Book Review: Einstein and Religion, Max Jammer

I finished this book last week and was generally pleased with it. The author makes no judgments about any particular point of view but simply searches through Einstein's past to piece together the view of religion of one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. The book is divided into three larger chapters (each longer than the prior). The first two were fascinating and the last was interesting, though I feel the author got a little too much into the mathematics of things for the average reader. He did a good job, however, of summarizing the mathematics in simpler terms after the detailed explanation.

Basically, Einstein was in agreement with Spinoza that there is no personal God. A "personal God" is not like Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus, but instead a deity to whom we apply human characteristics. An impersonal God, then, is one who has no sentience per se, and certainly doesn't want, or need anything from us as humans. Since Einstein believed in an impersonal God, he also believed that God did not ever inject himself into the realm of humans, which lead him to hold very strong deterministic beliefs. In other words, Einstein believed that the universe was pre-ordained (and in my words, not Einstein's or Jammers) like a wind-up toy that was wound by God and released with no interference.

All-in-all this was a very fine book and I suggest reading it if the discussion of Science and Religion interests you (please note that I didn't say "Science vs. Religion"! That's a different topic altogether).