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The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love was founded in June of 2001 in Cleveland, Ohio, with a generous initial four-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
It focuses on the science and spirituality of the unselfish love that shapes the lives of people who find energy and joy in the compassionate service of others.
Our guiding questions, investigated at the interface of science, the humanities,
and spiritual thought, are these three:
 (1) Does the sincere love of neighbor contribute to the happiness and health of both those who give it and those who receive it?
(2) Does the self-reported spiritual experience of an ultimate reality of “Unlimited Love” result in increased benevolence, compassion, and philanthropy?
(3) Do small acts of unselfish love give rise to hope, joy, and resilience in the giver, especially in times of disappointment, loss, illness and other hardships?
Our guiding methods are:
(1) The development and implementation of methodologically sound and innovative scientific research into the three questions listed above.
(2) The development of sustainable networks of integrative dialogue around these four questions, with a consistent emphasis on the importance of bringing together scientists, philosophers, and deep spiritual thinkers in order to achieve progress at the conceptual and research levels.
(3) The development of widespread dialogue around our work through public speaking, educational forums, scholarly and trade book publication, and the cultivation of media interest.
Our philosophy of life is:
Unselfish love of others is the ultimate and universal source of the meaning, dignity, and deep happiness that we frail creatures seek. Botox, anabolic steroids, human growth hormone to make our children a little taller, and the dubious promises of a fountain of youth - all are for sale but none add to human dignity. Love is the fundamental dynamic that moves us to “do unto others” in active kindness and generosity, affirming the significance and worth of all others, and of ourselves as well; love comforts, heals, creates, liberates, and elevates our lives in a way that nothing else can. We either love or suffer. We either love or destroy. All the seeds of human growth are planted in love. With it we feel blessed, without it we feel cursed. Faith without love is often a dangerous thing, while love without faith grows weary. Religions, which in arrogance can in some instances bring out the worst in people, have value to the extent that they actively encourage a Godly love for each and every human being without exception, and for the generative planet upon which we live.
Our history is:
The President of the Institute began a lifelong fascination with the topic while a youth at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. There I was introduced to the agape love theology of Howard Thurman, Benjamin Elijah Mays, and Dr. King through the influence of an African-American teacher, Rev. John T. Walker, who went on to become Dean of the National Cathedral. College study focused on the biology and evolution of altruism, and afterwards, with the then nascent research into the impact of compassionate care on the immune system. My Ph.D. dissertation (1983) at the University of Chicago focused on the ways in which other-regarding love contributes to the happiness of the giver so long as it does not involve extreme forms of self-denial. Since then I have stayed focused on the study of love, whether in the context of philosophy, theology, health care, the biological and social sciences, medical ethics, the impact of compassionate love on healthcare outcomes, or the treatment of the cognitively disabled.
Sir John Templeton invited the Institute to borrow its name from his book entitled Pure Unlimited Love: An Eternal Creative Force and Blessing Taught by All Religions (2000). Sir John urged all religions to think of God primarily as Unlimited Love for all persons without exception. Concerned with the ways in which religious arrogance and group egoism can lead to violence, Sir John was interested in new approaches to the study of Unlimited Love, which he suggested might be the very ground of all reality as well as human flourishing.
In its first seven years (2001 – 2008) the Institute was based at the School of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University as an independent 501c(3) public charity research entity. During that period, through a process of competitive review, the Institute was able to provide support to nearly 80 scientific investigators at institutions including Yale, Emory, Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, Akron, and Case Western itself. Grantees were determined through a peer-review process that followed the dissemination of several Requests for Proposals, two of which were developed in collaboration with the Fetzer Institute. The questions being addressed were broad:
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How can we raise children who shape their lives around unselfish love and the service of humanity?
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How can we develop cultural and educational environments that foster such behavior?
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Is it true that kind and benevolent people generally experience higher levels of well-being, happiness, and health?
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How can love be made more lasting in marriage and family life?
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How do individuals whose loved ones have been killed or maimed manage to respond with love rather than succumb to hatred?
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Where do love and justice converge?
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Is unselfish love - understood evolutionarily, developmentally, and spiritually - the deeper and most fulfilling ground of human nature?
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How do events like 9/11 or Haiti elicit such compassionate responses?
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Can we better understand rescuers who put their lives on the line for perfect strangers?
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Is love the “Ground of Being” that philosophers and mystics speak of perennially? What can we learn about the human spiritual perception of Unlimited Love that seems to enliven and quicken our benevolent emotions?
In 2004 an international course competition for college and university professors attracted many applicants. More than 20 faculty teaching these courses gathered at the Claremont School of Theology in April of 2005. In addition, course awards were made to secondary schools across the United States to support curricula on science and religion focused on the capacity of benevolent love. Many of these courses are now offered yearly.
Recognized internationally, the Institute’s achievements gained coverage in many hundreds of newspapers and magazines. These included the New York Times, Psychology Today, “O” Magazine, ABC 20/20, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. The Institute was featured on more than 120 radio talk shows, including the NPR Christmas Eve Talk of the Nation, Weekend Edition, Mehmet Oz, and the Dennis Prager Show. We were selected for a week of lectures at the Chautauqua Institution (August 22-26, 2005) on topic of unselfish love, spirituality and the brain, and returned in August of 2007. An estimated 700 people from 33 countries attended our conference entitled Works of Love: Scientific and Religious Perspectives on Altruism in 2003, convened at the University Pennsylvania, and similar numbers attended a conference in June of 2007.
