In this short video, Dr. Braxton Hunter, President of Trinity’s online seminary and online Bible college, explains the S.L.E.D. test, which debunks several pro-abortion arguments.

If you would like to be better prepared to answer questions like this, consider taking an apologetics course online or earning an online apologetics degree with Trinity at a bachelors, masters, or doctorate level.  For more information,  complete the “Request more information” form on the right side of this page.

Video Transcript

Welcome to Trinity Insight, the home of the thinking Christian. And today we’re asking the question how can Christians respond to the problem of abortion.

So, how can Christians respond to this problem of abortion in our time? Well, obviously, Bible believing Christians have a good basis for standing against abortion. Check out the Trinity radio podcast and the Trinity Insight blog for more on that. But what are some other good arguments against abortion?

Well first it’s important to understand what happens at the moment of conception. Often we hear that at least in the first few weeks what we have is not what we might call human life, but this is just patently false. The biological material from the human mother is human biological material as is the biological material from the father, and the combination of that material results in new human biological material. Now since biological material is by definition life, at the moment of conception we have new human life.

The question just becomes at what point, if ever, is it ok to terminate human life. One of my favorite cases is called the S.L.E.D., or sled, argument given by Stephen Schwartz.

S stands for size. Is it ok to terminate human life based on size? Well clearly not. My six-year-old daughter is a lot smaller than I am, as are individuals with disabilities that prevent their development in size, but we don’t consider these people to be less human or say that it’s more acceptable to terminate them.

L stands for level of development. It’s not ok to terminate human life because it’s less developed, since also my three-year-old daughter is less developed than my six-year-old daughter, who is less developed than my wife. Yet again, we wouldn’t say that it’s more okay to end the lives of either of my human daughters.

E is for environment. Some may say that since the unborn are in the environment of the womb it is permissible to terminate them, but in no other area do we say that one’s environment changes their value. We wouldn’t say that of someone living in another country.

D stands for dependency. Since the unborn are dependent on someone or something else, they may be terminated some might say but by this logic anyone on insulin or any other medication that keeps them alive is less valuable someone else.

Simply put, the typical arguments in favor of abortion fail. Check out the blog and podcast on these issues at Trinity Insight by visiting TrinitySem.edu today, so you can continue growing in your faith as a thinking Christian.

The post The Best Pro-Life Arguments Against Abortion first appeared on Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary.

Dr. Braxton Hunter, president of Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary, explains Trinity’s apologetics classes and what makes the bachelor, master, and doctor apologetics degree programs at Trinity practical and unique.

For more information about how you can earn an online apologetics degree whether that be a bachelor’s, doctorate or masters degree in apologetics, complete the “Request more information” form on the right side of this page.

Online Apologetics Degrees and Courses at Trinity – Video Transcript

Greetings. I’m Dr. Braxton hunter and I want to take just a moment to tell you about Trinity’s degree programs in Christian apologetics.

As the president of Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary, the apologetics and evangelism programs have a special place in my heart. We believe at Trinity – I believe- that evangelism and apologetics are related in a greatly integrated way. And it’s for that reason that evangelism is at the heart of everything we do in Christian apologetics.

Contemporary Apologetics 1

I teach the foundational course in apologetics at this school, which is contemporary apologetics 1. And in that course, we’ll go over some of the reasons why Christian apologetics is important, a little bit of the history, some biblical foundation, because we want to know that the Bible serves as our foundation for every discipline everything we do, when we serve in the kingdom of God.

But on top of that, we’ll move on to talk about various methodologies for Christian apologetics. We’ll cover classical apologetics, evidential apologetics, cumulative case presuppositionalism, and reformed epistemology, so that you can bring your doctrinal positions to bear on the best approach for you for your type of ministry.

Then we’ll talk about various criticisms of the Christian faith. If Christian apologetics is the defense of the Christian worldview, then we want to know how to defend it against some of the best arguments and evidences brought against our position from atheists, Muslims, and other opposing world views.

Then we’ll talk about various arguments for God’s existence, and that’s one of my favorite parts of the course. We’ll talk about some of the philosophical stuff and even some of the scientific data that comes to bear on these things. And then after we talked about the theistic arguments, the arguments for God’s existence, we do an expansive resurrection case, so that you know how to defend the historical centerpiece of Christianity, the resurrection.

And then we round out that course by talking a little bit about how you can practically use these principles to reach people for the Lord Jesus Christ or to build up the faith of those who are already believers in your community. And that’s just one of the many courses that we offer but it does serve as an overview.

More Christian Apologetics Courses at Trinity

We have an entire course devoted to the problem of evil – why would a good God allow suffering and pain in this world. We have a course on cults and world religions. And we have a course that talks about how to do evangelism in a way that involves Christian apologetics and to set up events that our evangelistic apologetic events.

Many of the… or at least several of the books that we use in these programs are written by Trinity professors, and I think you would just love this program.

We believe that you can go from not knowing much of anything about Christian apologetics to being comfortable enough to use these things in, really, a short period of time, maybe after a couple of courses. And I can promise you this: by the time that the first course in this program is done, you can be a Christian apologist. Even if you’re not to the point yet where you can give answers and be an “answer giver” in that sense, you can be an “answer finder” for people, because you’ll have the resources, you’ll know who to call, you’ll know what books to read to find those answers for people in your life, so that you can be an evangelistic apologist, I think, from day one at Trinity in one sense or another.

