Associate Professor of Philosophy Ian Church received a record-breaking $2.5 million grant from the Templeton Foundation Oct. 24 to fund a three-year research project titled “Virtues and Vices of Spiritual Yearning.” 

The grant is the largest any faculty member at Hillsdale College has ever received, surpassing a previous $2.3 million grant awarded to Church in 2021 for a research project examining experimental philosophy of religion.

“I was absolutely delighted to learn that the Templeton Foundation approved funding for this project,” Church said. “I’m especially excited about what this could mean for my students: research assistantships, mentorship opportunities, and genuine engagement with field-building scholarship. It’s super exciting!”

Church said his project will explore the potential pitfalls of yearning for spiritual fulfillment. 

“It seems like there are vices on either end of the spectrum here,” Church said. “On the one hand, you have the vice of being completely spiritually unsatisfied, and how that corresponds with all sorts of poor mental health outcomes. On the other hand, we might worry that someone who is maximally spiritually satisfied isn’t necessarily virtuous either, because they might be less curious, more dogmatic, or more tribalistic.”

Provost Christopher VanOrman said the grant reflects both the strength of Hillsdale’s scholarship and the freedom faculty are given to pursue their research.

Church said the project will argue that the ideal virtuous state is one where humans are forever yearning for the divine but never fully satisfied — at least in this world.

“We want to try to explore this both from a theoretical and an empirical perspective, and we want to be able to address it from a wide range of perspectives,” Church said. “We don’t want this to be just a spiritual yearning as conceived from the Judeo-Christian perspective, and so we want to get a wide range of applicants from other theological traditions.”

The Templeton Foundation, founded by billionaire investor John Templeton in 1987, awards more than $150 million a year in the form of research grants. The foundation seeks to “support interdisciplinary research and catalyze conversations that inspire awe and wonder,” according to its website.

Church’s grant will fund a broad array of academic research: at least 25 scholarly articles, 24 conference presentations, two major conferences, two popular-level articles, and an open access special issue of a scholarly journal.

While Church will have to teach one less class each semester due to the increased workload, he said the research project will benefit Hillsdale students in other ways.

“Through these kinds of projects, I’m able to hire research assistantships and bring in opportunities that students otherwise wouldn’t have access to,” Church said. “We’ve had recent graduates who’ve gone to the University of Southern California, Notre Dame, all these top grad programs. And that’s in part because they did some work with me as research assistants. That really sets them apart in a competitive market.” 

Freshman Celine Ibrahim said Church’s new grant gives added weight to the core philosophy class she is taking with him.

“The fact that he received this grant shows that people still have a deep desire to understand the human condition,” Ibrahim said. “We still care about the big questions. Philosophy still matters.”

Associate Professor of Philosophy Blake McAllister, who collaborated with Church for the 2021 grant, said the new project will integrate both psychological and philosophical tools to achieve a holistic understanding of spiritual yearning.

“This is what the pursuit of wisdom looks like,” McAllister said. “This is the sort of thing that Plato and Aristotle did, only done today. It is fitting and good that Hillsdale should be seen as a leader in this regard, and that is what projects like Dr. Church’s are helping to do.”