Stop Trusting the Wrong Voices

The problem isn’t that you’re gullible. It’s that you’re reasonable.

You encounter a confident person with credentials. They sound smart. They cite studies. They’ve got a following. So you believe them. That’s not stupidity—that’s how humans work.

Except it’s not working anymore.

We’ve created a world where anyone can sound like an expert, where confidence looks like competence, and where the loudest voices often have the least to lose. And we’re making major decisions about our faith, our health, our politics based on sources we’ve never actually vetted.

We’re not drowning in information. We’re drowning in plausible-sounding misinformation. Much of it isn’t even intentionally deceptive. It’s just people speaking with absolute certainty about things they don’t understand.

So how do you tell the difference? How do you figure out who actually deserves your trust—without spending time you don’t have fact-checking everything?

Turns out, the Church figured this out centuries ago. And the answer is probably simpler than you’d think.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE 18

The Source Problem

Introduction: You’re Drowning In Voices

You woke up this morning and immediately checked your phone. Within five minutes, you’d encountered:

• • A news headline from a major outlet claiming something shocking about the economy
  • An X post from someone with 2 million followers explaining why that headline is completely wrong
  • A text from your friend who “read something” and now has strong opinions about it
  • An email from an “expert” trying to sell you something based on research you can’t verify
  • A comment thread where people with PhD-level confidence in their own ignorance were arguing about something you’d never heard of

And it’s only 7 AM.

Here’s the problem: You can’t evaluate all of it. You can’t fact-check everything. You can’t become an expert in every field. So you do what everyone does—you pick a source and trust it. You pick a person and believe them. You pick a narrative and run with it.

And sometimes, that source is poisoning you.

Not because they’re intentionally lying. But because they don’t actually know what they’re talking about. Or because they have a financial incentive to mislead you. Or because they’re so convinced of their own rightness that they’ve stopped actually thinking.

In The Discernment Diet we talked about learning to taste poison. Now we’re talking about something equally crucial: Learning to recognize which sources are actually worth tasting from in the first place.

Because here’s the frank truth: Not all sources are equal. And pretending they are is how you end up deceived and poisoned.

The Crisis of Authority

We live in a moment of unprecedented authority collapse.

For most of human history, authority was simple. The Church taught. The government ruled. The experts advised. You listened. You might not have liked it, but you knew where authority lived.

Now? Authority is everywhere and nowhere.

Everyone is an expert. Everyone has a platform. Everyone can publish. Everyone can reach millions. The barriers to being heard have completely dissolved.

And that’s created a crisis: We have infinite sources but no clear way to evaluate them.

So we’ve done what humans always do in a crisis—we’ve become paralyzed or we’ve become tribal. Either we can’t decide what to believe (paralysis), or we’ve decided to only believe sources that already agree with us (tribalism).

Both are poison.

Here’s what we need instead: A way to evaluate sources without needing to become an expert in everything. A way to recognize epistemic authority—the right to be believed about something—without being naive or gullible.

And here’s the crucial part: A way that’s rooted in the Church’s understanding of truth, not in the world’s.

What Jesus Actually Said About Sources

Jesus didn’t teach in a vacuum. He didn’t just drop wisdom and expect people to figure out if it was true on their own.

He did something much more specific: He gave authority to certain people and certain structures.

“By Their Fruits You Will Know Them”

We talked about this in the last talk, but it applies here too:

“By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16)

Jesus is not saying: Evaluate sources based on how smart they sound. Evaluate them based on what they produce.

A source that produces confusion, division, fear, and isolation is a bad source—no matter how credentialed it is. A source that produces clarity, unity, peace, and community is a good source—even if it’s humble.

This is not subjective. This is observable. You can look at someone’s teaching and see what it’s producing in people’s lives.

“The Testimony of Two or Three Witnesses”

“But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'” (Matthew 18:16)

Jesus understood something crucial: A single source can deceive you. But multiple independent sources pointing the same direction? That’s harder to fake.

This is not paranoia. This is wisdom.

When you’re trying to figure out if something is true, don’t rely on one source. Find multiple sources that are independent of each other—sources that don’t have the same financial incentive, the same bias, the same agenda. If they all point the same direction, you’re probably encountering truth.

