Templeton Prize

Templeton Prize, award presented annually to a living person who has “made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.” Though the prize is considered by some to be the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for religion, recipients may be of any profession, and emphasis is often placed on work that explores the intersections between spirituality and science.

The Templeton Prize was established in 1972 by John Marks Templeton, an American-born financial entrepreneur who sought to advance human knowledge of the universe through a broad set of intellectual approaches and an ecumenical perspective on spiritual progress. Believing the spiritual domain to be no less significant than other areas of scholarly endeavour, Templeton stipulated that the prize’s purse always exceed that of the Nobel Prize. Indeed, for many years the Templeton Prize was thought to be the world’s largest annual award given to an individual, and by 2009 the amount of its monetary gift had reached £1 million ($1.5 million). Sponsorship is provided by the John Templeton Foundation (founded 1987).

Recipients of the Templeton Prize are chosen by a nine-member panel of judges, whose ranks have included a diverse range of political leaders, religious figures, and scholars. The prize’s inaugural honoree, in 1973, was the Roman Catholic nun and charity worker Mother Teresa, and many other early laureates, such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, were recognized for work done on behalf of peace or social justice. Beginning in the 1990s, the prize was increasingly awarded to scientists—especially physicists, such as Freeman Dyson and Charles H. Townes—though some members of the scientific community criticized the prize for collapsing the distinction between religious and scientific inquiry.

Templeton Prize winners are provided in the table.