I did not arrive at my questions about trust because of a single crisis. They crept in quietly, over time. Somewhere along the way, what once felt dependable no longer felt quite as steady. Institutions I had relied on, voices I had trusted, even people I thought I understood seemed less certain than before — not alarmingly so, just enough to make me pause.

That pause showed up in ordinary moments. Reading the news. Listening to experts. Watching public conversations unfold. Nothing felt clearly false, yet less felt settled. I found myself asking a question I had never needed to ask so deliberately before: How do we decide what is real, and what — or whom — we can still trust?

Life also feels faster than it once did. Information arrives constantly and convincingly, leaving little room to sit with what we hear. Voices compete, explanations pile up, and trust — once assumed — now feels like something that has to be held more carefully.

Artificial intelligence has sharpened that awareness for me. Like many, I use AI as a tool — to gather information quickly, to explore ideas, to gain perspective. I try to do so carefully, checking sources when I can and weighing what I read. Yet this introduces an unavoidable question: what about the information I do not personally verify? Is it real? Can it be trusted? And if I struggle to answer that question for myself, how does anyone else navigate it?

Once those questions surface, they tend to multiply. Is what I see, read, or hear genuine? Who is shaping the message, and for what purpose? What assumptions are embedded in the way information is framed? Where, if anywhere, can what is presented be tested or confirmed? Beneath all of this lies a deeper concern — whether there exists any stable standard by which truth and reality can ultimately be discerned.

My understanding of trust did not begin in public institutions or digital spaces. It began much earlier, in relationships. Growing up, I trusted my grandparents to care for me, to guide me, and to provide a sense of stability. As I moved through school, church, and eventually the university, that trust expanded to teachers, mentors, and leaders. I trusted not only in their competence, but in their integrity — that they would act responsibly and convey what they believed to be true.

In those earlier years, there was time to reflect. Information arrived more slowly, and interpretation unfolded over time. What was taught could be weighed against what had already been learned. Questions were explored rather than rushed. Today, information arrives quickly and often closely resembles what is genuine. There is little space left for careful reflection, and interpretation is increasingly immediate rather than examined.

As I studied Scripture, I noticed that the question of trust is not treated lightly. In the Old Testament, God Himself is consistently presented as the proper object of trust. People are warned against placing ultimate confidence in political power, military strength, wealth, or human rulers. These substitutes repeatedly fail. Trust, in the biblical sense, is portrayed not as naïveté, but as reliance grounded in God’s faithfulness.

In the New Testament, this focus does not shift so much as narrow. Trust centers on the person of Christ, who declares Himself to be the truth and the life. He is presented as both the embodiment of truth and a faithful witness to it. Believers are cautioned not to trust appearances alone, but to discern who is speaking, to test what is said, and to evaluate whether it aligns with moral truth and God’s character.

Over the years, as I have read widely and listened carefully, it has become apparent to me that nearly all information advances a “story.” This is not limited to politics or culture; it appears even in medicine and science. For a time, Newton’s framework described reality well — until its limits became evident and Einstein offered a more comprehensive account. Knowledge progresses, but it does so within frameworks that shape how reality is understood. This raises an unavoidable question: how should one live amid competing accounts of what is true?

For me, the answer lies in recognizing the role of worldview. A secular worldview assumes a purely material reality, where truth is established by human reason, empirical evidence, and social consensus. In such a framework, truth is often provisional, and trust is placed in experts, institutions, or systems of power. A biblical worldview, by contrast, is grounded in God’s self-revelation through Scripture. Reality is not merely observed but disclosed. Truth is absolute, rooted in a moral order, and trust becomes a posture of the heart aligned with God’s faithfulness.

Thinking this way has slowed my decision-making. It has made me less susceptible to manipulation and more attentive to the moral dimensions of what I encounter. I am a retired Professor Emeritus of Engineering, long immersed in the technologies and assumptions of the material world. Over a lifetime, I have had to decide what kind of world I believe I am living in — one defined solely by material processes, or one created by God, in spirit and in truth.

What remains is not a theoretical concern, but a practical one: how do we relearn trust in this way without withdrawing from the relationships and communities that still hold our lives together?