Why is fallibilism, an epistemological position with consequences for moral action, a viable topic for Christian thought and cultural engagement today?
Though this collection was written before we were aware of the existence of COVID-19, it appears in the midst of a global pandemic that has laid bare severe inequalities and weaknesses in the medical, economic, and political systems that have been considered foundational or even sacrosanct in modern societies. The pandemic also has imposed unique challenges on the more intimate institutions of family, school, religious community, and nonprofit organization. If modern life is an equation with several variables, which under “normal” circumstances seem manageable even if not always solvable, this global pandemic has introduced many new and, as yet, unsolvable variables to that equation. In the interim, the pandemic has demanded crisis management, and, in the longer run, made the entire human family dependent on a deliverance to come in some uncertain eschaton—that is, when effective treatments and vaccines are discovered, manufactured, and available to be safely and justly distributed worldwide. Engendering apocalyptic levels of anxiety and uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemic has led many into a time of lament, doubt, and yearning. In such a troubled moment, when the modern systems and institutions we have taken for granted have been stretched to the breaking point, the perspective of fallibilism and its attendant intellectual and moral dispositions may be worthy of consideration.
For the sake of clarification, our volume is not an exhaustive examination of fallibilism as an epistemological position, but it does explore how a fallibilist orientation to truth claims might help to fund more spacious approaches in philosophy, theology, and religion in our increasingly pluralistic world and, hence, the title, The Grace of Being Fallible in Philosophy, Theology, and Religion.
Another important caveat: Fallibilism is not another name for relativism. Fallibilism neither eschews quests for truth nor claims that “all truths are equal.” Having said that, we should acknowledge that fallibilism has been marshaled to cast doubt on scientific findings, such as the links between tobacco use and cancer or between certain human behaviors and climate change. In our view, such approaches make the mistake of equating fallibilism with relativism and are often a smoke screen for commercial, political, or ideological motivations.
Instead, while acknowledging that we mere mortals will never be in possession of absolute truth, fallibilism supports searches for “verisimilitude” in both the sciences and the humanities. “Verisimilitude” means approaching the truth, reality, or actual in discrete fields of inquiry while admitting that we will never totally grasp the whole truth.1 We take the term “verisimilitude” from John Polkinghorne who argues for a “critical realism” in science and theology that is very similar to the fallibilist position advocated here. Within the context of the science-religion dialogue, Polkinghorne emphasizes that our approach to knowledge is always via “verisimilitudes,” not absolute truths. Broadly speaking, Polkinghorne searches for a trajectory by means of a kind of naïve realism and constructivism, or a via media between absolutism and relativism. We are aware, of course, that critical realism covers a wide range of nuanced differences.2 Thus, it may be more appropriate to speak of a variety of “critical realisms” specific to the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities such as theology. Variations such as absolutism, relativism, foundationalism, and constructivism are also present in epistemological approaches.3 We will not examine these important differences here, but just gesture at a possible relation between fallibilism and some basic aspects of critical realism as an epistemological position.
According to Polkinghorne, the motivation for claiming critical realism is that “our minds are so constituted, and we live in a world itself so constituted, that intellectual daring in the pursuit of a strategy of cautious circularity proves capable of yielding reliable knowledge.”4 In short, critical realism involves an ontological claim as well as an epistemological one. The ontological claim says that science actually tells us how the physical world is, albeit never finally and exhaustively. The epistemological claim emphasizes that our way of insight is always subtle and complex. In other words, critical realism is situated between naïve realism and constructivism which, according to Polkinghorne, are nothing less than self-supporting houses of cards.5 Polkinghorne concedes: “Of course, … knowledge is to a degree partial and corrigible. Our attainment is verisimilitude, not absolute truth. Our method is the creative interpretation of experience, not rigorous deduction from it. Thus, I am a critical realist.”6
We see Polkinghorne’s approach as a useful first step that needs further problematization and development. One reason for this is that Polkinghorne seems to rely too heavily on the natural sciences in his epistemology, even though he claims that critical realism supports a multifaceted approach to reality. We are seeking a stronger interdisciplinary consciousness and a more careful navigation that includes the humanities (including religious studies, theology, and philosophy), as well as other fields. One interesting trajectory for doing this is Andreas Losch’s “constructive-critical realism.”7
According to Losch, the “constructive” modifier emphasizes that there are different rationalities in play in our search for knowledge about reality, “the rationalities of natural, social, human science and of course theology are different ones.”8 Losch’s point is that a verisimilitude-based search for knowledge is interwoven with nuanced cultural and social constructs and conditions, as well as ethical decisions. Constructive-critical realism enforces “the consciousness of diversity on an epistemological level, realizing that if we extend epistemology to human sciences, the recognition of its ethical implications cannot be avoided.”9 Thus, a constructive-critical realism is closely related to fallibilism in its verisimilitude-based approach to knowledge, openness for correction, and its ethical implications.
In our attempt to understand the world, constructive-critical realism opens up an awareness of the need for cautious navigation across different academic fields. By emphasizing the moral and ethical dimensions in the search for knowledge, it gestures at something really urgent in our current multicultural context. Here ethical judgments are brought to the center, and this move exposes deep lacunae in our current multicultural context. Further, we see constructive-critical realism as a self-critical approach that stresses fallibilism in our search for knowledge.
By touching on religion, science, philosophy, and theology, this book embraces an interdisciplinary approach. In the past two decades, academics have often invoked “interdisciplinary,” sometimes to legitimize a particular approach or research agenda and sometimes with political or ideological motivations. Joe Moran says that “‘Interdisciplinarity’ has become a buzzword across many different academic subjects in recent years.”10 In this time of interdisciplinary studies, we find phrases like dialogue, interaction, and mutual enrichment claiming that our particular academic field has to be understood as open and not isolated from other academic fields.
This book embraces interdisciplinarity, both to give voice to different ...