Closer to Truth Season 13 Episodes

Episode 1

What Is Ultimate Reality?

27 mins

What's the deepest nature of things? Our world is complex, filled with so much stuff. But down below, what's fundamental? Only the physical world? Or anything nonphysical?

Episode 2

What Is Consciousness?

Consciousness is what we know best and explain least. It is the inner subjective experience of what it feels like to see red or smell garlic or hear Beethoven. Consciousness is baffling.

Episode 3

Is This God?

27 mins

Can humans probe God? Can we inquire into God's essence and nature? Is God at all knowable? Or forever beyond human understanding? Let's be bold in questioning God.

Episode 4

Will the Universe Ever End?

27 mins

In the far, far future, what happens to planets, stars, galaxies, black holes? What's the 'Big Rip' and the 'Big Crunch'? And if 'multiple universes' exist, if one universe ends, do others begin?

Episode 5

Can the Divine Be a Person?

27 mins

What if God were a 'person'? A person has sense, knowledge, will, intent, feelings. A person can be compassionate, sympathetic, empathetic. If God were a person, there'd be hope that all might end well.

Episode 6

Is Death Final?

27 mins

Death is the ultimate defeat. No matter our successes, we are all doomed to suffer the final failure. But some claim that death is not final. Can the defeat be defeated?

Episode 7

What Causes Religious Belief?

27 mins

Why are religions so pervasive, across diverse human cultures? If God exists, would God have made it so? But there are entirely natural reasons to expect the widespread belief in God.

Episode 8

What Things Are Real?

27 mins

Is the physical world real? Or an expression of consciousness. Is consciousness real? Or an illusion? Is there a spirit world? Many dismiss anything other than the physical.

Episode 9

Free Will for Moral Responsibility?

27 mins

Philosophers and brain scientists argue that our 'will' is less 'free' than we think. How do arguments about free will impact morality and civil society, including the judicial system and legal defenses?

Episode 10

What Can We Learn from Alternative Gods?

27 mins

Novel concepts of God challenge theism-rejecting the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Is this 'heresy'? Or enlarging our vision of what the Ultimate can be like?

Episode 11

Why God, Not Nothing?

To solve the great mystery 'Why does Anything At All Exist?', many invoke 'God'. But isn't God also 'Anything'? How could God be the reason why there is 'Something' rather than 'Nothing'?

Episode 12

Does God's Knowledge Quash Free Will?

27 mins

Since God (supposedly) knows everything and can never be wrong, including about future events, how could those future events not come to pass? If we cannot do other than what God knew prior, how then free will?

Episode 13

What Limits God's Freedom?

27 mins

If God is God, it seems impossible to limit God's freedom. But can God create a round square? Make 1+1=3? Do evil? Sin? Be brave. There seem to be many things that God cannot do.