Sir John Templeton has been called the greatest financial investor of our time. Though he passed away in 2008, his legacy lives on in the form of the John Templeton Foundation, the charitable foundation he established in 1987. In keeping with Templeton’s own commitment to spiritual exploration through scientific means, one of the signature programs of the foundation includes the Templeton Prize, awarded annually to an individual who seek to answer spiritual questions by reasoning through science and faith.

The Templeton Prize is awarded for the purpose of honoring “a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.”  The award includes a monetary gift intended to support efforts of spiritual discovery. The amount awarded is adjusted annually to be always slightly higher than the Nobel Prize award; the 2012 prize was £1,100,000. Though Templeton was a member of the Presbyterian Church, he did not adhere to the traditional precepts of the church and remained open to other religions throughout his lifetime. He believed it to be presumptuous for any one religion to think that they had a monopoly on truth, and in his own personal life, he continually explored other faiths.

A core belief of Templeton, and a founding principle of the Templeton Award, is that scientific methods could and should be applied in the same way to spiritual discovery. In particular, the award seeks to recognize individuals who are answering the “big questions” of life, including the relationship of finite beings to the infinite, the best way for humans to live, God’s purpose in creation – and what role humanity played in fulfilling purpose.

The Prize does not claim to recognize any one particular religion, and past recipients have included followers of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Instead, the Prize awards a commitment to exploring the “big questions” that Templeton himself sought to answer in his lifetime. Under these broad guidelines, past recipients have been as varied as Cambridge astrophysicist Martin J. Rees, winner of the 2012 prize, and Pandurang Shastri Athavale, founder of the Swadhyaya movement. In the nearly 40-year span that the prize has ben awarded, only three recipients have been women. One of them, Mother Teresa, received the first Templeton Award in 1973. Many of the recipients come from academia and are individuals who found a delicate balance between the sometimes opposing forces of science and faith. Others are founders of religious movements who used their faith to serve the vulnerable and needy in their respective communities.

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