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Albert Einstein, a German scientist, set forth a scientific theory that many writers and philosophers used to cast additional doubt upon the Scriptural and moral standards of Americans. Since the days of Sir Isaac Newton, scientists and philosophers had believed in an orderly world ruled by natural laws discovered by the scientific method. Through reason and common sense man could comprehend the universe, which was certain and machinelike. This comfortable view was shattered by Einstein's theory of relativity - that space, time, and matter are not absolute dimensions but are relative to the location and motion of the observer. By 1929 a Harvard mathematician confessed, "The physicist thus finds himself in a world from which the bottom has dropped clean out." Seemingly, the absolutes of science were no longer absolute, and, unfortunately, many Americans erroneously transferred Einstein's ideas to the spiritual realm. (Einstein himself opposed this use of his theory.) According to their faulty reasoning, Scripture could no longer be considered as absolute truth. Thus, they thought they were free of its moral restraints and responsibilities because these values were dependent upon the observer.
United States History Textbook, Bob Jones Curriculum, Third Edition
