Discovering The Laws Of Life

The Story

John Marks Templeton is a man of boundless erudition, fathomless curiosity, and unaffected piety. His biography is itself a parable for our time. An internationally prominent financier whose investment groups control more than $30 billion, Templeton is also a board member of the American Bible Society and Princeton Theological Seminary. Careful stewardship of his funds enabled him, in 1971, to establish the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, which exceeds even the Nobel Prize in financial value. At the basis of Templeton's life, thought, and philanthropy is the simple conviction that 'progress in religion is even more important than progress in anything else - or even other things combined'. Central to progress in religion is the inner life of the individual believer. Now, at the age of eighty-one, Templeton presents his readers, friends, and admirers with the summing-up of a lifetime of wisdom and observation. His most important discovery is that our lives are shaped by certain eternal laws. These two hundred 'laws of life' derive not only from the experiences of a lifetime of one of the world's most prominent businessmen, but also from the scriptures of the great spiritual traditions. Though our parents, teachers, church, or synagogue teach us these laws, we also must discover them ourselves through experience, both joyful and painful. Nor do we ever stop learning them. Not so coincidentally, these forty steps to spiritual growth also mirror the length of both the average school year and Lent, and can be used devotionally as a part of regular spiritual practice.