“The mind's highest good is the knowledge of God, and the mind's highest virtue is to know God.”
— Baruch Spinoza, Ethics (Part IV, Proposition 28)
The Virtues and Vices of Spiritual Yearning (VVSY) initiative supports interdisciplinary research—especially at the intersection of philosophy and psychology—on how spiritual longing shapes human flourishing. We do this by funding eight sub-grants (four primarily philosophical/theoretical projects and four with a significant empirical/psychological component) and building a community of scholars working on the project theme.
VVSY investigates when spiritual yearning functions as a virtue (e.g., deepened curiosity, openness, meaning-seeking) and when it may contribute to vice or harm (e.g., closed-mindedness, gullibility, despair). Across funded projects, we aim to clarify the concept and measure it well—so we can better understand its role in intellectual life, mental health, and human flourishing.
December 2025: Wilt, Van Tongeren, Van Cappellen, & Exline developed a new measure of spiritual yearning, “Spirituality Beyond Religion: Development Of 9-Item And 27-Item Multidimensional Measures Of Spiritual Yearning”
October 2025: The John Templeton Foundation agreed to fund the “Virtues and Vices of Spiritual Yearning” project.
August 2025: Experimental Psychology and Philosophy of Religion is under contract with Cambridge University Press (Elements Series).
Marcht 2026: Now accepting applications for a Postdoctoral Philosophy Research Fellow. For more information and to apply please click the arrow below.