What is truth – if there is no absolute standard for truth?

I remember a day in Vienna, in 2020. A friend told me what his ex-girlfriend did for work, and somehow things felt a bit tight and dark inside me while I listened to him. She did research. And I simply could not understand how some people spent their lifetime studying science and doing research. To me, back then, that sounded like wasting your life. What were they searching for?

Back then, I did not understand yet that science does not necessarily search for THE truth I was asking about. It looks at single connections in our reality, sets up hypotheses, tests them, throws out some findings, confirms or refines others, and gets closer and closer to reality that way. But back then, that exact thing seemed somehow too small to me.

Even if we understand more and more accurately how something works—does that ever answer why anything exists at all? What a human being is? Why we are really here? What is right and what is wrong? And above all: How do we actually measure whether something is true? When and where would this search ever end? I do not know if anyone understood me back then, but I did not understand the people who talked about being on a search for "the truth." Which truth? What do they even mean?

How many truths in how many fields, industries, and topics do we want to find? To me, that made no sense and, honestly, it felt too narrow. Even if you found a small truth—what then? It was not meaningful enough for me to set out for it. What I did not know at the time was that six years later, I would discover something that would change my entire understanding of truth. Not another truth in another field. Instead, a standard that suddenly shone onto all fields for me. And all at once, I began to understand HOW and WHY things are connected.

Before that happened, though, I grew more and more frustrated when I heard people talk about "the truth" and watched how they defined it for themselves. Even if you assumed it existed—which I did not even believe back then—how can a human being define truth without a standard to guide them? Every human being has a subjective perception. None of us is one hundred percent objective. Objective compared to what, anyway? This meant: as soon as someone started talking about "the truth," I found it quite arrogant. I preferred to stick with the idea that everyone has their own truth anyway.

Because all I heard and saw in it was the urge to control what things mean. Deciding what is “right” and “wrong,” based on personal views, experiences, beliefs, and wishes—on how someone simply wants the truth to be.

I thought that was dangerous.

And it really triggered me and hurt me deeply, because other people lived just like that. In the same way, I surely hurt other people too, whenever I lived like that myself.

I preferred to believe that there is no single truth. And I thought people should not spend their time following someone who acts like they have figured it out.

It also felt very strange to me to see people who saw “the truth” in some gurus and clung to them like little children.

I thought that was terrible.

I preferred to encourage people to stay with their own clarity. Though, if I am honest, back then I sometimes spoke of “their truth” myself.

What I really meant was: stay true to yourself.

Think for yourself.

And somehow I trusted that this “higher power” or the universe would guide things along. Although that did not work 100% reliably either.

But not simply handing your own perception over to someone else still seemed better to me than following another person blindly.

And I would still say today:

That was not the wrong path chosen on purpose. But it was not the goal yet either.

Because on one point, I actually still think the same way today:

No human being should be the standard for truth. And by no human being, I mean: NO human being.

At some point, a moment came when I was so confused and overwhelmed by things that happened in my life in a very short time. I could no longer tell what was real and what was not, what was right and what was wrong, and why things happened the way they did.

No action, no deed, and no knowledge helped anymore. On top of that, I did not even feel truly free in my freedom anymore. That worried me, but this time I could not change it with willpower alone either.

And I did not want to let any person influence me in this—I had always been very careful about that.

And suddenly there was this feeling, as if plates were shifting in my brain—without me being able to control it.

Eventually, I was slowly faced with something that did not fit my previous worldview at all. Sooner or later, it demanded a decision from me. From me, of all people.

From someone who, until then, had seen “freedom of opinion” mainly as the freedom from having to settle on an opinion at all.

Yet suddenly, all that was left was:

Please, there has to be a God. Otherwise, I really do not know what to do anymore.

And also: What if God really exists and he is the standard? Not just "the universe". Not just some higher energy that is so vague in the end that anyone can read whatever they need into it. That had worked well for me until now. But suddenly, it did not seem to work anymore. At the same time, I was afraid of having to question my whole worldview. I was even embarrassed by it. But somehow I didn't care either & it also felt like an adventure. I just also wondered if it was maybe too adventurous, and if that was the only reason I was questioning it. But if there was a time to question it, it was now. So I started to talk to God, completely seriously. And to act (& hope) as if he existed.

