Was Albert Einstein an Atheist?

There are many who, in a vain attempt to show atheism to be “intellectual,” have claimed that Albert Einstein was an atheist. However, the father of all scientists made a number of statements that clearly refute such a claim. He said, “In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views.”

Einstein stated, “I’m not an atheist. I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”

“There are many who, in a vain attempt to show atheism to be “intellectual,” have claimed that Albert Einstein was an atheist. However, the father of all scientists made a number of statements that clearly refute such a claim.”

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He even revealed his insightful mind in admitting, “I see a pattern, but my imagination cannot picture the maker of the pattern. I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions, so how can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one?” He also said, “I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts. The rest are details.”

Those who take the time to read the Bible can know how God created this world (see Gen. 1), and they can read the thoughts of God throughout Holy Scripture. The problem is that the Bible is not merely a history book as some maintain. It is a moral book, and for that reason sinful man refuses to open its pages. The psalmist informs us that “the entrance of Your Word gives light” (Psa. 119:130), and the Bible further tells us that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. They refuse to come to the light because it exposes their sinful deeds (see John 3:19,20).

In light of these thoughts, it’s interesting that at the age of thirty-four a reasonably young Einstein unashamedly boasted, “I have firmly resolved to bite the dust, when my time comes, with the minimum of medical assistance, and up to then I will sin to my wicked heart’s content.”

However, time tends to make most thinking men somewhat philosophical. Two months before his death in 1955, he said, “To one bent on age, death will come as a release. I feel this quite strongly now that I have grown old myself and have come to regard death like an old debt, at long last to be discharged. Still, instinctively one does everything possible to postpone the final settlement. Such is the game that Nature plays with us.”

It seems that the great genius spoke biblical truth unawares. However, it isn’t Nature that seeks a “final settlement”; it is the Law of God. Like a criminal who has transgressed civil law, he (like the rest of humanity) was in debt to eternal justice because he had transgressed God’s Law. This great debt he spoke of could not be satisfied with mere silver and gold. It is a debt that demands capital punishment. It calls for the death penalty for guilty transgressors… and eternal damnation in hell. Its terrible decree demands, “The soul who sins shall die,” but it is a demand that was fully satisfied by the One who cried from Calvary’s cross, “It is finished!” The debt was paid in full by the precious blood of Jesus.

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