“The Spirit and the Bride Say, ‘Come'”

“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!'” (Revelation 22:17)

Here’s something radical: Jesus didn’t give authority to individuals alone. He gave authority to the Church—the Bride of Christ. The community. The gathered wisdom of God’s people across time and space.

When you’re evaluating a source, ask: Does this align with what the Church teaches? Does this connect to the Tradition? Or is this someone trying to overturn everything the Church has understood for 2,000 years?

One person having a new insight? That’s possible.

One person contradicting the entire Tradition of the Church? That’s much less likely to be true.

Understanding Epistemic Authority

Let’s get specific about what epistemic authority actually means.

Epistemic authority is the right to be believed about something. It’s not the same as political power or social status or wealth. It’s specifically the right to be trusted as a source of truth in a particular domain.

Epistemic authority is domain-specific.

A brilliant neuroscientist has epistemic authority about how the brain works. She does not have epistemic authority about theology. A theologian has epistemic authority about what the Church teaches. He does not have epistemic authority about quantum physics.

But here’s where we get confused: We live in a culture that treats all platforms as equal. A celebrity with a podcast gets the same reach as a scholar with decades of expertise. A viral TikTok gets the same attention as peer-reviewed research.

And we treat them as if they’re equivalent sources of truth.

They’re not.

How Epistemic Authority Is Actually Earned

Someone has epistemic authority in a domain when:

1. 1. They have deep knowledge of the subject. This isn’t just reading books. This is years of study. This is understanding not just the current consensus but the history of the field. This is knowing what’s been tried before and why it failed. This is understanding the complexity that outsiders miss. If someone can explain something in five minutes that actually takes five years to understand, they’re probably oversimplifying—which means they’re probably misleading you.
   2. They have skin in the game. If someone is wrong, there are consequences for them. They have a reputation to protect. They have professional standards to maintain. They can’t just say whatever gets clicks because their credibility is on the line. Contrast this with someone who can say anything, get attention, and then move on to the next viral claim. They have no skin in the game. So they have no incentive to be careful.
   3. They’re embedded in a community of peers who can check their work. A true expert isn’t isolated. They’re part of a community of other experts who challenge them, review their work, catch their mistakes. This is why peer review exists. This is why the scientific method involves replication. This is why the Church has a Magisterium—to ensure that teaching is consistent, orthodox, and true. If someone is operating outside any community of accountability, that’s a red flag.
   4. They’ve been tested over time. Anyone can be right once. But someone who’s been consistently right, across multiple situations, over decades? That’s different. Their track record matters. If someone made confident predictions that turned out to be completely wrong, their epistemic authority in that domain should be downgraded. But often what happens instead is they just move on to a new topic where nobody remembers their failures.
   5. They’re honest about what they don’t know. The smartest people in the world are the most aware of the limits of their knowledge. They say things like, “I’m not sure,” and “The research is unclear,” and “This is outside my expertise.” People with low epistemic authority tend to be the most confident. They speak with absolute certainty about things that are actually complex and unclear. They don’t hedge. They don’t qualify. They just declare.

The Saints and Their Sources

But how do we actually live this out? How do we embody epistemic authority—not just understand it theoretically, but practice it in a way that actually works? The Church offers us a model. In fact, the Church was so convinced of the power of this model that it made the person who embodied it the patron saint of journalists.

The Patron Saint of Journalists and Truth in a Time of Misinformation

St. Francis de Sales lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s. It was a time of massive religious confusion. The Protestant Reformation had fractured Christian unity. Pamphlets and polemics flooded the market. Everyone claimed to speak for God, and everyone had a printing press—or the equivalent.

Sound familiar?

It was information warfare. Rumors spread faster than truth. Misinformation was weaponized. In many ways, it was exactly like our time.

Francis faced a specific problem that we face today: How do you communicate truth in an age of confusion? How do you speak to people who are being bombarded with false claims? How do you build trust when trust has been weaponized? How do you fight misinformation without becoming misinformation yourself?

And Francis’s answer? It was almost shockingly simple: Gentleness. Clarity. Rigorous honesty.

