had ever expressed them in such an elevated, such a divine way as Jesus did. That were the words chosen by Alfred Einstein, the man who rewrote physics to describe the way Jesus expressed himself. That wasn’t a small detail, it is an extremely powerful choice of words coming from someone who had no reason at all to exaggerate or to please religious audiences. Einstein was not a Christian, he never converted. Never attended a church and to make this story even richer, never professed faith in a traditional religious sense, and whenever the subject was Jesus specifically, his words carried a respect that many people wouldn’t expect to find. Now to make this story even richer, we want to share a detail that only a few people know, years after the article was being published, some of these statements about Jesus began circulating on their own, in magazine and newspaper clippings, being repeated outside their original context and according to accounts from biographers, at one point someone showed Einstein like one of these clippings and asked whether it truly reflected what he thought, Einstein carefully read the text and confirmed that was indeed what he believed. In other words, it wasn’t a stray remark said on the spur of the moment and then forgotten. It was a conviction he reaffirmed even later when he had the chance to reread his own words. This matters dear reader, because we are living in a time when quotes attributed to famous people circulate constantly without any context. A lot gets attributed to great historical figures was never actually said by them, but this particular case is different. This interview is documented, published in a respected magazine of the time, with a date, the interviewer’s name and the full context. On top of that Einstein himself confirmed sometime later, that those words really represented what he thought. But we need to honest with you, because this is the part that tends to cause confusion. The fact that Einstein admired the figure of Jesus, acknowledged his historical existence and even used words like “divine”, to describe his teachings, doesn’t mean Einstein became a Christian, nor that he believed that Jesus was the Son of God, the way that Christian theology teaches. That’s different. Einstein has his own very particular views of spirituality, one he developed throughout his life, and it doesn’t neatly fit into any organized religion. At other points in his life Einstein stated that he not believe in a personal God, one who cares about each individual human being’s actions, who answers prayers, who directly intervenes in people’s lives. His view of divinity was much closer to idea of a force or order governing the universe, something similar to what the philosopher Spinoza had argued centuries earlier. Einstein said on another occasion that he Saw god in the harmony of everything that everything that exists in the laws that govern the cosmos, not in a figure who watches over and judges over each individual. So if he had that more philosophical view distant from traditional religion, why would he seem to set aside a space almost of reverence. For the figure of the Nazarene, while keeping his distance from other aspects of organized religion, I believe, and this is a reflection, not an absolute claim, that Einstein saw in Jesus something that was beyond a purely religious matter. He seemed to recognize both as a scientist and as a human being, the historical and moral force of a figure who, to the accounts that have come down to us, profoundly how humanity understands concepts like love, forgiveness, sacrifice and truth. And that is exactly what he is describing when he talks about the vitality of the Gospels, when he says that Jesus personality pulsates in every word written about him. There is another detail from the interview that’s rarely discussed, but we think that it is essential to bring up here. When Virek asked more broadly belief in God, Einstein gave an answer full of humility. Quite different from what one might expect from a scientific genius. He said he wasn’t an atheist, but he also couldn’t call himself a pantheist. And the he used a beautiful image to explain his position in the face of the mystery of existence. He compared humanity to a small child entering an enormous library full of books written in many languages. That child knows someone must have written those books but doesn’t know who or how, and how and certainly doesn’t understand the languages they are languages in. According to Einstein, that is exactly the position of the human mind, even the most educated and brilliant one, before God. We perceive that there is an order, an organization, laws that governs the universe. But we understand that those laws in a very limited way, a very partial way. Notice that a man of science who, far from being arrogant in the face of the unknown, maintained a deep sense of intellectual humility. And it is in that same humility that he seemed sincerely acknowledge the greatness of the figure of Jesus, even without declaring himself a Christian. Now let get you a bit more historical context, because it helps explaining the weight of that statement. The 1920ties were a period of intense debate between science and religion. The world was still feeling the effects of Darwins’ discoveries, the growing secularization of European and American Society, and a strong movement trying to place science and faith on opposite sides, as if they were enemies. Many intellectuals openly adopted atheist positions, treating any religious figure with disdain. Einstein being the most respected intellectual of his time, could easily have followed that same line, avoiding any respectful comment about a religious figure like Jesus, but he didn’t do that. On the contrary, he went into the opposite direction, publicly acknowledging genuine admiration for Jesus, even risking being misunderstood by other scientists of his time. That says a lot about Einstein’s character. He wasn’t considering either side of the debate, he was simply describing with honesty what he felt when reading the accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings. An it is exactly that honesty that makes the story so powerful, even today. Nearly 100 years later, and here we want to pause and invite you to a more personal reflection. Regardless of your faith, regardless of whether you are a Christian, belong to another religion, or agnostic or even an atheist, there is something deeply human about observing that one of the most brilliant minds in history looked at the figure of Jesus and couldn’t remain indifferent. Einstein didn’t dismiss Jesus as just another legend. He didn’t treat the Gospels as stories without value, on the contrary, he recognized them something alive, something real, something that went beyond the limits of simple historical account or an ancient myth. Maybe that is the great lesson that story leaves us with, not using Einstein’s as a definitive proof of anything, because as you may already imagine, the opinion of a scientist, however brilliant he may be, doesn’t define religious truth or replace each person’s personal faith. Einstein himself if he were here, would probably say that he never wanted to be treated as a spiritual authority, but rather as someone who sought with sincerity to understand the world around him, including the great questions about existence, morality and meaning of life. But what remains and what we think is worth taking from this story, is the invitation to honest reflection. Einstein, even with all the tools of science, logic and reason at his disposal, chose not to ignore the figure of Jesus, he chose, in his own words to recognize something special there, something he described as luminous, as divine as full of life, and that coming from a man who spent entire life testing theories, questioning certainties and seeking proof before accepting any claim goes far beyond simple historical curiosity. Stories like these show that science and faith don’t always have to be on opposite sides. And even the most rational minds in the world can find in the person of Jesus something that inspires genuine admiration.