"The sublimity and the beauty of the world as described by modern science do not rest, for Dworkin, on the elegance and the simplicity of its equations and on the striking symmetries it has uncovered."

Can You Have ReligionWithout God?

By  MOSHE HALBERTAL

"The sublimity and the beauty of the world as described by modern science do not rest, for Dworkin, on the elegance and the simplicity of its equations and on the striking symmetries it has uncovered. For Dworkin, its sublimity flows from the inevitability and integrity ascribed to it by an Einstein-like stance. In this respect, the aesthetic qualities of the Spinozistic universe resemble the features that make a work of art beautiful and arresting. Any change in color or line in a great painting will affect its totality; every feature in it is intrinsically necessary. When the beauty of a painting dawns on us, it has a compelling power of inevitability; it arrests our will. If, as I believe, what distinguishes the religious sensibility from the strictly secular is not the concept of God but the category of the holy, such works of art are like the sacred. Their integrity and inevitability are inherent to them; they are not ours to mess with. It is for this reason that the destruction of a work of art feels sacrilegious, and that certain aspects of modern technological hubris are, for the ecological sensibility, not only wrong but also sinful. Religion without God does not endorse any form of worship, but it certainly calls for reverence.'