Here’s what Francis understood—and here’s what we’ve forgotten: The way you communicate is part of what you’re communicating. If you’re claiming to speak truth but you’re speaking with harshness, contempt, and divisiveness, you’re poisoning the message. You’re proving by your tone that you don’t actually believe what you’re saying. Because if you truly believed it was true, you wouldn’t need to manipulate people into believing it.

So Francis developed a distinctive approach to communication in the midst of misinformation. He insisted on five things:

• • Accuracy Over Speed. Francis refused to spread rumors. He refused to repeat unverified claims, no matter how damaging they might be to his opponents. In an age when misinformation spread through pamphlets and pulpits, when speed was valued above all else, Francis would pause. He would verify. He would say: “I would rather lose an argument than tell a lie to win it.” This was countercultural then. It’s countercultural now. But it was also powerful. People trusted him because he wasn’t trying to manipulate them. He was trying to tell them the truth, even when the truth was inconvenient.
  • Charity Over Contempt. When Francis disagreed with someone—and he disagreed with many people, especially Protestants—he refused to attack their character or assume their motives. He would say that even those he opposed were seeking God, even if they were wrong about how to find Him. This didn’t mean he was soft on error. It meant he distinguished between the error and the person who held it. He attacked ideas, not people. He refused to demonize his opponents. In a time of religious warfare and propaganda, this was revolutionary. It was also disarming. People who expected to be attacked found instead someone who treated them as human beings worthy of respect.
  • Clarity Over Complexity. Francis understood that truth should illumine, not obscure. When he wrote or spoke, he aimed for simplicity and directness. He refused to hide behind jargon or complexity. He believed that if something was true, it could be explained clearly. If you couldn’t explain it clearly, maybe you didn’t understand it yourself. This is a devastating critique of modern discourse, where people hide behind complexity to avoid accountability. Where they use jargon to make themselves sound smarter than they are. Francis refused this. He believed that the deepest truths were the simplest ones, and that if you truly understood something, you could explain it to anyone.
  • Verification Over Assertion. Francis did something radical: He checked his sources. He asked questions. Where did this claim come from? Who is making it? What do they have to gain? Can it be verified? In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he warned explicitly against believing everything you hear, especially from those with an agenda. He taught people to be skeptical—not cynical, but genuinely discerning. He taught them to notice when someone was trying to manipulate them through emotion rather than reason. He taught them to ask: Does this person have skin in the game? Are they trying to help me understand, or trying to get me to do something?
  • Humility Over Certainty. Perhaps most importantly, Francis refused absolute certainty about complex matters. He acknowledged that reasonable people could disagree. He acknowledged that he might be wrong. He acknowledged that misinformation often sounds convincing because it contains grains of truth. So he taught people not to trust their first instinct, but to sit with difficult questions. To pray about them. To consult with wise people. To notice what fruit a teaching produced in their lives. He taught people that discernment takes time, and that rushing to judgment was how misinformation took root.

Because he embodied these principles so consistently, Francis was made patron saint of journalists. And his approach to communication became a model for truth-telling in public discourse. His principles are exactly what we need today.

Here’s what made people actually trust him: He wasn’t claiming authority for himself. He was claiming authority for the process. His role was not to give people a list of approved sources. His role was to teach them how to think about sources themselves. He was showing them how to distinguish truth from lies—not through propaganda or counter-propaganda, but through the development of habits of mind. Francis also understood something else that we desperately need to understand right now: Misinformation doesn’t spread through reason. It spreads through emotion. People believe false things not because they’re stupid, but because the false things make them feel something—fear, anger, superiority, vindication. The false things confirm what they already want to believe.

So Francis’s response was not to overwhelm people with counter-arguments (which just makes them defensive). It was to offer them something better: peace, hope, and genuine understanding.

When someone came to him confused by conflicting claims, Francis wouldn’t just tell them what to believe. He would help them develop the habits of mind necessary to evaluate claims themselves. He would teach them to notice: Does this claim come from someone with skin in the game, or someone just trying to get attention? Does this claim produce fear or peace? Does this claim treat those who disagree with it as human beings or as enemies? Does this claim require me to believe the worst about people, or does it invite me to believe the best?

This is crucial for us today. We live in a time when misinformation is deliberately designed to trigger emotional reactions. We live in a time when people profit from confusion. We live in a time when the loudest voices are often the most manipulative.

