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Einstein, Polanyi, and the
laws of Nature
Einstein, Polanyi,
and the
laws of Nature
Lydia Jaeger
Templeton Press
300 Conshohocken State Road, Suite 550
West Conshohocken, PA 19428
www.templetonpress.org
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechani-
cal, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of
Templeton Press.
10 11 12 13 14 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my parents, who taught me
to love God and to love his Creation
Contents
Preface ix
Part 1: Michael Polanyi: Personal
Knowledge without Relativism 1
Introduction 3
Chapter 1: Michael Polanyi’s Theory of Knowledge 9
Chapter 2: The Realism of the Polanyian Program 23
Chapter 3: Paths of Exploration 39
Conclusion 45
Part 2: Albert Einstein: From the Exclusively
Personal to Cosmic Religion 47
Introduction 49
Chapter 1: The Man and His Work 55
Chapter 2: Einstein’s Scientific Program 71
Chapter 3: The Cosmic Religion 83
Conclusion 131
Part 3: The Concept of the Law of
Nature in the Bible and in Science 133
Introduction 135
Chapter 1: The Biblical Record 139
Contents
Chapter 2: The Historical Record 171
Chapter 3: The Philosophical Record 189
Conclusion 213
At the End . . . 215
Afterword by Henri Blocher 217
Appendix: The Natural Order in the Bible 231
Notes 235
Index 307
viii
Preface
x
Preface
only enable us to get to know an original thinker, who continues to
attract an audience, but will also lead us to confront a question that is
central to contemporary intellectual culture and that some describe
as postmodern: how can we move beyond a vision of the world
in which the knowing (and acting) subject has no place, without
thereby falling into some kind of frantic relativism? To answer this
question is to give faith back its rightful place in public life. Michael
Polanyi is not the only one to have seen in this the path to resolution
of the crisis that characterizes broad areas of modern thought and
culture.
The second author studied in this book needs no introduction:
Albert Einstein has become the symbol of the man of science, or
even the sage. And his discoveries abundantly justify the place he
is accorded in the gallery of first-rate scientists. Of the two theories
that revolutionized physics in the twentieth century, he is (nearly)
the sole author of the first (the theory of relativity), and he has con-
tributed significantly to the second (quantum mechanics). It is cer-
tainly worthwhile to study the place that one of the great thinkers of
the twentieth century (or indeed the greatest?) occupies in the dia-
logue between science and faith.
The approach here will be different than that chosen for Polany-
ian thought. Einstein’s epistemology has received thorough atten-
tion and is well known. Einstein’s religious convictions are thus what
will be of particular interest to us here. For a thinker of his stature,
it is not surprising that his religious convictions are not cut off from
his scientific practice, which he understood to be a religious activ-
ity. Within the framework of predominantly pantheist thought—the
father of relativity referred to Spinoza—science is an expression of
love for the Divine.
Einstein presents us with one of the possible answers to the ques-
tion of the relationship between science and faith. Quite apart from
the author’s celebrity, this answer deserves our consideration, for it
is frequently given. In Einstein’s writings, it appears in a particularly
limpid form, which makes it an archetype. We who look at the rela-
tionship between science and faith from a biblical perspective must
be familiar with this other answer, and the effort required to under-
stand it will stimulate our own thinking. In particular, we will be
xi
Preface
brought to ask ourselves whether pantheism is a religious approach
that can really account for the presuppositions necessary for science.
The third part of this book is devoted to examining a theme that
can show us the way to interdisciplinary dialogue. In several places,
the Hebrew Bible mentions a word, a law of God governing natural
phenomena (cf. Job 28:26; 38:10–11; Jer. 31:35–36). At the same time,
the expression “laws of nature” is used in modern scientific prac-
tice, and many see the study of these laws as a fundamental aspect
of research. Here is what Pierre Jacob has to say on the subject:
“Although the scientific approach undoubtedly has no single goal,
we are right to affirm that in science we seek to discover the laws of
nature, and to confirm them by proofs or to disprove them by coun-
ter-examples.”2
Is this similarity of expression merely a manner of speech, with-
out a true and deep concordance? Or is it possible to establish a link
between biblical and scientific usage? These questions will be asked
on both the historical level (did biblical language influence or even
give birth to the scientific idea?) and the conceptual level (what
similarities and what differences exist between biblical and scientific
modes of expression?).
In studying a common theme in Holy Scripture and in science,
we will be confronted with a question at the heart of the dialogue
between science and (Christian) faith: Does biblical monotheism
provide a conceptual framework appropriate to scientific activity?
More precisely, does science presuppose, perhaps implicitly (without
really remembering it), faith in a Creator God? Studying the idea of
laws of nature will thus serve as an example, I hope, to show how
religious presuppositions influence and direct the natural sciences.
The various sections of this work are thus exploratory forays into
the field of investigation that lies on the border between science, the
philosophy of science, and theology. They are born of the work that
has occupied my research in these three areas. After studying phys-
ics at the University of Cologne (Germany) and theology at the Fac-
ulté libre de théologie évangélique of Vaux-sur-Siene (Yvelines), I am
currently devoting myself to the history and philosophy of sciences
at the Sorbonne. The time has come to express my gratitude to the
professors of these different institutions, who have shaped my think-
xii
Preface
ing and encouraged me to persevere in this interdisciplinary effort.
They thus helped me to define the fundamental conviction that has
motivated this journey: there is no schism between science and faith;
they are both practices, different, of course, but not contradictory, of
human beings who are called to live in this world, which is a creation
of God.
Some remarks may help readers to orient themselves in the book.
The three parts are largely independent of one another and can thus
be read in whatever order one would like. Even though I have made
an effort to bring out the links among the different themes studied
when the occasion arose, it is certainly possible to grasp the essential
arguments of each section without reading the other two.
When I speak of science without further qualification, I always
mean the natural sciences of modern times. Though this manner of
speaking is typical of the arrogance of “scientists” in “modern” times
(both expressions repeat the same pretension), it is useful and reflects
the fact that the natural sciences have their own methodology, which
is distinct from that of the human sciences. Unless otherwise indi-
cated, mathematics is included in “science.” The “exact sciences” are
first and foremost mathematics and physics, followed by the other
natural sciences to the extent that their approach adheres to the
model established by physics. By “human sciences,” I mean such dis-
ciplines as sociology, economics, politics, the arts, ethics, and theol-
ogy.
I am often inspired by physics (particularly when studying the
concept of law of nature), since physics is often thought of as the very
model of an exact science, and its results are sometimes more cer-
tain than those of other sciences. This particular emphasis reflects
my own training but does not question the legitimacy of the meth-
ods specific to other sciences. Above all, I do not intend this way of
speaking to convey a reductionist view of how human beings appre-
hend reality. By “modern” science I mean science as practiced since
Isaac Newton. For the science in place since the formulation of the
theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, I will use the adjective
“contemporary.”
I wish to express my deepest thanks to all those without whom
this work would never have seen the light of day. Numerous discus-
xiii
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