In 2007 the Institute moved forward with a co-sponsored three-year project at the Center for Law and Religion at Emory University School of Law. This project brought together 25 leading scholars and researchers in the social sciences, humanities, ethics, and religion to consider the deeper meanings of happiness and their bearing on how we pursue happiness in the modern world. The Institute also moved ahead in support of two research projects on religious tolerance and the Golden Rule under the direction of Dr. Jacob Neusner and Dr. Bruce Chilton through the Bard College Institute for Advanced Theology. In addition, the Institute provided a pilot grant to Dr. Maria Pagano for a program that examines the health impact of helping others in self-help movements (the 12th step of the 12 steps). Finally, five pilot research projects continued to assess the impact of helping behavior on the mental and physical health of adolescents.
Outcomes from researchers funded by the Institute were featured in a successful popular book (1997, Broadway Books) entitled Why Good Things Happen to Good People: How to Live a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life by the Simple Act of Giving. I structured this book around my several decades of research and writing on the ten major expressions or “ways” of generous love for others, and developed a scientific scale to measure the ways and domains of love with Michael E. McCullough, Ph.D., of the University of Miami. (My co-author for this book was the distinguished science writer Jill Neimark; the Foreword was written by the renowned African-American, Rev. Otis Moss, Jr. (see www.whygoodthingshappen.com). I simultaneously published a collection of strictly technical scientific papers by the various researchers themselves, entitled Altruism and Health: Perspectives from Empirical Research (Oxford University Press, June 2007). Institute-funded researchers published more than 50 books themselves. Among these are Michael E. McCullough’s Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct (Josey-Bass, 2008), Margaret M. Poloma’s and Ralph W. Hood’s Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church (New York University Press, 2008), Robert Wuthnow’s Saving America: Faith-Based Services and the Future of Civil Society (Princeton University Press, 2004), Courtney Cowart’s An American Awakening: From Ground Zero to Katrina – The People We Are Free to Be (Seabury Books, 2008), and Yudit Kornberg Greenberg’s The Encyclopedia of Love in the World Religions, 2 volumes (ABC-CLIO Reference, 2008). An estimated 300 significant research articles have appeared in peer-reviewed academic journals.
2008 and beyond:
In July of 2008 I left the School of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, where I had served as Professor of Bioethics, Philosophy and Religion since 1988, to a new position at Stony Brook University in New York as Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics, located in the Department of Preventive Medicine. Here at Stony Brook was a unique opportunity to build up a program to teach medical students and faculty the value of compassionate care, and to help develop a legacy of humanistic medical education reaching back to Dr. Edmund D. Pellegrino, MD, Stony Brook’s first Dean. The new address of the Institute is P.O. Box 1516, Stony Brook, New York 11790. It remains independent and unattached to any university.
Sociologist Dr. Matthew Lee of Akron, Ohio is now Vice President of the Institute, and takes a considerable leadership role.
Currently, the Institute does not have resources to support additional scientific research, and is therefore not accepting any proposals. Instead, its focus is on working collaboratively with the Flame of Love Project, which is directed and administered by sociologists Margaret Poloma and Lee (see www.GodlyLoveProject.org) with direct support to the University of Akron from the John Templeton Foundation. This project focuses in on the perceptions and experiences of Godly love, including a national survey that for the first time will clarify the pervasiveness of such experiences across American society. The Institute also works with psychologist Dr. Maria Pagano, whose research on the benefits of helping behavior in the lives of adolescents with alcoholism is also directly funded by the Templeton Foundation and other entities through Case Western (see www.helpingotherslivesober.org).
Non-Profit Status
The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love filed for formation as a public benefit corporation under the laws of the state of Ohio in June of 2001 and remains an Ohio corporation. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Thank you for your interest.
Stephen G. Post, Ph.D., President
PO Box 1516
Stony Brook, New York 11790
post@stephengpost.com
216-926-9244
“You are leading one of the most significant initiatives of this generation. The connection between research and application cannot be over-emphasized. Thank you!”
— Pastor Otis Moss, Jr., Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Morehouse College
“Stephen Post has contributed more than anyone else to the dialogue concerning the scientific and health implications of altruistic and generous behavior. His leadership has spearheaded an exciting new area of research. The field has the strong potential to change people’s lives in a healthy way.”
— Gregory L. Fricchione, M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School,
and Associate Chief of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital
“Isn’t is wonderful to do science on a topic that is socially relevant and can make a difference in the world?”
— Professor Paul Wink, Department of Psychology, Wellesley College
Click here to read about Recently Funded Projects
In an effort to further enhance the rapidly growing network of researchers focusing on topics such as altruism, altruistic love, kindness, compassion, and “unlimited” love, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love has established “Works of Love”, a high-quality electronic newsletter. The newsletter is written by Stephen G. Post, President of the Institute, and sent monthly.
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