Francis would have recognized this immediately. And his response would be the same: Slow down. Verify. Speak with gentleness. Assume good faith where possible. Distinguish between error and the person in error. Seek clarity. Build trust through consistency and honesty. Notice what fruit a teaching produces. Ask yourself: Am I being invited to love, or to fear? Am I being invited to think, or to react?

This is not weakness. This is the most powerful response to misinformation possible—because it’s the only response that actually builds lasting trust. Because it’s the only response that doesn’t just replace one poison with another.
Your Practice

So here’s your practice—and this is important: When you encounter a source, ask these questions:

• • Are they speaking with gentleness or contempt?
  • Are they trying to clarify or to confuse?
  • Do they acknowledge complexity, or do they oversimplify?
  • Are they willing to be wrong?
  • Do they have skin in the game, or are they just trying to get attention?
  • Do they treat those who disagree with them as human beings or as enemies?

Sources that communicate with clarity, charity, and honesty are more trustworthy than sources that communicate with harshness, contempt, and certainty.

Remember: The way someone speaks is part of what they’re saying. If they’re speaking like Francis de Sales—with gentleness, clarity, and genuine concern for your wellbeing—you’re probably encountering someone worth listening to. If they’re speaking with contempt and demanding your immediate agreement, you’re probably encountering someone trying to poison you.

The Master of Sources

Francis gave us the principles. But how do you actually apply them when you’re facing complex theological questions? How do you navigate sources that seem to contradict each other? That’s where Thomas Aquinas comes in.

St. Thomas Aquinas lived in the 1200s. He had access to Aristotle, Augustine, the Church Fathers, Scripture, and contemporary theology. He had to figure out which sources to trust and how to integrate them.

Here’s what Thomas did: He didn’t treat all sources as equal.

Scripture was the highest authority. It was God’s direct word. Everything else had to align with it.

Then came Sacred Tradition—the lived understanding of the Church across centuries. If the Church had consistently taught something across time and space, that carried weight.

Then came the Church Fathers—the great theologians and bishops of the early Church who had been close to the apostles and had thought deeply about Christian truth.

Then came contemporary scholarship and philosophical insight.

But here’s the key: Thomas didn’t just accept sources because they were old or famous. He tested them. He asked questions. He looked for internal consistency. He examined whether they produced fruit.

And when he encountered contradictions between sources, he didn’t panic. He asked: What is each source actually claiming? What are the assumptions behind each claim? Can these be reconciled? If not, which source has greater epistemic authority in this domain?

Thomas’s Summa Theologiae is basically a masterclass in source evaluation. And what made it powerful wasn’t that Thomas was smarter than everyone else (though he was brilliant). It was that he understood epistemic authority and knew how to navigate it.

Notice what Thomas did: He didn’t set himself up as the ultimate authority. He submitted his work to the Church. He appealed to Scripture and Tradition. He engaged with other thinkers charitably. He understood that his role was to help the Church understand truth more deeply, not to overturn the Church’s understanding.

But Thomas was working in the relative stability of medieval Christendom. What happens when the very foundations of authority collapse? What happens when you can’t even agree on who the Pope is? That’s the world Catherine of Siena inhabited.

Trusting the Right Source

St. Catherine of Siena lived in a time of massive confusion about authority. There were two popes. Bishops contradicted each other. Theologians debated endlessly. Everyone claimed to speak for God.

Catherine didn’t try to evaluate everything. She focused on one source: Jesus as understood through the Church.

When someone came to her with a teaching, she asked: Does this reflect Jesus’s character? Does this align with what the Church teaches? Does this produce love or division?

She didn’t need to become an expert in every field. She didn’t need to evaluate every claim. She just needed to know the source that mattered most—and then evaluate everything else in light of it.

Here’s what made her epistemic authority trustworthy: She wasn’t claiming authority for herself. She was claiming authority for the Church. She was saying: “I’m not the source. The Church is. My job is to help you see what the Church teaches.”

That humility is what gave her credibility.

But Catherine was navigating chaos in her own time. What happens when the Church itself seems to be changing? What happens when you’re trying to understand how the Church can teach something that seems new? That’s the question John Henry Newman had to answer.

Understanding Development

St. John Henry Newman lived in the 1800s, a time when people were confused about how the Church could teach things that seemed new. If the Church was guided by the Holy Spirit, shouldn’t everything be clear from the beginning?

