How Do I Know What Is True?

Deeper Post

What do I mean when I say “I know”?

I was raised in the Mormon faith, surrounded by people who believed they had been given the truth about life’s largest questions. Where did we come from? Why are we here? What happens after death? There were answers, and those answers belonged to the same world as family, love, duty, and hope.

My mother sometimes describes her faith as knowing “without a shadow of doubt.” I do not doubt the strength of her conviction. I wonder what that conviction establishes.

Does it describe the evidence? Or does it describe how completely she trusts her understanding of it?

I find myself increasingly comfortable with unanswered questions. Often, learning feels like peeling an onion: each layer reveals something I had not known to ask.

The question I want to explore is practical: How can I tell when my confidence is justified?

I am learning to ask less how certain I feel, and more what reasons I have—and whether those reasons survive examination.

The world, the claim, and the belief

Reality is what exists or happens. A factual statement is true when it accurately describes the relevant part of reality. A belief is something I accept as true. Evidence gives me reasons to accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim.

A belief does not become a fact because I hold it firmly. A fact does not disappear because it makes me uncomfortable. Something may be true before anyone discovers it, and an entire group can agree on an explanation that later proves mistaken.

In Facts and the Stories We Tell, I explored the space between an event and the picture we construct around it. Here I want to take the next step: how do I evaluate that picture?

Logic can check my reasoning without rescuing my assumptions

Consider this argument:

Every house in this neighborhood is worth more than $600,000. My house is in this neighborhood. Therefore, my house is worth more than $600,000.

The conclusion follows from the premises. That makes the argument logically valid. But validity does not establish that every house in the neighborhood is worth that amount.

I still need evidence.

If I multiply 2,000 square feet by $300 per square foot, I get $600,000. The arithmetic is exact. The valuation may be wrong.

I still need to establish whether that price fits this house, its condition, and its market.

Precision is not the same as accuracy.

Science asks the world to answer back

Einstein’s equations were not established as good descriptions of nature simply because they were mathematically impressive. Their predictions could be compared with measurements.

Atomic clocks make this tangible. Experiments measure differences in elapsed time associated with motion and gravity. GPS must account for relativistic effects on satellite clocks to maintain accurate positioning.[^1]

The equations specify what to expect. Measurements test whether it happens.

Science also depends on other people checking results. Repeating an analysis and investigating a question with new data can expose errors, although neither guarantees that an explanation is correct.[^2]

A good model may predict different results under different conditions. What matters is whether observations agree with those predictions. Dependable knowledge need not be absolute knowledge.

A verdict is a decision made from evidence

Courts face another version of the problem: what happened between people?

They examine testimony, records, physical evidence, and competing accounts. In U.S. criminal cases, guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. Civil cases generally use a preponderance of the evidence: more likely than not.[^3]

Even demanding standards of evidence do not eliminate mistakes. A trustworthy process needs ways to discover and correct them.

“Not proved” is different from “proved false.” And a decision justified by available evidence can still need revision when better evidence appears.

What an experience establishes

Suppose someone tells me, “I saw God.”

Did they sincerely believe it? What did they experience? What caused it? How did they identify its source? Those are different questions, requiring different kinds of support.

In Joseph Smith’s case, the Church’s own historical essay describes four accounts originating with him and five secondhand accounts from people who heard him tell of the First Vision. Those secondhand accounts document his testimony; they do not provide additional eyewitnesses to the event itself.[^4]

That distinction does not prove the account false. It prevents me from treating repetition as independent confirmation.

The same care applies to my own experiences. Peace, awe, love, and a sense of presence can matter deeply. Identifying their source, or using them to establish a particular doctrine, is a further step.

I explored this more fully in Does Peace Verify Truth?. An experience deserves attention. Its explanation deserves examination.

The limits of my mind do not define the limits of reality

A dog can navigate familiar obstacles without understanding a mortgage or appraising a house. Understanding depends on the capacities, concepts, and information available to the thinker.

My inability to understand something does not establish that it is unreal. Human minds may have limits that we cannot fully recognize from within them.

But I must apply that humility in both directions.

My limitations do not prove that God exists, that consciousness survives death, or that my preferred spiritual theory is correct. They do not automatically disprove those possibilities either.

Before asking whether God exists, I should clarify the claim. An ultimate source of existence, a personal being who intervenes, and the God described by a particular religion are not identical propositions. Evidence for one does not automatically establish the others.

A question can have a definite answer while I lack a reliable way to discover it.

Why certainty feels different to different people

Uncertainty can feel like insecurity to one person and possibility to another.

