Biblio Spotlight: The Fallibility Principle

The Constitution of Knowledge explores what knowledge is and how we come to accept what is true, especially in a time of misinformation and propaganda. 

What I loved most was that it gave me the language of the fallibility principle. This is the idea that “everyone can always be wrong.” It was in reading about that concept that gave me assurance that the United States will not fall into terminal authoritarianism, because we do not believe that any one person has the final say on what is true. That’s the fallibility principle.

I had been listening to an episode of the Autocracy in America podcast that was not very optimistic about our future. I thought they were wrong, but couldn’t put my finger on why, beyond the idea that Americans are different.

Then, I picked this book back up and read about the fallibility principle and realized that’s what makes us different. Americans have an issue with authority.

Jonathan Rauch, the author, traces the fallibility principle to the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, which gave birth to liberalism. (This should not be confused with modern Liberalism of today; liberalism is the idea that government should be restrained by laws to protect the individual liberties of the people from tyranny.)

As soon as I saw the word fallibility, my brain shifted toward theological thinking. The story of the Bible is the story of fallibility. We live in a fallen world in which all people and all systems exist in a fallen state.

I think the equality that Thomas Jefferson wrote about was rooted in the idea that we are all fallible. More importantly, no one is infallible. No one is above the law. No one person should have the power to make laws, because everyone is fallible. This gives me a whole different perspective on how he could write those words and own slaves.

Before Jefferson declared the king was fallible, Martin Luther declared the pope and Church were fallible. 

Americans are different because we carried the Protestant concept of fallibility and built a nation around it - not a Christian nation - a nation of fallible humans, of sinners. 

Church and State must remain separate because the Church’s role is to speak truth to the State and call it to repent - to stand outside and say: “we think you got this wrong and need to fix it.”

Belief in fallibility is what allows us to live in a multicultural society. Fallibility is incompatible with supremacy.

But as Rauch points out, there has been a rise in rigid thinking on both the Left and the Right over the last few decades, where certain ideas, and people, have been deemed infallible. 

Something that is infallible cannot be questioned. This means there can be no debate and there is no room for compromise.

When we say that we couldn’t possibly be wrong, we declare ourselves to be infallible. Yet, as Christians, we are called to admit that we are sinners, we are fallible - we could be, and often are, wrong. This humility stands in contrast to self-righteousness.

Christian Nationalism is filled with self-righteousness. It is un-Christian and it is un-American.

Jonathan Rauch is not a Christian, but I heard about this book, when he went on the Holy Post podcast episode: Why an Atheist Believes America Needs Jesus to Save Democracy, to promote a different book, Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy, which I also recommend. 

I’m a Christian who also believes that Christianity needs Jesus to save itself and democracy.