Newman’s insight was crucial: Truth develops. Understanding deepens. The Church in the year 1800 understands some things more clearly than the Church in the year 400—not because the Church changed its mind, but because the Church has thought more deeply.

This is important for evaluating sources: A source that claims to have recovered some “lost truth” that the Church forgot is probably not trustworthy. A source that claims to be developing the Church’s understanding in continuity with Tradition is more likely to be legitimate.

Newman also understood something else: When evaluating sources, you need to look at the whole picture, not just isolated quotes. You need to understand the context. You need to see how a teaching connects to other teachings. You need to evaluate whether something is a genuine development or a genuine corruption.

This is why reading sources in their entirety matters. This is why context matters. This is why a single quote taken out of context can completely mislead you.

Notice what Newman did: He didn’t reject the Church’s authority. He deepened his understanding of it. He showed how the Church’s teaching could develop while remaining faithful to its origins. He appealed to the testimony of the whole Church across time, not just to contemporary voices.

What They All Understood

Now here’s what all four of these saints have in common: None of them set themselves up as the ultimate authority. Francis deferred to the process of careful communication. Thomas deferred to Scripture and Tradition. Catherine deferred to the Church. Newman deferred to the Church’s development across time.

They all understood something we’ve forgotten: Epistemic authority isn’t about being right by yourself. It’s about being part of something bigger than yourself. It’s about submitting your individual judgment to a community, a tradition, a source that’s been tested and proven over time.

They understood that the smartest, most trustworthy people aren’t the ones claiming authority for themselves. They’re the ones who’ve learned to recognize genuine authority and to submit to it.

Now let’s get practical.

Evaluating Sources Without Becoming Paralyzed

Okay, so how do you actually do this? How do you evaluate sources in a practical way without spending eight hours fact-checking everything you encounter?

1. Identify the Domain

First, figure out what domain you’re actually in.

Are you trying to understand theology? Science? History? Economics? Politics? Mental health? Parenting? Each domain has its own epistemic authorities.

If you’re trying to understand what the Church teaches about marriage, the source that matters is the Church’s teaching—the Catechism, papal encyclicals, the lived Tradition. A therapist might have insights, but the therapist is not the epistemic authority here.

If you’re trying to understand whether a particular therapy is effective, the source that matters is peer-reviewed research—not someone’s personal testimony, no matter how compelling.

If you’re trying to understand the history of the Church, the source that matters is a historian who has studied primary sources—not someone with a podcast who’s sharing their opinions.

Your practice: Before you evaluate a source, ask: What domain am I in? Who actually has epistemic authority here?

2. Check the Credentials—But Know What They Mean

Credentials matter, but they’re not everything.

A PhD in theology is relevant to theological claims. A PhD in physics is not.

But here’s what matters more than the credential itself: What is the person’s track record? Have they been consistently right? Have they been tested by their peers? Do they have skin in the game?

Someone with a credential who’s been wrong repeatedly is less trustworthy than someone without a credential who’s been consistently right.

Someone with a credential who operates in isolation from their field is less trustworthy than someone embedded in a community of peers.

Your practice: Don’t just ask, “Does this person have credentials?” Ask, “Are their credentials relevant to this claim? What is their track record? Are they embedded in a community of accountability?”

3. Look for Multiple Independent Sources

If you’re trying to figure out if something is true, don’t rely on one source.

Find multiple sources that are independent of each other—sources that don’t have the same financial incentive, the same ideological commitment, the same bias.

If they all point the same direction, you’re probably encountering truth.

If they contradict each other, that’s data. That tells you the question is more complex than any single source is admitting.

Your practice: When you encounter a significant claim, ask: What would someone with a different perspective say about this? Can I find a source that disagrees? What’s their reasoning? Do they have a point?

This doesn’t mean treating all sources as equal. It means recognizing that truth is often more complex than any single perspective captures.

4. Notice Who Benefits

Follow the money. Follow the ego. Follow the ideology.

If someone benefits financially from you believing something, that’s a reason to be skeptical. Not a reason to automatically disbelieve them—but a reason to check their work more carefully.

