Ended · 2000–2015

Closer to Truth

The Closer to Truth television series is the definitive source for cosmos, consciousness and meaning. The series is a global journey in search of the vital ideas of existence airing on numerous PBS stations across the nation. Closer To Truth explores fundamental questions about the universe, brain/mind, religion and meaning through intimate conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, scholars, theologians and creative thinkers.By taking you into labs, libraries, gardens and sanctuaries across the globe, Closer To Truth brings riveting ideas to the forefront — making them relevant and engaging. Created and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and produced by Peter Getzels, Closer To Truth provides you personal access to the world's greatest thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions.

Track episodes, rate & review

Next on air

No next air date announced.

Seasons & episodes

Season 1 · 14 episodes

S01 E01 · What are the Grand Questions of Science?2000-05-07
S01 E02 · Will the Internet Change Humanity?2000-05-14
S01 E03 · What's Creativity and Who's Creative?2000-05-21
S01 E04 · New Communities for the New Millennium?2000-05-28
S01 E05 · How Did This Universe Begin?2000-06-04
S01 E06 · Can We See the Near Future - Year 2025?2000-06-11
S01 E07 · What Is Consciousness?2000-06-18
S01 E08 · Can You Really Extend Your Life?2000-06-25
S01 E09 · Can ESP Affect Our Lives?2000-07-02
S01 E10 · Whatever Happened to Ethics and Civility?2000-07-09
S01 E11 · How Does Technology Transform Thinking?2000-07-16
S01 E12 · Strange Physics of the Mind?2000-07-23
S01 E13 · Can Science Seek the Soul?2000-07-30
S01 E14 · Does Sex Have a Future?2000-08-06

Season 2 · 14 episodes

S02 E01 · Can We Imagine the Far Future - Year 3000?2000-09-10
S02 E02 · What Are the Next Breakthroughs in Science?2000-09-17
S02 E03 · How Does Creativity Work at Work?2000-09-24
S02 E04 · Do Brains Make Minds?2000-10-01
S02 E05 · Will Gene Therapy Change the Human Race?2000-10-08
S02 E06 · Why Do We Make Music and Art?2000-10-15
S02 E07 · Why Is Quantum Physics So Beautiful?2000-10-22
S02 E08 · How Did We Think in the Last Millennium?2000-10-29
S02 E09 · Who Needs Sex Therapy?2000-11-05
S02 E10 · How Does Technology Transform Society?2000-11-12
S02 E11 · Can You Learn to Be Creative?2000-11-19
S02 E12 · What Is Parapsychology?2000-11-26
S02 E13 · Will This Universe Ever End?2000-12-03
S02 E14 · Will Intelligence Fill the Universe?2000-12-10

Season 3 · 15 episodes

S03 E01 · Is Science Fiction Science?2003-05-01
S03 E02 · Can We Believe in Both Science and Religion?2003-05-08
S03 E03 · How Does the Autistic Brain Work?2003-05-15
S03 E04 · How Weird Is the Cosmos?2003-05-22
S03 E05 · Microbes - Friend or Foe?2003-05-29
S03 E06 · How Does Order Arise in the Universe?2003-06-05
S03 E07 · What Makes Music So Significant?2003-06-12
S03 E08 · Will Computers Take a Quantum Leap?2003-06-19
S03 E09 · Does Psychiatry Have a Split Personality?2003-06-26
S03 E10 · How Does Basic Science Defend America?2003-07-03
S03 E11 · Who Gets to Validate Alternative Medicine?2003-07-10
S03 E12 · Is Consciousness Definable?2003-07-17
S03 E13 · Is the Universe Full of Life?2003-07-24
S03 E14 · Can Religion Withstand Technology?2003-07-31
S03 E15 · Testing New Drugs: Are People Guinea Pigs?2003-08-07

