God in Three Persons

This past week a single letter written by Albert Einstein sold at auction for just over $400,000. It is the highest amount ever realized for a piece of Einstein's correspondence -- even more than for the letter to a friend outlining the theory of relativity. What was it about? Einstein essentially says that he finds the bible childish and is dubious about a personal god. It's interesting though that Einstein continued to wrestle with the notion of a divine presence or energy throughout his lifetime. This is described well in an article in the New York Times:

Einstein consistently characterized the idea of a personal God who answers prayers as naive, and life after death as wishful thinking. But his continual references to God — as a metaphor for physical law; in his famous rebuke to quantum mechanics, “God doesn’t play dice”; and in lines like the endlessly repeated, “ Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” — has led some wishful thinkers to try to put him in the camp of some kind of believer or even, not long ago, to paint him as an advocate of intelligent design.

Trying to distinguish between a personal God and a more cosmic force, Einstein described himself as an “agnostic” and “not an atheist,” which he associated with the same intolerance as religious fanatics. “They are creatures who — in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium for the people’ — cannot bear the music of the spheres.”

The problem of God, he said, “is too vast for our limited minds.”

While I disagree with most of his conclusions I appreciate his recognition that God cannot be easily categorized or quantified. I do feel that God has chosen to be particular in the person of Jesus the Christ, and continues to be present in the world through the Holy Spirit. Hey, this is Trinity Sunday and I have mentioned God in Three Persons!