If someone’s entire identity is wrapped up in a particular belief, that’s a reason to be skeptical. Not because they’re lying—but because confirmation bias is real, and we all see what we want to see.

If someone is part of a tribe that gains power by having you believe something, that’s a reason to be skeptical.

Your practice: Ask yourself: Who benefits if I believe this? What would they lose if I didn’t? Am I being told something because it’s true, or because it serves someone’s interests?

5. Check for Intellectual Humility

Experts know the limits of their knowledge. They say things like:

• • “The research is unclear.”
  • “I’m not sure.”
  • “This is outside my expertise.”
  • “Reasonable people disagree about this.”
  • “I was wrong about that.”
  • “The evidence suggests, but doesn’t prove…”

People who don’t know what they’re talking about tend to be absolutely certain. They speak with total confidence about complex things. They don’t hedge. They don’t qualify. They don’t admit uncertainty.

That’s a red flag.

Your practice: When you encounter a source, notice their tone. Are they speaking with appropriate humility given the complexity of the topic? Or are they speaking with absolute certainty about something that should be uncertain?

6. Test Against What You Know

You already know some things to be true. You know that God is love. You know that Jesus is Lord. You know that the Church teaches certain things. You know that certain practices produce certain fruits.

When you encounter a new source or a new claim, ask: Does this align with what I already know to be true? Or does it contradict it?

If it contradicts something you know to be true, that’s a reason to be skeptical—even if the source seems credible.

Your practice: Before accepting a major claim, ask: Does this fit with what I know about God, about human nature, about the Church’s teaching? Or does it contradict it?

7. Notice What You’re Not Being Told

Every source has a perspective. Every source emphasizes certain things and downplays others. Every source has blind spots.

So ask: What is this source not telling me? What questions are they not asking? What perspective are they not considering?

If a source is only telling you one side of a complex issue, that’s a reason to seek out other sources.

Your practice: When you’re reading or listening to a source, notice what they’re emphasizing and what they’re leaving out. Ask: What would someone with a different perspective emphasize? Am I getting the whole picture?

The Danger of Trusting the Wrong Source

Here’s the specific danger we’re facing right now:

We’re living in a moment when the loudest voices are often the least credible. When the most confident people are often the least knowledgeable. When the people with the biggest platforms are often the people with the most extreme views.

And we’re making decisions based on these sources.

We’re changing our faith based on what we heard on a podcast.

We’re changing our politics based on what we saw on social media.

We’re changing our understanding of ourselves based on what some influencer claimed.

And we’re not even asking: Does this person actually have epistemic authority here? Have they been tested? Do they have skin in the game? Are they embedded in a community of accountability?

Here’s what happens when you trust the wrong source: You end up poisoned. And the poison is slow. It doesn’t kill you immediately. It just gradually corrupts your thinking, your faith, your relationships, your peace.

You start believing things that aren’t true. You start distrusting things that are trustworthy. You start following people who are leading you away from God, away from the Church, away from truth.

And by the time you realize it, you’ve been eating poison for years.

The Church As Epistemic Authority

Here’s something the world doesn’t want you to understand: The Church is not just a social club or a moral society. The Church is an epistemic authority.

The Church has the right to be believed about certain things—not because the Church is always right about everything, but because Jesus gave the Church authority to teach in His name.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Jesus didn’t just give authority to individuals. He gave authority to the Church. He promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church into all truth.

This doesn’t mean the Church is infallible in every statement. It means the Church has been given authority to teach about faith and morals in a way that other institutions haven’t been given.

So here’s your practice: When you’re trying to figure out what’s true about matters of faith and morals, start with the Church. Start with Scripture. Start with Tradition. Start with the Magisterium. Not because the Church is the only source you should consult, but because the Church is the primary source.

Everything else should be evaluated in light of what the Church teaches—not the other way around.

This is countercultural. The world tells you to think for yourself, to question authority, to trust your own judgment above all else.

But the Church says: Submit your judgment to the Church’s teaching. Not because you can’t think. But because you’re not alone. Because the Holy Spirit guides the Church. Because 2,000 years of saints have thought about these things before you. Because your individual perspective is limited, and the Church’s perspective is broader.

This is not oppressive. This is liberating. Because it means you don’t have to figure everything out on your own. You can trust a source that’s been tested over centuries. You can stand on the shoulders of giants.