Season 8 · 8 episodes

S08 E06 · How Is God the Creator?2010-05-06
S08 E07 · What Would Multiple Universes Mean?2010-05-13
S08 E08 · What Things Are Conscious?2010-05-20
S08 E09 · Can Religion Be Explained Without God?2010-05-27
S08 E10 · What's Real About Time?2010-06-03
S08 E11 · How Do People Maintain Their Identity?2010-06-10
S08 E12 · Is God a Person?2010-06-17
S08 E13 · Asking Ultimate Questions2010-06-24

Season 9 · 13 episodes

S09 E01 · Arguing God From Natural Theology2010-09-30
S09 E02 · What Is the Grand Structure of the Universe?2010-10-07
S09 E03 · Could ESP Reveal Spirit Existence?2010-10-14
S09 E04 · Is God All Knowing?2010-10-21
S09 E05 · Why Is the Quantum So Strange?2010-10-28
S09 E06 · Can Metaphysics Reveal Surprises?2010-11-04
S09 E07 · Is God Necessary?2010-11-11
S09 E08 · Would Multiple Universes Undermine God?2010-11-18
S09 E09 · Do Human Brains Have Free Will?2010-11-25
S09 E10 · Arguing for Agnosticism?2010-12-02
S09 E11 · Are Science and Religion at War?2010-12-09
S09 E12 · Why Explore Consciousness and Cosmos?2010-12-16
S09 E13 · A New Heaven and a New Earth?2010-12-23

Season 10 · 12 episodes

S10 E02 · Why Is the Universe Breathtaking?2011-01-06
S10 E03 · Does Consciousness Have Meaning?2011-01-13
S10 E04 · Arguing God From Miracles?2011-01-20
S10 E05 · Marvels of Space-Time?2011-01-27
S10 E06 · What Makes Brains Conscious?2011-02-03
S10 E07 · Is God Perfect?2011-02-10
S10 E08 · What Are the Scope and Limits of Science?2011-02-17
S10 E09 · Is Human Consciousness Special?2011-02-24
S10 E10 · If God Knows the Future, What Is Free Will?2011-03-03
S10 E11 · Can Science Talk God?2011-03-10
S10 E12 · Do Persons Survive Death?2011-03-17
S10 E13 · Is Theism Coherent?2011-03-24

Season 11 · 12 episodes

S11 E02 · What's Beyond Physics?2011-04-07
S11 E03 · Can ESP Reveal a New Reality?2011-04-14
S11 E04 · Arguing God From Consciousness?2011-04-21
S11 E05 · Does the Cosmos Provide Meaning?2011-04-28
S11 E06 · What Maintains Personal Identity?2011-05-05
S11 E07 · Arguing God From Being?2011-05-12
S11 E08 · Can Science and Theology Find Deep Reality?2011-05-19
S11 E09 · What's Wrong With Immortal Souls?2011-05-26
S11 E10 · Does God Have a Nature?2011-06-02
S11 E11 · Are There Things Not Physical?2011-06-09
S11 E12 · How Free Is God?2011-06-16
S11 E13 · Immortality and Eternal Life2011-06-23

Season 12 · 13 episodes

S12 E01 · Fallacies in Proving God Exists2011-09-29
S12 E02 · Is Life and Mind Inevitable in the Universe?2011-10-06
S12 E03 · Arguing God With Analytic Philosophy2011-10-13
S12 E04 · What Would Intelligent Aliens Mean?2011-10-20
S12 E05 · Does a Creator God Work?2011-10-27
S12 E06 · Mysteries of Cosmic Inflation2011-11-03
S12 E07 · How Is God All Powerful?2011-11-10
S12 E08 · Does Metaphysics Reveal Reality?2011-11-17
S12 E09 · Complexity From Simplicity?2011-11-24
S12 E10 · Do Humans Have Free Will?2011-12-01
S12 E11 · What Is God About?2011-12-08
S12 E12 · Does Consciousness Point to God?2011-12-15
S12 E13 · The Mystery of Existence?2011-12-22

