A letter attributed to Time magazine's Man of the Century espouses the centuries-old argument that anything can happen with time. In the correspondence, Albert Einstein maintains that belief in G‑d is childish.
I totally agree.
Intelligent people make the best of the intelligible, subjecting reality to their reality of things. Ask a believing adult to prove G‑d's existence and he will point to everything that exists in his own existence. Ask a child and he will tell you that "proofs" are immaterial: it says, "In the beginning G‑d created heaven and earth."
When praying, grown men tend to paint He who created man in His image, in their own. To the immature child, however, G‑d simply exists and he prays to Him simply. In his responsa, the great Talmudic authority Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet (the "Rivash") proudly publicizes that he prays from a child's perspective.
Theologians and philosophers can discuss G‑d's immanence, transcendence, and perhaps His essence. Yet, it takes an innocent child to appreciate G‑d's essential simplicity. It was Einstein himself who said, "God always takes the simplest way." A child knows that way.
A proverbial statement says, "The naive believe everything," and our sages go so far as to attribute that naiveté to Moses himself. He who had seen the Almighty face to face could have also believed at face value.
At the most mature level, one serves G‑d with the innocent immaturity of a child. Ignorance can truly be bliss.