Multiple Witnesses: Why You Need More Than One Source

Let me be very specific about why multiple witnesses matter.

Your own perspective is limited. You have blind spots. You have biases. You have desires that can distort your perception.

I have blind spots. I have biases. I have desires that distort my perception.

We all do.

So when you’re trying to figure out if something is true, you need multiple people—people with different perspectives, different backgrounds, different biases—all examining the same question.

If they all come to the same conclusion, you can be more confident.

If they disagree, that tells you something important: Either the question is more complex than any single perspective captures, or one of the sources is wrong.

But you can’t figure out which without hearing from multiple witnesses.

This is why the Church has bishops. This is why the Church has councils. This is why the Church has a Magisterium. Not because one person can’t think clearly, but because multiple people thinking together can recognize truth more clearly than any individual can alone.

Your practice: When you’re facing a significant question, don’t just listen to one voice. Listen to multiple voices. Listen to people who disagree with each other. Listen to the Church’s teaching. Listen to Scripture. Listen to wise people in your life. Then ask: What are all these witnesses pointing toward?

The Epistemic Humility We Need

Here’s the final thing you need to understand: You are not an expert in most things. And that’s okay.

You don’t need to be an expert in everything. You just need to know how to recognize expertise. You need to know how to evaluate sources. You need to know when to defer to someone who knows more than you do.

This is not weakness. This is wisdom.

The person who thinks they can evaluate every claim without help is the person who’s most likely to be poisoned. The person who knows they need help, who seeks out multiple witnesses, who submits to the Church’s teaching—that person is the one who stays healthy.

So here’s your permission: You don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to fact-check everything. You don’t have to become an expert in every field.

You just have to know which sources to trust.

And you have to be willing to defer to them.

Final Thoughts

We live in a moment of unprecedented access to information and unprecedented confusion about what’s true.

But this isn’t new. The Church has been navigating this for 2,000 years. The Church has been asking: Which sources are trustworthy? How do we evaluate claims? How do we distinguish between truth and poison?

And the Church has developed wisdom about this.

Start here: Recognize that not all sources are equal. Epistemic authority is real. Some people actually know what they’re talking about, and some people don’t.

Identify the domain you’re in. Find sources with genuine expertise. Look for multiple independent witnesses. Check for intellectual humility. Notice who benefits. Test against what you know to be true.

But most importantly: Start with the Church. Start with Scripture. Start with Tradition. Evaluate everything else in light of what the Church teaches.

Do this consistently, and your ability to recognize truth will sharpen. Your ability to avoid poison will improve. Your ability to help others recognize what’s real will grow.

You’ll become someone who can taste, who can test, and who can teach.

May God grant you the wisdom to recognize true sources, the humility to defer to genuine expertise, the courage to question false authorities, and the discernment to know the difference.

ACTION ITEMS

5 THINGS YOU CAN START DOING NOW

1. Identify One Source You Trust Blindly. Write down a person, outlet, or voice whose claims you accept without questioning. Now ask yourself: Why? Do they have actual expertise in this domain, or just confidence? Have they been wrong before? This isn’t about rejecting them—it’s about becoming aware of where your blind spots are.

2. Find a Credible Disagreement. Pick a topic you care about. Find someone credible who disagrees with your current position. Read or listen to them charitably for ten minutes. Don’t try to convince yourself they’re right—just notice: What do they see that your usual sources miss? What questions are they asking that nobody else is?

3. Ask Your Priest or a Wise Person One Question. Bring a claim you’ve been uncertain about to someone in your life you trust—ideally someone with real spiritual authority. Ask them: “Does this align with what the Church teaches?” Notice how different it feels to get guidance from someone who knows you and cares about your soul, rather than from an algorithm.

4. Check Your Humility Meter. Listen to a source you normally trust. Count how many times they say “I’m not sure,” “the research is unclear,” or “I could be wrong.” If the answer is zero, that’s your red flag. Real experts know the limits of their knowledge.

5. Go Back to the Source. If someone is making a big claim about what the Church teaches, Scripture says, or history shows—don’t take their word for it. Spend fifteen minutes reading the actual source yourself. You’ll be shocked how often people misrepresent what they’re citing.