The Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities (795,000 Pounds Sterling in 2003) was until 2001 ...for Progress in Religion.

The Templeton Prize was established in 1972 and is awarded annually by the Templeton Foundation to a living person who, in the estimation of the judges, best exemplifies "trying various ways for discoveries and breakthroughs to expand human perceptions of divinity and to help in the acceleration of divine creativity", ...including research in love, creativity, purpose, infinity, intelligence, thanksgiving and prayer.

The prize is named after Sir John Templeton, an American entrepreneur and businessman, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1987 for his philanthropic efforts.

Prize winners

Past winners include:

• 2005 Charles Townes, Nobel Prize laureate, physicist (inventions include the maser and laser)
• 2004 cosmologist George Ellis
• 2003 Holmes Rolston III
• 2002 Reverend Dr. John Polkinghorne
• 2001 Reverend Canon Dr. Arthur Peacocke
• 2000 physicist Freeman Dyson
• 1999 Ian Barbour
• 1996 Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright
• 1995 theoretical physicist Paul Davies
• 1983 author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• 1982 evangelist Billy Graham
• 1973 Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who received the first prize

Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims have been on the panel of judges and have been recipients.

External links

• Templeton Foundation
• Templeton Prize
  • Purpose