It’s a treasured notion for William Grassie, executive director of the Metanexus Institute in Philadelphia which administers the Templeton Research Lectures program. Grassie says he’s also fond of a line from Rig Veda, the oldest of Hindu Scriptures: “The truth is one, but the wise call it by many names.”

Finding more names for truth, of course, is central to the Templeton Research Lectures, which recently announced topics for its upcoming 2005-2007 series. This goal is becoming increasingly crucial as the global pace of scientific discovery continues to accelerate. More facts can create more factions, however, so the program fosters an interdisciplinary approach to act as a catalyst for original research and progress.

Over the next three years, a trio of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions will consider diverse topics. The University of Frankfurt will address the issue, “Co-Creator or Product of Nature? The Human Person in the Light of Neurophilosophy, Biofacticity, and Evolutionary Biology.” Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania will look at “Mind, Religion and Ethics in Dialogue.” While, “Scales and Hierarchies: Implications for Science and Religion,” will be the topic at Vanderbilt University.

“The last two decades have seen enormous advances and there is a lot of new information to be considered, especially in the realm of cognitive neuroscience. New technologies are driving this,” said Grassie, while talking of the upcoming series. “How do religious traditions understand human society and the meaning and purpose thereof? Any science that deals with the human person is directly in the territory of theological anthropology.”

In recent years, places as far afield as the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Bar Ilan in Israel have hosted the Templeton Research Lectures. Meanwhile the funding, scope and intellectual ambitions of the series have steadily grown, so that three- and four-year grants are now available, each totaling close to $500,000.

Dr. Thomas M. Schmidt, professor of philosophy of religion at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, notes that Frankfurt is the first European city chosen to host this lecture series. “Co-Creator or Product of Nature?” will take an in-depth look at recent developments in biotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence that are, Schmidt believes, bringing about fundamental changes in the way we perceive life.

“Frequently, when people talk about such things — say, genetic engineering — they focus on ethical questions, but we are taking a more theoretical point of view,” he explained. “Developmental changes are blurring basic categories and how we think about differences between what’s living or dead, grown or fabricated, real or artificial. The word ‘biofacticity’ tries to capture some of these challenges.”

The Frankfurt lectures are especially timely, Schmidt suggested, as a fundamental change is occurring in how religion is studied at European universities; what he calls “the classical, academic approach to religion” is currently under attack.

“Spiritual beliefs are an aspect of consciousness, and belief in God is a very specific kind of mental content,” Schmidt said. “Traditionally, on the continent we’ve treated such questions as part of the humanities — we read books about them and consider them through cultural studies. It’s hermeneutical. What’s new is that consciousness and mental phenomena are now becoming the object of scientific study. We hope, then, to re-establish philosophy as a third party in the science and theology debate.”

Given the Aristotelian value placed on holding contradictory thoughts, it is perhaps appropriate that the very approach that Schmidt decries is the topic of study planned for Philadelphia.

“The relationship of the human brain to our religious and spiritual experiences has been a passion of mine for over a decade,” said Andrew Newberg, assistant professor in the departments of radiology and psychiatry, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Concentrating on “Mind, Religion and Ethics in Dialogue,” he feels, will be an important opportunity to draw together activities in such disparate areas as cognitive neuroscience, bioethics, and neuroethics.

“There have been a lot of individuals doing their own thing, but it’s never been put together before,” he said. “We will bring together psychologists, anthropologists, neuroscientists, and religious studies scholars. I think the Templeton Research Lectures will galvanize things and push the whole field forward.”

Asked to describe kinds of research the program may embark on, Newberg spoke of brain imaging and the parietal lobe. “This is an area of the brain that takes sensory information and provides an orientation in space — basically it relates us to the rest of the world. During prayer and meditation, we have found a decrease of activity in this area. I argue that this suggests a blurring between a sense of self and the outside world depending on the sort of spiritual practice. We’re only in the early stages, but this has enormous implications for mental and physical health.”

Newberg talks easily of convening various scholars — psychologists, anthropologists, and neuroscientists — yet the difficult ways these disciplines are “ranked” or schematized within the academy is currently being scrutinized in “Scales and Hierarchies: Implications for Science and Religion” at Vanderbilt University.

“We are begging the question of hierarchy; we don’t think there is a superior science,” said Dr. Volney P. Gay, professor of religious studies and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture.

“What, though, is the implication for universities if we take the problem of scale seriously? Let’s consider how we organize not only nature, but our studies of nature, into narrow slices. How do we deal with those above and below? Do issues of reductionism and emergence appear?” Volney asked. “How do we talk about the all, the everything, the wholeness? This grant from Templeton is energizing us to ask questions that are both theologically and scientifically interesting.”

“Fact is, in American culture, nobody cares very much about what a physicist says about electrons,” said Richard Haglund, professor of physics at Vanderbilt. “But let a social scientist talk about the motives or behaviors of human beings, and this suddenly is a great big deal. There are hierarchies of knowledge — the question is whose interpretation is considered authoritative, who gets to tell the story?”

As he discusses the all-too-human tendency to engage in turf wars, Haglund mentions an insight culled from The Varieties of Religious Experience. “William James talks about a ‘passion for certainty which, in some minds, is insatiate,’” he said. “This problem has become urgent, especially in America. I think it is one of the pathologies that we have to deal with both in the academy and society.”

“What Haglund says is true,” Grassie concurred. “Psychologically, we have varying degrees of ability to deal with uncertainty. Just because we wish for certainty, doesn’t mean it is ours to have.”

“The Templeton Research Lectures,” he concluded, “are designed to maximize the possibilities that we will discover truth, beauty and goodness in all their manifestations. We are not pushing conclusions. We are pushing a process.”

Links of Interest
Templeton Research Lectures

The deadline for new research proposals is January 1, 2006.

Stephen Henderson is a Manhattan-based journalist and a frequent contributor to Milestones.

To receive a free monthly copy of Milestones by direct mail, please forward your request and address to milestoneseditor@templeton.org. To subscribe to any of the Foundation’s various free e-mail newsletters, including Milestones, go to our JTF Newsletter Subscriptions page.

Milestones is a publication of the John Templeton Foundation.