Science and Religion - Albert Einstein

Part I from an address at Princeton Theological Seminary, May 19, 1939; published in Out of My Later Years, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950. Part II from Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941.

I

During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that there was an unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief. The opinion prevailed among advanced minds that it was time that belief should be replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed. According to this conception, the sole function of education was to open the way to thinking and knowing, and the school, as the outstanding organ for the people’s education, must serve that end exclusively.

One will probably find but rarely, if at all, the rationalistic standpoint expressed in such crass form; for any sensible man would see at once how one-sided is such a statement of the position. But it is just as well to state a thesis starkly and nakedly, if one wants to clear up one’s mind as to its nature.

© `Ideas and Opinions’ by Albert Einstein, published (1989) by Rupa & Co., 7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002. Reprinted with permission.

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