The philanthropist John M. Templeton, who supported scholarship on the “Big Questions” of science, religion, and human purpose, has died, his foundation announced. He was 95.

The Templeton Foundation is best known for awarding the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities, one of the world’s richest prizes. Mr. Templeton stipulated that it should exceed the Nobel Prize in monetary value, and the foundation says the award is now worth £1-million, or about $2-million. Many of the winners, including the most recent, have been academics. The foundation also awards grants and fellowships for research “on concepts and realities such as love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity.”

Inevitably, support for scholarship at the intersection of religion and science has attracted controversy — especially, according to an obituary in The New York Times, from critics who see “spiritual realities” as a contradiction in terms. Even some recipients of the foundation’s largess have struggled to reconcile personal feelings about religion with the organization’s mission. —Charles Huckabee