Kurt Godel and God (from the TLS)
in-library use Literature RPL
letters to the editor
"Sir, - In his review of Gottesbewesie von Anselm bis Godel, edited by Joachim Bromand and Guido Kreis (Sept. 2, 2011), George Steiner states that Kurt "Godel himself probably did not believe in God."
Although I have not yet read the book reviewed, I take it that the source for this is Godel's remark to Oskar Morgenstern in 1970 to the effect that he feared that publishing his proof of God's existence would lead people to think he actually believed in God. The picture is complicated, however, by the fact that over the years, Godel expressed an unequivocal belief in God in a number of places. To mention three: his philosophical notebooks of the 1940s (publication of which is being prepared by a team led by Professor Gabriella Crocco in Aix en-Provence, of which I am a member); a series of letters to his mother in 1961, published in Volume IV of the Collected Works; and a draft reply of 1975 to a questionaire by the sociologist Burke Grandjean, where he specified that "My belief is theistic not panthesitic (following Liebniz rather than Spinoza)"..."
Mark Van Atten
Inst. History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Paris
Times Literary Supplement
Oct 14, 2011
in-library use Literature RPL
Kurt Godel in the catalog