Einstein’s God

 

Einstein’s God

By Krista Tippett

 

Setting the scene:

At any cocktail party where the subject of science-v-religion comes up, it starts from the premise that there actually is a rivalry.  No doubt in the 20^th century, backed by our public schools, cemented in the Supreme Court cases highlighted in 1948 McCollum-v- Board of Education ruling, science prevailed.   The collective conscious of our modern generations leans heavily towards science.  Come the year of our lord 2000 the scales tilts back.  Was that argument really about funding?  Lost is the mere fact that the premier scientists over time never meant for this schism to exist.  Specifically, Darwin!!!   

In 2020 the year of the great pandemic in a politically charged society, one is rebuked for not listening to the voice of science.  A voice that zooms in on the species called CoV-2 whose sole desire is to survive on this earth.  Sounds like Darwin???  But then where is the legal argument for the Covid species to live????  There is a fittest species is there not?  Consensus at that party holds that science prevails until an illuminated chap quips anecdotally its God’s will to be culling the herd.  “let old people die as 95% of medical is spent in the last five years of life;” as he/they all sip their beverage and laugh it off behind their masks. 

If there is any wisdom in the Old Testament, it’s not hard to find a history of ‘plagues’ that brings a society to a higher level of religious consciousness in fear of death.  Plagues that mysteriously ran their course evolved to plagues resolved through the intervention of man’s science; the will to turn and fight the intruder on our species.  This is my introduction to Krista Tippett’s book Einstein’s God. 

The book itself:

Tippett argues contrary to casual dinner party banter, science and God sit together on the throne of the mind our great scientists and philosophers.  Her book provides ten chapters, poetically akin to ten commandments, illustrates through interviews with prolific gatekeepers of science the harmony with religion present in their work.  While the scientists’ pursuit was a phenomenon of nature, explained through math and logic to a conclusion, their ‘Will’ came from faith in the unknown.  Today let’s call it the universe as an agreed upon proxy for God.  What was not known on the embarkment of their quest was the answer.  Faith nourished them in their quest.  Faith and hope, hallmarks of religion, stand in the dark periphery leaving their breakthroughs in the light.  Oddly enough a dynamic where science being the louder voice that causes religion to be undervalued to the extent that today’s Western world seeks to ban it from State run schools.

Let’s take a closer look at the landmarks of Tippett’s book, her overarching themes and how they tie together.  It starts with the title and her recognition of Einstein’s reverence for the beauty of nature and thought.  Who would band Nature and Thought one train of thought… Tippett.  In this modern world where thought is a feature of the data processing brain, who would look in to the biology of spirit of the nether world….Tippett.  Who in today’s world would tie the brains thinking to the heart as Tippet does in her discourse Mehmet Oz.  I could tease you through the book but that would be a dis-service to all her work.  So I’ll take a moment in her chapter on Darwin.

It seems Darwin’s survival of the fittest and his Origin of Species planted in the minds of legislators and educators…but rather men endeavor the endless progress or proficiency in both leaves todays populist voice trampling over not only religion but Darwin as well.  Tippett takes the reader down a different path in thinking…one that may on the surface be logical but comes from the heart of Darwin’s being. At its core Darwin writes:

               “let no man think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, …but rather let men progress or proficience in both”.  Darwin is humbled by the laws of nature.  Darwin did not challenge the idea of God as the source of all being.  But he did reject the idea of a God minutely implicated in every flaw, injustice, or catastrophe.

My views:

On the heals of what is written above, I will ally with Tippett.  Her book is spot on in drawing out the true Darwin.  Making my/our case, I bring East of Eden, by John Steinbeck.  It was very popular in the same generation as McCollum-v- Board of Education.  Why?  From that book was a theme that comes from the Jewish faith Timshel… Thou Mayest.  God gave one species the ability of complex thought and more importantly the ability to CHOOSE!  Tippett’s book illuminates the voice of scientist, who rely on faith in that very point.  Her book will cause you to take a second and deeper look at your own thinking.  Read it.