Spirituality Research Backed by Templeton Fosters Plenty of Skepticism

Last year, when Robert Wuthnow sought money to study how people who receive social services in eastern

Pennsylvania perceive the groups that deliver them, he turned to the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, a grant-making and research organization housed at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland. He did so, however, with some trepidation.

The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, which this month held its first “Works of Love” conference for researchers, has received $4-million from the John Templeton Foundation, in Radnor, Pa., which hands out more than $20-million in grants annually, most of them to groups that perform research on spiritual matters or make grants to those that do. The foundation’s attempts to encourage scientists to seek knowledge linked to spirituality has become a concern for some scientists who believe that science and religion should not be mixed. Some researchers, such as Mr. Wuthnow, have worried that the foundation’s focus on the value of spirituality could taint how research it backs is perceived.

The grant maker’s founder, the mutual-fund multimillionaire John M. Templeton, says that uncovering how spirituality affects behavior can help people overcome health ailments and, possibly, societies overcome their ills, such as poverty. Some of the foundation’s grants have gone to examine the relationship between spirituality and health, as well as to investigations that look at the nature of love and altruism.

Although the Fetzer Institute, a private operating foundation in Kalamazoo, Mich., backs many of the same programs as Templeton, sources of foundation support for spiritual research remain few. Some scientists say their work would be threatened without Templeton dollars.

“I’m not sure if this field of inquiry would exist without Templeton money,” says Stephen G. Post, president of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love.

Focus on ‘Positive Behavior’

The idea for the institute was born sometime after Mr. Post, a professor of bioethics in Case Western’s School of Medicine, was asked by the Templeton Foundation to lead a seminar on empathy and altruism in 1999. A year later, Templeton made a $4-million commitment to help start the institute, with a promise of another $4-million if the organization could find matching funds. (It hasn’t yet, Mr. Post says, although a couple of foundations, which Mr. Post declined to identify, have begun discussions with the institute. Mr. Post says he spends 30 to 40 hours per month courting individual donors and grant makers.) By 2001, Mr. Post had begun accepting grant applications from researchers who wanted to explore “unlimited love,” a term referring to love of all humanity that was coined by John M. Templeton in one of his books on spirituality.

The institute has made grants to groups that study the effect of human development on love and empathy, how love or the lack of it affects physical and mental health, and how the concept of love has evolved as humankind has evolved. Other grantees, such as Mr. Wuthnow, have investigated services delivered by religious groups and whether they are more efficient and effective than those offered by secular organizations.

Even though concepts such as love are hard to measure scientifically, achieving a critical mass of research data on spirituality and certain types of behavior could be a boon to scientists and, potentially, the general populace, Mr. Post says.

“If we can back studies that show that living generously is good for people or that it enhances their longevity, if we can get epidemiological about that, then maybe people will question the belief held by many scientists that humans are little more than self-centered egoists,” says Mr. Post. “We don’t see science focusing all that much on positive behavior. It’s possible our grantees could have an impact there.”

Controversial Grants

As the largest of Templeton’s grantees, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love is subject to skepticism. Mr. Wuthnow, a professor of sociology at Princeton University and author of several books on volunteers and social-service groups, says he and other researchers are aware that taking a grant that originates with Templeton may invite unwanted controversy. The foundation’s belief in finding spiritual answers through scientific research may make observers wonder whether scientists have evinced a bias toward religion to secure their grant, he says.

“It’s a concern with everyone I know who has dealt with Templeton,” says Mr. Wuthnow, who nevertheless accepted $97,000 in grants from the institute. “As researchers, we need to be cautious about whom we accept money from.”

While the institute is located in Case Western Reserve’s medical school, the chairman of the university’s physics department says he has serious doubts about the value of research backed by the foundation, which he says tries to wed superstition with scientific fact.

“Templeton’s claim that scientific reason provides evidence of a loving God is ridiculous,” says Lawrence M. Krauss. He is bothered further by academics who accept money from Templeton, which he says uses researchers to back up its claims. “Academics will take money from wherever it comes. They should be aware that when they take it, they validate the ideas of those who give it to them,” Mr. Krauss says.

Freeman Dyson, a professor emeritus in physics at Princeton, and the winner in 2000 of what was then called the Templeton Prize in Religion, worth $1.1-million, adds that many research scientists are skeptical of religion. “I’m not a science and religion person,” Mr. Dyson says. “I thought that being awarded the Templeton Prize for my books, which have something to do with how a scientist looks at the world, was a bit weird.”

Templeton’s interest in encouraging research that highlights spiritual matters rankles more than simply the scientists who seek grants.

Paul Kurtz, professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and editor of a recently published collection of essays entitled Science and Religion (Prometheus Books), says that Templeton-supported inquiries are inherently biased.

“They’re beginning with a very pro-religious attitude,” says Mr. Kurtz, who also serves as chairman of the nonprofit Council for Secular Humanism, in Amherst, N.Y. “Those grants exist to prove that God exists. To further his beliefs, Mr. Templeton wants to bring scientists and religious people together in a hallelujah chorus of sorts.”

Mr. Post says that the institute’s grantees don’t work to espouse pie-in-the-sky religious claims or validate the greatness of any deity.

“We support people who are looking into ways to use knowledge of love to combat some of the ills of our time, such as social disconnectedness, violence, and religious hatred,” he says. About 20 percent of the institute’s grant money goes to research projects that don’t involve spirituality, such as a study on love and altruism that investigates autistic children, and another, led by a South African researcher and atheist, that investigates altruism in social groups of chimpanzees.

Mr. Templeton has also made clear that he doesn’t want to tie the hands of researchers who receive grants from his foundation. In documents stating the foundation’s mission, he writes that research the philanthropy supports should be “open-minded” and not tied to any particular religious belief.

For his part, Mr. Wuthnow says the institute’s grants fit that part of Mr. Templeton’s criteria. “What gives me reassurance about taking that grant is that whatever the predisposition of Sir John Templeton, the foundation’s application process is very professional,” says Mr. Wuthnow. His early research into whether social-service recipients are better served by religious organizations or secular ones indicates that nonreligious groups provide services more efficiently — and without the strings attached at programs that are trying to win converts to their faith, he says. “I’ve never seen any interest from the institute in finding religious answers to questions connected to those grants,” Mr. Wuthnow adds.