09-05-2025
- Science
- Wall Street Journal
‘I Am a Part of Infinity' and ‘Free Creations of the Human Mind': Einstein's Sense of Awe
When asked his view of religion, Albert Einstein often invoked a 17th-century Dutch philosopher. 'I believe in Spinoza's God,' Einstein told a New York rabbi in 1929. What exactly he meant by that has been debated ever since.
In 'I Am a Part of Infinity,' Kieran Fox, a physician-scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, argues that Einstein's ideas on religion 'have always been approached in the wrong way.' The author claims that Einstein in fact wished to found a 'cosmic religion' whose 'mandate and meaning' was to remind us 'that we embodied Infinity.' Spinoza, Mr. Fox suggests, was but one of many 'radical geniuses who anticipated and inspired' the idea. These are bold claims—and I am not convinced.
