Einstein and God

Albert Einstein believed in God.

I'm not sure why that's important.  Certainly, he was no prophet, or son of a prophet and to be truthful, I have not ordered any of the rest of my life around the principles that guided his life, but I guess he was a genius and that counts for something.  But Einstein only believed in some kind of force that set things in motion and brought order out the chaos that we can see when we observe the Universe.  He did not believe in a personal deity of any sort.

Einstein said:  "It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems."  (quote from Wikipedia)

Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal God who pays attention to individual prayers and needs here on earth.  It just didn't make sense to him that there was anything except human will and behaviors to drive our experiences in this world.

The reality is that God it too big to "make sense," even to one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century.  There are just too many things that God controls to think that He deliberately allows evil to dominate in this world.  God is strong enough and secure enough to allow free will, even for those who hate Him.

At the same time, He cares for each of His children individually.  Am I small -- miniscule in comparison to the Universe?  Without a doubt.  Yet, even on my darkest days, I know that God cares for me.

Albert Einstein believed and I believe in God.  But we don't believe in the same God.  For I believe in One who cares who I am and what I do on a very personal level.

And, as Robert Frost said so many years ago, that has made all the difference.