A book review of Krista Tippett, Einstein's God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit (New York: Penguin Books, 2010).Einstein's God is an excellent introduction into a new place that people of science and people of faith are beginning to discover, a place that puts behind us the science and religion debate. In this book, science and spirituality occupy the same space in a way that is both comfortable and not so comfortable. Most of the inhabitants of this new space have stumbled into it unexpectedly and some of them are still not sure that they really belong in it. it is a place for thinking new thoughts and making connections between things that seem unrelated. Residents tend to ask unsettling questions. They reject cliches, prejudices, and what seems only commonsense to the world at large, be it the religious or the scientific world.
In Einstein's God, author/editor Krista Tippett has pieced together segments of interviews with leading scientists, thinkers, theologians, and her own reflections. The result is a beautiful exercise in dialogue, which is one of the key habits of mind in the new place of spirituality and science that we are discovering. Tippett frequently asks good questions as she probes the thinking of those she interviews. She is always their friend, but she is constantly seeking to dig deeper into their thinking. In the book the interface between Tippett and her guests isn't always seamless, and a somewhat slipshod editing job resulted in repeating material in her introductions to each chapter verbatim in her commentary in the chapters. It is a minor flaw.
The book opens with reflections on Albert Einstein's understanding of God, which has sparked a good deal of debate and controversy in some quarters. Tippett relies on scientists Freeman Dyson and Paul Davies to discern Einstein's belief in Something larger that inspires a religious awe in those who study the mysteries of the universe. She includes this quotation from Einstein himself: "My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance, but for us, not for God." (p. 40) Einstein's unorthodox spirituality sets an important tone for the rest of the book. It is a place for voicing unorthodox thoughts, as much scientifically unorthodox as theologically so.
A number of those Tippett includes in the book are medical scientists who are discovering that there is much more to us than our bodies. They are finding that healing is as much about the human spirit as it is about muscles and tissue. These scientists have come to realize that their medical and scientific training did not prepare them for the real realities of healing people. Dr. Sherwin Nuland, for example, talks about the human spirit as being something greater than our consciousness that is a product of human evolution. He speaks of the human spirit in almost religious terms and calls on religion and science to engage in conversations (a dialogue) for the sake of better understanding the human spirit (see p. 61). Dr. Mehmet Oz, a surgeon, reflects on his experience of discovering the importance of faith and religion in healing. He observes that as a physician, "I began to recognize that as dogmatic as I thought I could be with my knowledge base, there were certain elements of the healing process I could not capture. And even if I was right in the science, I could be wrong in the spirit." (p. 74)
The book includes reflections on Darwin's views of religion and science, the contribution Hindu thought can make to understanding reality, and the implications of quantum physics for that understanding, Janna Levin thus says that, "There are limits in quantum mechanics to how much we can ever really know. There are fundamental limits to certainty." (p. 149) Tippett's chapter on revenge and forgiveness, based on an interview with the psychologist Michael McCullough, as much as any other points to the ways in which scientific and religious thinking intertwine in this new spiritual-scientific territory. For McCullough, both revenge and forgiveness are important evolutionary strategies that are far more commonplace in our daily lives than we usually recognize. He argues that we constantly exercise forgiveness as we "get along" with others, overlooking "occasional defects and mistakes." (p. 179) McCullough is one of those who is convinced that we are slowly creating a better, more peaceful world. The book also looks at the place of stress in our lives and the nature of depression. All of this is timely, relevant to a better understanding of the world from a spiritual-scientific perspective.
Tippett concludes the book with a chapter "on the complementary nature of science and religion" with the short title, "Quarks and Creation," which features discussions with John Polkinghorne, physicist-theologian. [See my review of Polkinghorne's Belief in God in an Age of Science (here).] Covering a number of subjects including quantum physics as well as the possibility of life beyond death, Polkinghorne concludes that increasingly, "the science and theology conversation is getting more theological." Theology is posing more of the important questions that both science and theology must grapple with including questions about the nature of humanity and about the possibility of "continuity between life in this world and the world to come." He says, "And that's a healthy development. You want the conversation to be very even-handed in that respect." (p. 279) Polkinghorne's conclusion is evidently Tippett's as well, because she doesn't include a conclusion of her own. Those are the last words in the text. It is a hopeful, helpful conclusion: dialogue is taking place. It is meaningful, honest, and respectful dialogue aimed at making sense of a mutual search for understanding and wisdom.
I highly recommend Tippett's Einstein's God to those who are concerned with the relationship of religious faith and science today. It is one witness to the way in which religious values, attitudes, and perceptions are finding a new place in our scientific age. It is also witness to a discovery more and more scientists are making at the boundaries of their fields of study, namely that there is Something beyond those boundaries that is as real as anything but not quite in ways that scientists have usually considered real. Quantum physics, in particular, is having a truly humbling impact on the world of science. Reality is so not like what scientists have thought it to be that more and more of them have had to acknowledge that science alone is incapable of comprehending What Is Becoming. Einstein's God takes its readers to the place where humbled scientists and equally humble people of faith are seeking to better understand spirituality and that which lies Beyond and Within the human spirit. This is a winner.
