The main differences between the conceptions of God by Einstein, Hawking, Spinoza, and traditional Christianity can be characterized as follows:

1.

Diverse Visions of Divinity

The main differences between the conceptions of God by Einstein, Hawking, Spinoza, and traditional Christianity can be characterized as follows:

1. Einstein envisioned God as an intelligent, creative force – the first cause of the Universe – but denied that this God possessed personal attributes. He explained that the God who initiated everything is not a "person" and, in his view, attributing personal traits to Him contradicts the logic of human responsibility: “If this entity is almighty, then every event and every occurrence is the work of His hands, including every human action...

How then can one speak of human responsibility for his deeds?

” (source: link txt).

2. Hawking, on the other hand, attempted to explain the emergence of the Universe through physical laws and mathematical hypotheses, such as the quantum singularity hypothesis and the idea that “an unimaginable void transforms into an existing reality – a reality of logical physical laws.” Despite his physical approach, his reasoning leads to the conclusion that a first cause is necessary, which can be considered as a Creator God, although he intentionally refuses the answers offered by the Bible.

3. Spinoza offers a completely different picture: for him, God is an all-encompassing being in which both the ideal and the real manifest themselves. He asserted that “everything is known to us in God,” and that the existence of ideas and objects are merely different expressions of one and the same, identical being (source: 12_6341. txt). This concept excludes dualism and emphasizes the inseparable connection between mind and nature, which is fundamentally different from the views of both Einstein and Hawking.

4. Traditional Christianity, unlike the aforementioned concepts, proclaims a personal God, who is the Creator and an active participant in the historical and moral development of humanity. This God not only initiates existence but also establishes personal relationships with people, as reflected in biblical revelation—a view rejected by both Einstein and Hawking.

Thus, it can be noted that Einstein saw God as an impersonal creative force, Hawking attempted to build a cosmology based on physical laws while admitting the need for a first cause, Spinoza maintained the ideal unity of being, and traditional Christianity insists on a personal, revealed God.

Supporting citation(s):

“When the rabbis and priests came to congratulate Einstein on his discovery of God, he admitted that he believed in a God who initiated the Universe, possessed intelligence and creative power, yet was not a person. Of course, the clergy had a ready reply to Einstein’s denial: how can an intelligent and creative entity not be a person? Einstein dismissed their objections by offering them a paradox of God’s omnipotence and human responsibility for one’s choices: ‘If this entity is almighty, then every event and every occurrence is the work of His hands, including every human action, every thought, every feeling, and every desire. How then can one speak of personal responsibility for one’s deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Entity?’” (source: 1890_9449. txt)

“In Hawking’s honor, he later acknowledged in ‘A Brief History of Time’ that the whole idea was ‘merely an assumption: it cannot be derived from any other principle.’ A WEAK POINT OF THE HYPOTHESIS Even if Hawking’s hypotheses were true, the existence of a Creator God could not be avoided. This is explained by theoretical physicist Heinz Pägels: ‘The unimaginable void transforms into an existing reality – the reality of logical physical laws. But how are these laws inscribed in the void? What “tells” the void that it is pregnant with a possible Universe? It seems that even the void obeys a law and logic that existed before space and time.’” (source: link txt)

“With Spinoza, we have a thinker who not only, in principle like Malebranche, overcomes the epistemological individualism and Cartesian dualism, but also consistently carries out the viewpoint of objective ideal–realism throughout his system; and it is precisely because of this that his ontological proof forms the basis and central idea of his system. The ontological proof of God’s existence appears in many diverse formulations in Spinoza’s work; we will only consider those that possess genuine originality and are connected with the main idea of his system. Spinoza, much like Malebranche, acknowledges that—everything is known to us in God, i.e., all our true ideas are in fact ideas in God’s mind (Eth. II, prop. 7 coroll, rg. 8, prop. II coroll, prop. 34, prop. 46 schol. Eth. V, pr. 30, and in other places). But, unlike Malebranche, he establishes the general principle that the ideal and the real being, or the being of ideas and the being of objects, are merely two different expressions of one and the same, self-identical being” (source: 12_6341. txt).