Address by Mr. John M. Templeton

The Templeton Awards are open to every child of God. Each year the selection is made by a panel of distinguished judges from at least four major religions. Each of the 12 Prize winners has been very different from each other. We rejoice in the increasingly rich diversity of religion. Millions of people in all nations are uplifted and inspired by studying the life and work of each prize recipient.

The Winner may benefit from the Prize; but the vastly greater benefit is for the millions of readers whose spiritual growth is enhanced by studying the life and work of each Awardee. Millions of readers learn that religion is progressive and dynamic. Nothing is more important than learning more about our infinite, omnipotent and all-loving creator.

Every person is a child of God. Therefore we are all brothers. Let us all then not only love each other but listen to each other and learn from each other. God is infinite and no human can know more than a tiny fraction of God. Therefore, in humility let us admit our ignorance and seek to listen and learn from every child of God who seeks to share with us his great inspirational visions. By listening we may learn. Loving competition with each child trying to share with others his most beautiful insights about God may enhance the vision of all.

God is beginning to create His Universe. How grateful we should be that he permits each of us to participate in some small way in his divine on-going creative process. God is revealing Himself more and more to the astronomers, physicists and geneticists. God is now revealing His creative processes of overwhelming beauty. By vast research in a single century scientists have multiplied our knowledge of God’s creations more than a thousand fold. His creative methods are awesome and beautiful beyond anything man previously imagined. Each revelation gives us new knowledge and new mysteries. By studying His creations we learn about the creator. We increase not only our understanding but also our love and gratitude to our divine creator. The majesty of His creations commands our awe and the depth of our worship and overwhelming thanksgiving for His millions of blessings and miracles.

God is thousands of millions of stars in the Milky Way and he is much more.

God is thousands of millions of stars in thousands of millions of other galaxies and He is much more.

Time and space and energy are all parts of God, and he is much more.

The awesome mysteries of magnetism, gravity, light and knowledge, imagination, memory, love, faith, gratitude, and joy are all part of God and He is much more.

God is four billion people on earth and He is much more.

God is untold billions of beings on planets of millions of other stars and He is much more.

God is all the things seen and also the vastly greater abundance of things unseen by man.

Men who dwell in three dimensions can comprehend only a little part of God’s multitude of dimensions.

God is the only reality — all else is fleeting shadow and imagination from our very limited live senses acting on our tiny brains.

God is beginning to create His universe and allows each of His children to participate in some small ways in this creative evolution.

God is the infinitely large and also the infinitely small — He is each of our inmost thoughts, each of our trillions of bodily cells, and each of the billions of wave patterns which are each cell.

God is all of you and you are a little part of Him.

Today you are most welcome as guests of the Templeton Foundation to participate in this ceremony in honour of the 12th Prize Awardee, who will be introduced now by the Rt. Hon. Edward du Cann, a statesman and Member of Parliament for more than 28 years. Mr. and Mrs. du Cann have been helpful advisers from the very beginning of the Templeton Foundation Programme of Prizes for Progress in Religion.