Season 13 · 11 episodes

S13 E02 · Is Consciousness an Illusion?2012-04-05
S13 E03 · What Is God?2012-04-12
S13 E04 · Do General Principles Govern All Science?2012-04-19
S13 E06 · Diverse Argument for God2012-05-03
S13 E07 · Why Science and Religion Think Differently2012-05-10
S13 E08 · What Are Dreams About?2012-05-17
S13 E09 · Can God Face Up Evil?2012-05-24
S13 E10 · How Belief Systems Work2012-05-31
S13 E11 · Do Religions Complement or Contradict?2012-06-07
S13 E12 · What's in a Resurrection?2012-06-14
S13 E13 · Time at Sea2012-06-21

Season 14 · 13 episodes

S14 E01 · Time at Sea2012-11-10
S14 E02 · What Is Time?2012-11-17
S14 E03 · Why Believe in God?2012-11-24
S14 E04 · Alternative Concepts of God?2012-12-01
S14 E05 · Pantheism: Is the World God?2012-12-08
S14 E06 · How Do Brains Work?2012-12-15
S14 E07 · What Would an Infinite Cosmos Mean?2012-12-22
S14 E08 · What Is God's Eternity?2012-12-29
S14 E09 · Why Is Free Will a Big Question?2013-01-05
S14 E10 · Is Free Will an Illusion?2013-01-12
S14 E11 · What's in a Resurrection?2013-01-19
S14 E12 · Does Hell Reveal God?2013-01-26
S14 E13 · Confronting Consciousness2013-02-02

Season 15 · 13 episodes

S15 E01 · Did the Universe Have a Beginning?2013-06-08
S15 E02 · How Do Humans Differ From Other Animals?2013-06-15
S15 E03 · What Would It Feel Like to Be God?2013-06-22
S15 E04 · What's the New Atheism?2013-06-29
S15 E05 · How Does Personal Identity Persist Through Time?2013-07-06
S15 E06 · Can Philosophy of Religion Find God?2013-07-13
S15 E07 · Why Do We Sleep?2013-07-20
S15 E08 · Does Cosmic Fine Tuning Demand Explanation?2013-07-27
S15 E09 · Why Obsess About Free Will?2013-08-03
S15 E10 · Why Seek an Alternative God?2013-08-10
S15 E11 · Panentheism: Is the World in God?2013-08-17
S15 E12 · What Is Nothing?2013-08-24
S15 E13 · Why Anything at All?2013-08-31

Season 16 · 13 episodes

S16 E01 · What Is Ultimate Reality?2014-03-03
S16 E02 · What Is Consciousness?2014-03-10
S16 E03 · Is This God?2014-03-17
S16 E04 · Will the Universe Ever End?2014-03-24
S16 E05 · Can the Divine Be a Person?2014-03-31
S16 E06 · Is Death Final?2014-04-07
S16 E07 · What Causes Religious Belief?2014-04-14
S16 E08 · What Things Are Real?2014-04-21
S16 E09 · Does Moral Responsibility Require Free Will?2014-04-28
S16 E10 · What Can We Learn From Alternative Gods?2014-05-05
S16 E11 · Why God, Not Nothing?2014-05-12
S16 E12 · Does God's Knowledge Ruin Free Will?2014-05-19
S16 E13 · Is God Totally Free?2014-05-26

Season 17 · 13 episodes

S17 E01 · Can the Mind Heal the Body?2015-04-03
S17 E02 · Is God Responsible for Evil?2015-04-10
S17 E03 · What Is Information?2015-04-17
S17 E04 · Can Design Point to God?2015-04-24
S17 E05 · What Is Truth?2015-05-01
S17 E06 · Does Information Create the Cosmos?2015-05-08
S17 E07 · Why a Body in a Resurrection?2015-05-15
S17 E08 · Must Multiple Universes Exist?2015-05-22
S17 E09 · Toward a Science of Consciousness2015-05-29
S17 E10 · Big Questions in Free Will Part I2015-06-05
S17 E11 · Big Questions in Free Will Part II2015-06-12
S17 E12 · Can Free Will Survive God's Fore-knowledge?2015-06-19
S17 E13 · How Can God Not Be Free?2015-06-26

TV data from TVmaze under CC BY-SA. Air dates follow the original broadcaster and may change.