爱因斯坦的“上帝”

李兆良 2018.12.5

爱因斯坦的亲手信刚刚拍卖了高价，打破了预测并以近290万美元（230万英镑）的价格出售 （原来预计150万美元，即120万英镑）。这封所谓“上帝信”写于1954年，爱因斯坦当时是74岁，为德国哲学家埃里克古特金德的一篇作品作了回应，写下了一页半的信。

除了因为是爱因斯坦写的信以外，还因为信里面谈到他对宗教的看法。谁不想听到一个伟大科学家对宗教，对上帝的看法？

这封用德文写的信写道，虽然他“很乐意”是犹太人一份子，但他相信犹太教“像所有其他宗教一样，是最幼稚迷信的化身like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions”。他非常直率地说： “'上帝'这个词是人类弱点的产物 The word ‘God’ is a product of human weakness.”

有一位犹太教的教士从纽约发来电报，问道：“你相信上帝吗？”爱因斯坦回答说，“我相信斯宾诺莎的‘上帝’，他在所有存在的事物中有规律地和谐中表现自己，而不是只关心人类自己命运和行为有关的上帝 I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

原信在多个媒体网站登载,以下是全信影本： 

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/word-god-is-product-of-human-weakness.html 

Translated Transcript

Princeton, 3. 1. 1954

Dear Mr Gutkind,

Inspired by Brouwer's repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me. What struck me was this: with regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element. This unites us as having an "unAmerican attitude."

Still, without Brouwer's suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and whose thinking I have a deep affinity for, have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything "chosen" about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual "props" and "rationalization" in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes,

Yours, 

A. Einstein

（http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/word-god-is-product-of-human-weakness.html  ）

下面是另一封表达他对宗教和上帝的信。

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one," he wrote to a man who corresponded with him on the subject twice in the 1940s. "You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist. ... I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."

https://phys.org/news/2015-06-einstein-personal-letters-auction-block.html

许多人都在渴望一种调和科学和宗教的方法，希望爱因斯坦会说，“是的，有一位上帝。你现在可以不再担心”。信某种宗教的，更希望爱因斯坦会同意他们的‘上帝’和教义。所有认为爱因斯坦是天主教徒，基督新教徒，犹太教徒，或者任何宗教的，看到这封信都会感到失望。

所有演绎转述爱因斯坦的宗教观，都不如他自己的话语。他心中的‘上帝’不是任何人造的宗教主宰，而是科学人永远在追求的宇宙定律，是从无知到有知，永无止境的过程。

安息吧，爱因斯坦。

安息吧，关于爱因斯坦宗教观的争论。