A rare letter written by physicist Albert Einstein about the world’s creation is up for public auction in Pennsylvania with a $125,000 initial asking price.
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The letter, written in German from Brooklyn, New York, on April 11, 1950, expresses Einstein's disbelief in the biblical account of how the world was created, as science "replaces and supersedes" such religious concepts.
Einstein wrote the letter in response to one sent to him by Martha Munk, the wife of German rabbi Michael L. Munk, who was one of the leading voices in the Orthodox Jewish world at the time.
Although other letters from Einstein describing his views on God and Judaism exist, including the God Letter that was sold for $3 million in 2018, he was rarely asked about his personal beliefs, and in this case, he was questioned by a prominent religious figure from a family he knew.
The Munk couple fled from Germany following antisemitic persecutions a few years after Einstein, who left in 1933 and became an American citizen in 1940.
In a letter from late March 1950, Munk wrote to Einstein, "On behalf of the students of a series of lectures on religion, I would like to ask you whether you think that it is possible for a modern scientist to reconcile the idea of the Creation of the world by God, a higher power, with his scientific knowledge,"
Einstein quickly replied, stating that he believed the literal interpretation of the Bible views God as the creator of the universe. However, he emphasized that he doesn’t accept the Creation story not because he rejects it, but because science has another explanation that replaces it.
"As long as the stories in the Bible had been taken literally, it was obvious what kind of faith was expected from the readers,” Einstein wrote.
“If you are however to interpret the Bible symbolically (metaphorically), it is not clear anymore whether God is in fact to be thought of as a person (and therefore not a monotheistic deity), which is somehow analogous to humans, in that case, it is difficult to assess what remains of the faith in its original sense."
"The person who is more or less trained in scientific thinking is alien to the religious creation (in the original sense) of the cosmos because he applies the standard of causal conditionality to everything. This does not refute the religious attitude but, in a certain sense, replaces and supersedes it," the letter added.
At the time of writing, Einstein was already a U.S. citizen for a decade. The renowned physicist fled Germany shortly after the Nazi Party came to power. He lived in Belgium for a short period and then spent six weeks in the UK before settling in the United States, in Princeton, New Jersey, where he conducted research until his final days.
The letter was acquired from the recipient's heirs and put on auction for the first time, according to the Raab auction house, considered to be one of the leading auctioneers handling historical documents in the United States.
According to the auction house, Einstein's letter serves as a precursor to his later, more scathing statements in his God Letter, including: "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."
Despite his clear statements, Einstein got upset with anyone who tried to classify him into any camp concerning a belief in God.
To atheists, he said, “There are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth.”
However, he also answered devout believers. “It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
In recent years, several of Einstein’s belongings have been sold at public auctions, including two notes he gave to a messenger who approached him at a hotel in Japan, in which he wrote his theory of happiness, which were sold at public auction in Jerusalem for $1.3 million.
In one of the notes, he wrote that “A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.” In the second note, he simply wrote, "Where there's a will, there's a way."