5 .sx CONCLUSION :sx THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CREATIONIST TRADITION TO TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHYSICS ( EINSTEIN AND BOHR ) .sx We have traced the history of the creationist tradition in relation to the physical sciences from the second century BC through to the nineteenth century AD .sx Major contributors to the sciences during those twenty-one centuries were frequently inspired by the belief that God had created all things in accordance with laws of his own devising , laws which made the world comprehensible to humans and gave the world a degree of unity and relative autonomy , and that God had sent his Son and poured out his Spirit to initiate a worldwide ministry of healing and restoration .sx We have also found that the creationist tradition began to unravel in the twelfth century with the polarization between theologies emphasizing the workings of nature and the truths of reason , on the one hand , and the supernatural and the suprarational mysteries of revelation , on the other .sx This was not a conflict between science and religion .sx Both sides of the issue were rooted in the creationist tradition and both made significant contributions to the development of science .sx At various junctures , attempts were made to synthesize nature and supernature in a recovery of biblical thought , often in conjunction with extrabiblical philosophies like those of Aristotle , Neoplatonism and Hermeticism .sx Nonetheless , the process of fragmentation and secularization continued to reassert itself until the decline of the creationist outlook as an international , public tradition in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries .sx It is beyond dispute that the creationist tradition made significant contributions to the rise and development of both medieval and classical ( seventeenth to nineteenth century ) physics .sx The major breakthroughs in astronomy , medicine , mechanics , chemistry , thermodynamics , and electricity and magnetism were all associated with theological ideas related to God and creation .sx It would appear , however , that the triumph in the nineteenth century of individualism in religion and professionalism in the sciences had severely reduced the likelihood that scientific developments of the twentieth century would be embedded in a similar theological matrix .sx Certainly physicists of the twentieth century are more diverse in their religious beliefs .sx Many would be reluctant to identify themselves with any theological tradition at all .sx And even where particular beliefs may be held privately , they are not as likely to play a dynamic role in the choice of science as a profession or in the quest for insight into nature as they were in medieval and early modern times .sx In any case , scientists no longer include prayers in their professional writings , as Kepler did , or draw attention to the existence of God , as Maxwell still did as late as the 1870s .sx The most that can be said is that a few scientists have allowed the possibility of God's existence in their more popular writings .sx In this final section , however , we shall argue that remnants of the creationist tradition played a key role in the foundations of twentieth-century physics in the work of its two principal founders , Albert Einstein ( 1879-1955 ) and Niels Bohr ( 1885-1962) .sx We cannot hope to do justice to the philosophies of either Einstein or Bohr in their own right - we shall not even treat them separately .sx But we must ask what contribution , if any , the creationist tradition has made in the case of these two figures that form a bridge from the nineteenth to the twentieth century .sx If ideas and beliefs have a momentum of their own , we might expect to find traces of the same beliefs in their work that inspired their predecessors , particularly those in the tradition of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell , whom Einstein and Bohr so admired and emulated .sx It is a well known fact that Einstein and Bohr differed strongly on many issues , particularly ones concerning the adequacy of the quantum-mechanical formalism , the development of which they both did so much to further .sx Einstein's 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect first showed that light was quantized in units ( later called 'photons' ) whose momentum and energy were directly related to the wavelength and frequency of the light waves .sx It is to Einstein also that we owe the mathematical formula for the probability of the radiation of light from an atom ( 1916) .sx Subsequently , the ideas of discontinuity and statistical explanation became basic ingredients of quantum mechanics .sx Despite Einstein's pioneering work in these areas , he himself insisted on continuity and completeness of dynamical description ( not to be equated with 'determinism' in the classical sense ) and saw this as required by the field theory of Faraday and Maxwell .sx Bohr's 1913 theory of the hydrogen atom provided the first working model of the new mechanics describing the interaction of atoms and light .sx Bohr also provided the most influential interpretation of the fully developed quantum mechanics of the late 1920s with his principles of 'correspondence' and 'complementarity' .sx Unlike Einstein , however , he judged these developments to be consistent with overall principles of natural philosophy and argued for their being foundational , if not final , in the progress of modern physics .sx Whereas Einstein pointed to Maxwell's field theory as the precedent for his own work , Bohr looked back to the beginnings of atomic theory under Maxwell and his successors , J.J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford .sx Culturally , Einstein and Bohr were both products of late nineteenth - century European culture .sx Ethnically a German Jew , Einstein was steeped in the literature of nineteenth-century German philosophy ; Bohr was raised in cosmopolitan Copenhagen ( his mother was also Jewish ) , where the primary influences mediated were those of nineteenth-century England and Germany .sx He further came " under the spell of Cambridge and the inspiration of the great English physicists " ( Thomson , Jeans , Larmor , and Rutherford ) during his post - graduate studies in 1911-12 .sx Though religion was not taken seriously in either of their families , both Einstein and Bohr struggled with religious questions in their youths .sx And both expressed appreciation for the religious sense as that was understood in the liberal , romantic vein of