Autistic Certainty Fallacy

Whenever a logical fallacy is committed, the fallacy has its roots in Agrippa's trilemma. All human thought (without Divine revelation) is based on one of three unhappy possibilities. These three possibilities are infinite regression, circular reasoning, or axiomatic thinking. This is known as Agrippa's trilemma. Some have claimed that only logic and math can be known; however, that is not true. Without Divine revelation, neither logic nor math can be known. Science is limited only to pragmatic thinking because of the weakness of human reasoning, which is known as Agrippa's trilemma. Autistic certainty, a form of axiomatic thinking, is one of these three unhappy possibilities.

The Autistic Certainty Fallacy occurs when certainty is alleged based on the fact that the person believes it.  This is a form of alleged certainty that gives a reason for the belief. However, it is circular in that the belief is based on the belief. It may include some sort of appeal to authority. "I would not believe something unless it is true. I believe X. Therefore, X is true."

Examples of the Autistic Certainty Fallacy

A blog post: “We most assuredly do not know that life began due to chance. We know that natural selection can drive toward increasing complexity when the increased complexity provides a survival value. When viewed retrospectively, the evolutionary sequence looks determined – but this is not evidence of any design, natural or supernatural. Looked at retrospectively, your existence is the result of numerous chance events: millions of bondings between specific individual ova and sperms; any broken link in the chain and you would not exist.”

Reading this paragraph, one wonders whether there is anything that this person doesn't know. There are many fallacies in this little paragraph, one being unsupported assertion. The odds against life starting by chance are astronomical--that's if you don't know Christ. If you know Christ personally and are taught by Him, He reveals to you that this entire paragraph is a lie. He created the first life, and He directly saw to it that you would be born. In fact, He knew you before you were born. The reason we know this is by Divine revelation, not by unsupported assertion.

Stephen Montgomery: "We have fossils of very simple life forms that date back to 3.5 billion years ago! That’s 3,500,000,000! As you go through the fossil record, towards the present day, more groups appear; plants, trees, flowers, animals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals all pop up. In some cases we have been very lucky and the fossil record has preserved an animal or plant that links two different groups. These ‘intermediates’ show evolution caught in the act! One good example is the evolution of four legged, land living animals from fish. Creatures like Tiktaalik and Ichthyostega look a lot like a fish with flimsy legs, and they are actually the link between fish and amphibians! Animals like these lived at the waters edge about 375 million years ago, first propping themselves up on their front legs to gulp in air, then eventually evolving limbs which they could use to walk."

Stephen spent quite a bit of time explaining why the evidence isn't there before writing this. However, there are no undisputed intermediates between kinds (roughly families) of living things. (Abandoned Transitional Forms Transitional Forms Non-existent) Tiktaalik has many problems. (Tiktaalik Finished) As to the ages, they are stated as if no assumptions were involved. The dates are based on arbitrary assumptions and many fallacies. (How Old is the Earth  Young Age of the Earth) We cannot dogmatically claim to know that the Earth is 6,000 years old. We know that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days and we know the number of generations between Adam and Christ. That's about it. Even though a plain reading of Scripture seems to indicate a young Earth; even though there is zero observed evidence and only circular reasoning and speculations that support old Earth stories, we can't even deny the possibility that God could have done something that Scripture doesn't hint at and that has left no scientific evidence. It is possible. It just is not worth the time to think about it.