Psychologists study a “need for cognitive closure”: the desire for a definite answer rather than continued ambiguity. Research treats it as something that differs among individuals and can also be influenced by circumstances.[^5]

That offers a useful lens, not a diagnosis of my mother. She may find her experiences persuasive; I cannot decide her motives for her. Nor should I turn us into two fixed types. I may welcome uncertainty about consciousness while urgently wanting clarity about a financial problem. She may hold firm religious beliefs and remain curious in other areas.

Research on intellectual humility finds associations with curiosity, openness, and tolerance of ambiguity.[^6] But enjoying new ideas does not certify my judgment. I can become attached to the identity of the open-minded explorer just as someone else becomes attached to having the final answer.

That is the concern behind Being Right: How Certainty Becomes Identity. Once a belief becomes part of my worth, correction can feel like an injury.

I need to be willing to abandon an appealing possibility. I also need to accept a well-supported conclusion even when I would prefer a more mysterious answer.

Faith, doubt, and the obligation to act

Faith can mean trust or commitment while uncertainty remains. I can choose to hope, pray, love, or live by a set of values without claiming that every belief behind those choices has been demonstrated.

The difficulty begins when commitment makes a factual claim immune to examination.

Doubt can become equally unhelpful if it refuses every conclusion. I cannot postpone all decisions until I possess complete knowledge. Nor does uncertainty make all explanations equally credible.

As I argued in Thinking Beyond Binary, widening the frame should improve a decision rather than prevent one.

I can act on the best available evidence while remaining willing to revise. How much evidence I need before acting also depends on the consequences of being wrong. Taking an umbrella requires less assurance than accusing someone of a crime.

A practice I can use

When a claim matters, I can ask:

1. What exactly is being claimed? Define it before defending or rejecting it.
2. What kind of evidence would bear on it? A historical event, a physical prediction, and a value judgment require different approaches.
3. What was observed, and what was inferred? Keep the experience, the report, and the explanation distinct.
4. What assumptions am I making? Correct reasoning cannot repair an unsupported starting point.
5. What competing explanation fits the evidence? Look for evidence that helps distinguish them, not merely evidence compatible with my favorite.
6. What would change my mind? Apply that question to disbelief as well as belief.
7. How strongly should I conclude—and what action is justified? Match confidence to support and decisions to their consequences.

This gives me a more honest vocabulary: I know; the evidence strongly suggests; I suspect; I believe; I hope; I do not know.

Those expressions should tell someone how much support I have, rather than simply how strongly I feel.

Becoming correctable

I began this inquiry wondering which method could separate truth from fiction. I now see a discipline running through the proper use of logic, mathematics, science, historical inquiry, and personal reflection: distinguish what I believe from what I can establish, and allow relevant evidence to challenge my understanding.

I can respect my mother’s faith, value my own experiences, and still ask what our conclusions rest on. I do not need every question to remain mysterious. I need room to learn when an answer is better supported than the one I currently hold.

The goal is not to eliminate doubt or preserve it forever. It is to bring the strength of my convictions into proportion with the strength of my reasons—and to remain correctable.

Continue Reading

• Facts and the Stories We Tell — Separating events, evidence, and interpretation.
• Does Peace Verify Truth? — Examining what a meaningful feeling can establish.
• Being Right: How Certainty Becomes Identity — Why revising a belief can feel personal.
• Thinking Beyond Binary — Making clear decisions without reducing reality to our first two categories.

References and Notes

[^1]: National Institute of Standards and Technology, “Putting Einstein to the Test”. Describes atomic-clock tests of relativity and the relevance of relativistic effects to GPS.

[^2]: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2019), Reproducibility and Replicability in Science, Summary. Distinguishes reproducing computations from replication using new data and discusses the interpretation of inconsistent results.

[^3]: United States Courts, “Covering Civil Cases—Journalist’s Guide”. Explains the distinction between the usual civil burden of proof and the criminal standard.

[^4]: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “First Vision Accounts”. Used for the Church’s description of the documentary record. Its theological interpretation is distinct from independent verification of the event.

[^5]: Webster, D. M., and Kruglanski, A. W. (1994), “Individual Differences in Need for Cognitive Closure”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 1049–1062. Research on preference for definite answers; it does not establish the motives of any individual discussed here.

[^6]: Leary, M. R., et al. (2017), “Cognitive and Interpersonal Features of Intellectual Humility”, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 793–813. Reports associations with openness, curiosity, and tolerance of ambiguity; these findings do not make curiosity a guarantee of accuracy.