思想 | 爱因斯坦：上帝和宗教

1954年1月，著名物理学家爱因斯坦给德国哲学家埃里克·古特金（Eric Gutkind）写了一封信。在这封用德语写下的信中，爱因斯坦表达了自己对于上帝和宗教的立场，因此被后人称为“上帝之信”。佳士得拍卖行(Christie's) 将这封不到两页纸的信描述为“爱因斯坦在去世前一年写下的、关于宗教和哲学观点的最著名的一封信”。

（信件图片来自佳士得） 《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

爱因斯坦在信中表达了他对“上帝”的看法:

“对我来说，‘上帝’一词不过是人类自身脆弱性的表现和产物，《圣经》不过是一本可敬但仍然幼稚的原始传说集 (a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends)。没有任何一种解读，不管它多么奥妙，能改变这一点……”。 《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

此外，他还表达了对自己犹太人身份的看法:

“...对我来说，犹太教像所有其他宗教一样，是最幼稚的迷信的具象化(For me the unadulterated Jewish religion is, like all other religions, an incarnation of primitive superstition. )。我很高兴成为犹太人，并对犹太思想有很深的归属感，但犹太人和其他民族相比，并无什么特别的品质。就我的经验而言，犹太人也并不比其他人类族群更好。虽然他们没患上最严重的癌症（指腐败），但也只是因为他们没掌权，此外，我看不出一点犹太人‘被上帝选择’的迹象。”

《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

所以，在“上帝之信”中，爱因斯坦回答了宗教哲学的终极问题：上帝是否存在？我们是否拥有自由意志？他的回答带有庄严感，他信仰一种更宏大的宇宙宗教，无形的上帝主宰秩序，但不能主宰个人的自由意志。同时，他虽然认同自己犹太人的身份，但否认犹太人是“天选之子”。

《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

信件全文(Joan Stambaugh翻译)如下：

《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

Princeton, 3. 1. 1954

Dear Mr Gutkind,

Inspired by Brouwer's repeated suggestion, I have read a great deal in your book in the last few days: thank you very much for sending it to me. What struck me particularly was this. We are largely alike as regards our factual attitude to life and to the human community: an ideal that goes beyond self-interest, with the striving for release from ego-oriented desires, the striving for the improvement and refinement of existence, with an emphasis on the purely human element, by which inanimate things are to be perceived purely as a means, to which no dominant function is to be attributed. (It is especially this attitude that unites us as an authentically "un-American attitude"1).

《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

Nevertheless, without Brouwer's encouragement I would never have brought myself to engage at all closely with your book because it is written in a language which is inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change anything about this. These refined interpretations are naturally very diverse, and have virtually nothing to do with the original text. For me the unadulterated Jewish religion is, like all other religions, an incarnation of primitive superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and in whose mentality I feel profoundly anchored, still for me does not have any different kind of dignity from all other peoples. As far as my experience goes, they are in fact no better than other human groups, even if they are protected from the worst excesses by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot perceive anything "chosen" about them.

《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

In general, it pains me that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a human being and an internal one as a Jew. As a human being you claim to a certain extent a dispensation from the causality which you otherwise accept, as a Jew a privileged status for monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as indeed our wonderful Spinoza originally recognized with absolute clarity. And the animistic conception of natural religions is in principle not cancelled out by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception; but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. Quite the opposite.

《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

Now that I have expressed our differences in intellectual convictions completely openly, it is still clear to me that we are very close to each other in the essentials, that is, in our evaluations of human behavior. What divides us is only intellectual padding or the "rationalization" in Freudian language. So I think that we would understand each other very well if we conversed about concrete things.

《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

With friendly thanks and best wishes,

Yours,

A. Einstein

《学术与社会 Academia-Society》

阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦（Albert.Einstein，1879年3月14日—1955年4月18日），出生于德国符腾堡王国乌尔姆市的一个犹太人家庭。

1900年毕业于苏黎世联邦理工学院。

1905年，发表“量子论”，提出光量子假说，解决了光电效应问题。4月向苏黎世大学提出论文《分子大小的新测定法》，取得博士学位。5月完成论文《论动体的电动力学》，独立而完整地提出狭义相对性原理，开创物理学的新纪元。这一年因此被称为“爱因斯坦奇迹年”。

1915年，提出《广义相对论》引力方程的完整形式，并且成功地解释了水星近日点运动。

1921年，因光电效应研究而获得诺贝尔物理学奖，他的研究推动了量子力学的发展。

1955年爱因斯坦被诊断出患有主动脉瘤，4月18日午夜在睡梦中感到呼吸困难，主动脉瘤破裂导致大脑溢血破裂，而逝世于普林斯顿，享年76岁。