the nineteenth century .sx Einstein spoke of a " cosmic religious feeling " that was common to creative scientists and religious mystics alike .sx Bohr referred to a " universal religious feeling " that exists in every age , particularly among poets , and which is in intimate harmony with insight into nature .sx Both Einstein and Bohr recognized the great religious and philosophical traditions of other cultures , though , it should be noted that they knew Indian and Chinese thought mostly through the German adaptations of Schopenhauer and Schiller .sx Einstein developed his own version of certain fundamental Jewish truths he once identified as " Mosaic" .sx Bohr was well versed in the German poets , particularly Schiller and Goethe .sx He was also fond of Kierkegaard's Stages on Life's Way , though he did not agree with the thought of Kierkegaard as a whole .sx The reason why neither Einstein nor Bohr were willing to adopt a positive theological stance was that they both associated religious teachings and formal doctrine with narrow-mindedness .sx After a brief period of religious devotion in his youth , Einstein rejected what he called the " anthropomorphic character " of the " God of Providence " as portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and eschewed any suggestion of personality in God or of the miraculous in his dealings with humans .sx Einstein's unfavourable references to the " moral religion " and the " social or moral conception of God " in this connection suggests that he associated the idea of a personal God with the pragmatism that characterized much German religion , both Jewish and Christian , in his early years .sx Bohr was opposed , in principle , to any formal system or dogma that claimed to be the whole truth .sx Even with respect to his own attempt at a universal synthesis , the principle of complementarity , he disavowed any overall system or doctrine of ready-made precepts , and he never attempted to give a formal definition .sx Accordingly , he thought of religion primarily in terms of a " universal feeling " and rejected any attempt to " freeze it " in terms of the concepts of any given period of human history .sx Bohr referred to the anthropomorphic notion of a supernatural power with whom people could bargain for favours as a figment of primitive imaginations , and did not take the possibility of historical revelation seriously .sx It is likely that both Einstein and Bohr were influenced in their views by the evolutionary theory of religion developed by Herbert Spencer , Edward Tylor , and Andrew Lang .sx Einstein , in particular , described an evolution of religion from a primitive stage , in which humans conceived of God in their own image , through the higher religions of social and moral value to the vision , held by a few , of a cosmic God .sx The fact that for Einstein and Bohr the biblical teachings of the synagogue and church had little to do with the serious issues of science and society serves to confirm our observations concerning the decline of the creationist tradition in Western culture .sx Since the twelfth century , miracle had become increasingly viewed as the antithesis of natural law , and faith in a personal God had been gradually isolated from its moorings in the history of nature and culture .sx The positive faith of Einstein and Bohr , however , points to another important fact , seemingly at variance with the first :sx the survival of creationist themes in the absence of the tradition that originally mediated and sustained them .sx If we were to characterize the primary object of the respective faiths of Einstein and Bohr with a single word , that word would be " harmony" .sx Both Einstein and Bohr spoke of harmony in metaphysical , and even reverential , terms that would traditionally have been reserved for God .sx For Einstein , the physical world was an incarnation of reason which , though manifest in various laws and principles , was inaccessible to the human mind in its profoundest depths .sx Thus physics itself was a quest of religious proportions .sx The true scientist was enraptured by " the harmony of natural law , which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that , compared with it , all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection " .sx The enterprise of physics , as Einstein understood it , was based on the conviction that the entire cosmos was governed by what Leibniz had called the " pre-established harmony " of the parts .sx For instance , when Einstein described the work of Max Planck - discoverer of the quantum of action ( 1900 ) - he used words , as his most recent biographer , Abraham Pais , has pointed out , that described his own conviction and experience as well as Planck's :sx The longing to behold .sx .. pre-established harmony is the source of the inexhaustible persistence and patience with which we see Planck devoting himself to the most general problems of our science without letting himself be deflected by goals which are more profitable and easier to achieve .sx .. The emotional state which enables such achievements is similar to that of the religious person or the person in love ; the daily pursuit does not originate from a design or a programme [of one's own choice or invention] but from a direct need .sx .sx This statement may readily be compared to the teachings of Church fathers like Irenaeus and Basil or the writings of Christian natural philosophers like Paracelsus and Bacon , or Kepler and Newton .sx It shares with them its ideal of selfless service as well as its belief in the unity and harmony of the world .sx It also indicates that , however much he reacted against the current understanding of the 'personality' of God , Einstein's experience of the divine presence was not entirely an impersonal one like that generally associated with Spinoza , with which Einstein's theological views are often compared .sx The quest of the scientist is compared to the religious affections and the passion of a person in love .sx Einstein once stated that he read the Hebrew Bible often ( in German translation ) , and he particularly admired the cosmic sense of the Psalms and some of the Prophets .sx At age eighteen , the young Einstein had cited strenuous labour and contemplation of God's nature as " the angels which , reconciling , fortifying , and yet mercilessly severe , will guide me through the tumult of life " .sx Undoubtedly , the reference to angels here is a figure of speech for Einstein , but the sense of personal calling and guidance was very real , and it never left him .sx