And a few days later – at least I think so, I don't remember the exact time frame 100% – of all people, I met Jesus through a woman at the gym who was a complete stranger to me back then. She simply walked up to me. Asked me if I believed. And if I wanted to go to church with her. In Bangkok. I couldn't say no. Because to me it was clear: This is all connected. So I went with her. And in that first church service, I started to get to know Jesus. And the interesting thing was: A lot of what was said there didn't seem completely foreign to me at all. Quite the opposite. I could translate surprisingly much of it right away. I could connect what was preached there with things I already knew from psychology, my basic mini-understanding of quantum physics, my previous spirituality, and my language back then of energy, frequencies, and the universe. I heard Bible verses and thought: Yes of course, that makes total sense anyway. I listened to sermons and could see the connections (while fighting my ego, but also just letting it happen). Manche Dinge erschienen mir fast erschreckend logisch. -> Some things seemed almost frighteningly logical to me. Like I was hearing something I already knew in some way – just in a different language.

And in the beginning, my old language helped me understand. But at some point, through being with other Christians, I understood something important: A translation can also work in the wrong direction. I could not take Jesus and translate him into my old worldview until he magically fit in and pleased me. I could not listen to what Jesus said and then simply say: Oh yes, that is actually just what I used to call energy. That is actually just frequency. That is actually just the universe. Because if I really started to believe that Jesus is the truth, it had to work the other way around at some point. Then my old worldview could no longer be the standard I used to test Jesus. I had to start testing my old worldview against him. And with that, my language began to change too.

Not because everything I had observed, experienced, or understood before had suddenly become worthless. But because I had to see some things in a new way. Things I had previously credited to "the universe," I began to credit to God. Where I had spoken about energy or frequencies before, I had to check again: What do I actually mean by that? Is this something that can really be described? Is it a metaphor? Or did I credit an impersonal force with something that I understand today as God's work? My old language had helped me get this far. But it could not decide who Jesus is.

Because if I had really found the truth, I could not ask it to adapt to my old language. My language had to adapt to the truth. And surprisingly, that did not feel illogical to me. It was a huge change. But it made complete sense.

And at some point, I understood something else. I didn't have to suddenly throw away my entire past. All those moments when things happened that I couldn't explain. All those coincidences. All those miracles that I had credited to "the universe" back then. Today, I don't think I just imagined it all. I just think I didn't know the source yet. I had felt something without knowing who I was really feeling. Because looking back, I don't think Jesus only came into my life when I learned his name. I don't think God only started working when I finally recognized him. I believe he was there all along, and I can clearly remember moments where and how, exactly. He had stepped into my life long before I even understood who he was. And at some point, after I truly accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I suddenly understood the things that had happened before in a new way. For me, the miracles got a different source. The coincidences were given a name. Things I had credited to the universe before, I could suddenly see in the right light.

And because of that, I also had to look at my old thinking about "the universe" in a new way. To me, it hadn't just all been wrong. It had been thinking too small. I had seen creation, but I had not yet recognized the Creator. I had seen effects and tried to explain them, describe them, and recreate them, but I didn't know their source yet. I had sensed connections and given them the names I had available at the time. And I was searching, without knowing what—or rather whom—I was really looking for. This (unconscious) search was a path. But I had not yet come to know the truth.

And then I met this invisible Jesus, who did not just say: I have found my personal truth. Who did not even just say: I know the truth. Instead, he said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6 And suddenly, there were these two exact words: Way. Truth. And right here, at some point, was the big difference for me. Jesus did not just claim to know the truth. He claimed to be the truth. Of course, a claim alone does not make it true (though for me it was very bold to claim that—so either it was madness or really the truth). So I started to do some research. And then also: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – John 8:32 And I really needed truth in an area of my life, and I needed that feeling of freedom back. So I thought to myself: approaching this with him cannot be wrong. So I started to read. To learn. To understand how things connected. To read the Bible. To look closely at Jesus and at the question of who this man really was, whom people have followed for two thousand years.

And the more I learned, the more something changed. Because submitting, which had always felt wrong to me with a human guru, suddenly started to make complete sense here. With a guru, people make another human the standard. His perception. His interpretation. His ideas. And something inside me had always fought against that. I did not want that; it made me angry.

