The Invincible Ignorance Fallacy

The invincible ignorance fallacy occurs when real evidence and real reason are ignored.

Examples of the Invincible Ignorance Fallacy

Rocky: “You don’t have to take my word for it. You can know Christ. He is real, a Person, not a theology, feeling, religion, or any such thing. All you need to do is to pray to Him in sincerity, respect, and submission with a will to do His will.”

Sandy: “You need to prove that God exists. I want to see physical evidence using repeatable experiments that I can do to personally verify your theory about a god.”

Sandy isn't willing to look at the evidence. She is committing the fallacy of invincible ignorance.

FALLACY ABUSE

Sandy: “Go to (such and such web page) and look at the evidence there for evolution.”

Rocky: "OK. I looked at that web page, but all I saw was logical fallacies. There was nothing that could be called evidence, certainly not physical evidence. The reason that I know that the Big-Bang-Billions-of-Years-No-Flood-Molecules-to-Man story is not true is because of personal Divine revelation. I personally know Jesus Christ Who leads me and teaches me. He is the One Who reveals to me that the Bible is His Word and that it is without error. And He speaks to me through His Word and tells me that He created the Heavens and the Earth in six days by speaking it into existence.”

Sandy: “I’m fed up with you. You are committing the invincible ignorance fallacy.”

Sandy would have to bring some real evidence, but she can’t because there is no real evidence for a lie. The truth is that you could spend your life chatting with trolls on the Internet and get nowhere. They can cut and paste arguments from their favorite websites or send you to them. All of this can keep you from doing what God is leading you to do.

You have no responsibility to debate anyone. You have no responsibility to read all the things that some people want you to read. It is futile to try to carry on a conversation with someone who has no desire to know the truth. Before burning a lot of time with a person, find out if they just want to debate or if they are sincerely searching for the truth. Even then, you will get the fake question-asker who is just trying to find some question you can't answer and then use an argument from ignorance fallacy, claiming that if you can't answer every question you have no business believing Jesus. However, Jesus tells us that our knowledge is partial. It is incomplete. Our thoughts are not built of a stack of partial knowledge. Our thoughts are based on the King of kings Who is leading us and teaching us.

If a follower of Christ is asked to read a book or go to a web site for information in support of something that God has revealed to be false, that Christ-follower knows what will NOT be on that "information" source. Honest evidence that conflicts with God's revelation will NOT be there. There may be clever lies, made-up stories, unspoken presuppositions, hidden assumptions, and logical fallacies that are difficult to detect, but there will NOT be evidence for something that isn't true. And untrue things can be given in a very convincing way that makes them seem like they are true. For this reason, if a follower of Christ decides not to follow the instructions of the unbeliever, no fallacy is committed.

If a person who is not a follower of Christ is asked to come to Christ in sincerity, persistence, humility, respect, and to come with a desire to do God's will, that person will find Christ. If they choose not to do this, they are committing the fallacy of invincible ignorance.