But if Jesus really is who he claims to be—God's Son, God and man—then I am not simply submitting to the subjective truth of another human. Then I am submitting to something that is greater than any human being. And that was exactly what I had been looking for all along, without even knowing it: a reference point outside of ourselves. Something that does not just do what I want. But still stays loving. Something whose truth does not depend on whether I like it at the moment. Something that is even allowed to correct me. Suddenly, I was no longer just doing whatever I wanted. And that was uncomfortable. But uncomfortable in the right way. At the same time, it was full of joy, peace, and gratitude. Because to me, he was great and divine enough that surrender no longer meant giving my own judgment away to another human. It meant accepting that I am not the highest standard myself.

And then something else happened. The more I learned about him, the less meaningless the different areas of life felt to me. Suddenly, research made sense to me too. Not because science became God to me, or because it could answer every question. But because, through science, you explore his creation. And suddenly, research did not have to arrive at THE truth one day to be valuable. It could study a small part of something whose whole now had a reference point for me.

Psychology suddenly made sense in a way that the start of my university studies (which I never finished) had never made on its own—because we are trying to understand how the human being that God created works. Biology. Physics. History. Psychology. Philosophy. They didn't have to compete with each other for THE truth anymore. They could study different parts of the same creation. And suddenly, the many small questions turned into something bigger for me. They didn't lead into nothingness anymore. They had a reference point. And with that, the meaning of knowledge changed for me too.

The question was no longer just: How does something work? But eventually also: What does this tell me about creation, and what does the Creator himself say about it? What do human beings tell me about their Creator, and what does the Creator tell me about human beings? What does order tell me about its origin, and what does the origin tell me about the right order? What does truth tell me about the one who claims to be the truth itself, and what does truth tell me about the truth we should live by? Jesus did not make science meaningless to me. Quite the opposite. He gave context to my search for knowledge. And suddenly I could understand why someone would want to spend their life doing research.

In the past, I used to say that THE truth did not exist, because I thought no human had the right to define it. And when I look back at that version of myself today, I still find that thought surprisingly honest. Because before I knew an absolute standard, I didn't want to pretend that I could be one myself. I just didn't know yet that my real question lay right there.

If no human being can be the standard for truth—who or what is it then? Today, my answer is Jesus Christ. Not because I decided at some point that my personal truth is now simply Christianity. That would be the exact same problem in a new form. Then I would have just traded one subjective truth for another. Rather, it is because today I believe that truth is not created by me, and because that has both challenged me and deeply relaxed me. I cannot change it to make it fit my life better. I cannot determine it through my feelings. I cannot rewrite it through my wishes. And I cannot change it by finding different words for it. If something is true, it is not true because I believe in it. It is true—regardless of whether I believe in it, whether I like it, or whether I want to accept it at all. And that makes a huge difference for me today.

Because of this, I can still be corrected too. Even as a Christian. Even when I study the Bible. Even when I speak about Jesus. I can be wrong. I can misunderstand things. I can project my own wishes onto something. I can interpret a Bible verse wrongly. I can confuse my own voice with God’s voice. I am not the truth. Just as no other human being is. And that is exactly why I need a standard outside of myself. I can only keep coming closer to it. Get to know it. Test it. Let it correct me. And since then, I have a standard to help me evaluate things, and sometimes say very clearly: “Yes, that is true.” Or: “No. That is your belief. But your belief alone does not make something true.”

And interestingly, recognizing an absolute truth did not make me question things less. It made me ask even more questions. Because if truth really exists, then a question is not a threat to it. Then I do not have to protect it from being examined. Then I am allowed to ask. Then I am allowed to search. Then I am allowed to doubt. Then I am allowed to learn. Then I am allowed to lay my previous beliefs on the table and check which of them are really true, and which were just things I happened to believe at one point.

The more I get to know the truth, the more I want to know it. The more I understand, the more I want to understand. And the more love I feel for it. Because for me today, truth is no longer an abstract philosophical idea. It is not what enough people agree on. It is not what feels right to me right now, or what I choose for myself. And it does not change whether I want to accept it or not. It does not belong to me. I am not the truth. But I get to know it. And today, it has a name for me: Jesus Christ.

Thank you, Jesus, for bringing the truth into my life too.