I hope that you’ll consider this course and this program in Christian apologetics at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary. Trinity is becoming more and more known for apologetics.

Practical Christian Apologetics for Evangelism

But in a golden age at least in terms of resources on offer when it comes to Christian apologetics, Trinity is a little bit different in that there aren’t many resources out there – there are a few but there aren’t many resources out there – that are really aimed at you using apologetics to actually do something, to reach people for Christ.

We don’t just want to use apologetics for intellectual stimulation or for something to kind of just geek out about or as a personal hobby. We want you to use it to reach people for Christ and, as I said, to build up the faith of those who are already believers. And at Trinity we want you to know how to use these things practically.

If that’s what’s on your heart, if evangelism and what the Bible has to say is that important to you, and you feel like maybe God is gifted you or calling you to the field of Christian apologetics, I think that Trinity is a school that you definitely need to consider, because this program I believe will strengthen your faith and give you what you need to be a Christian apologist.

The post Online Apologetics Degrees and Courses at Trinity first appeared on Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary.

Dr. Braxton Hunter addresses this question from both a theological and practical perspective in the short video below.

If you would like to be better prepared to answer questions like this, consider taking an apologetics course online or earning an online apologetics degree with Trinity at a bachelors, masters, or doctorate level.  For more information,  complete the “Request more information” form on the right side of this page.

Video Transcript

Welcome to Trinity Insight, the home of the thinking Christian. And today we’re asking the question, can you be morally good without God?

So, can you be good without God?

Well, yes and no. Just hear me out…

One of the favorite proclamations of the new atheist movement is to say we can be good and moral people without God. Now untrained Christians will often jump at this and demand that we need God’s presence in our lives to ever do anything good at all, but this just a nice reality. Non-Christians often give to good charities, get involved with medical missions, and even help little old ladies across the street.

So, in one sense yes you can be good without God, but on the other hand, no you can’t be good with without God for two serious reasons.

First, if God does not exist then nothing really is good or bad it becomes merely a matter of opinion, whether it is wrong to torture children for fun or good to build wells for thirsty people. If someone declares that those things are good or bad, one could always just ask, “But says who?” For more on that check out chapter 3 of my book, Core Facts.

The second reason you can’t be good without god from a Christian perspective is that if Christianity is true, including what Isaiah 64:5-7 says, “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags,” then mankind is so wicked that even our good acts seem sinful, although I think this passage is often distorted and misused by Christians to the point of saying that no acts are good at all. But it does still point out the conditions of our human hearts.

So, can man be good without God? Well he can do some good things, but it can’t even call them good without borrowing from theistic world views to do it.

Check out the blog at Trinity Insight at TrinitySem.edu for more on this, and please share and comment and link these videos. Thank you so much.

The post Can You Be Good Without God? first appeared on Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary.

This quick Christian apologetics video explains two specific ways Christianity and Islam differ in their understanding of who God is. Watch the video so the next time someone asks you, “Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?” you can clearly explain the differences.

If you want to understand your Christian faith better and be able to better explain it to Christians and skeptics, consider taking online theology courses or earning an online apologetics degree through Trinity Bible College and Theological Seminary. Complete the “Request more info” form on the right side of this page.

Video Transcript

Welcome to Trinity Insight, the home of the thinking Christian. Today we’re asking the question, “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?”

So, is Allah, the God of Islam, one in the same with the Christian God?

Well, it’s worth pointing out that of the three dominant monotheistic religions in the world – Christianity Islam and Judaism – all three points the God of Abraham as the one true God. This is why it’s so frequently heard in pop culture that at least these three religions all worship the same God.

Christians claim that the god of the Old Testament, i.e. the Jewish God, came to Earth incarnate as the Son, Jesus. So, Christians affirmed the God the Jews. And Islam sees itself is coming after Christianity and embracing Jesus, albeit as a prophet and not as the divine only begotten Son of God.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, at least Islam and Christianity have strikingly different understandings of who God is. Most importantly Islam makes the claim that there is only one God. Well, you might be thinking, “So do Christians.” But what Muslims mean when they say that there’s only one God is that he is not only one essence but also one person. In other words, they aren’t real big fans of the idea of the Trinity.

Christians agree that God has one essence, but He exists in three persons. This is a big difference, since the unforgivable sin for Muslims is called “shirk,” which is committed when one asserts that God has any partners or that there are any other divine beings. (By the way, if you believe the earliest Muslim biographers Muhammad himself committed shirk when he claimed that the popular deities of the day, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat, could also be considered divine.) So, good Muslims know that Christians are guilty of shirk for affirming that God exists in three persons.

Muslim apologists also argue that the Trinity is logically contradictory since it is a contradiction to say one God exists as three gods. Well, Christians agree with this. That’s why we say, “one God who exists as three persons.” If we said “one God and three gods” or “one person and three persons,” those would both be contradictory instead we say “one God and three persons” which is a mystery but it’s not a contradiction.

But there are some more serious problems with the idea that Allah and the Christian God are the same. Orthodox Christians don’t think of God as two using to do things that are intrinsically good, and they also don’t think of God as deciding arbitrarily on what is good. Christians believe that goodness comes from God’s own good nature.

For Muslims, it’s not so much that God is good at least not the way Christians believe. Instead whatever Allah wants to do becomes good. This is known as voluntarism, and it leads to a God who acts in contradictory ways. According to Norman Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, in one place God is referred to as the one who leads astray and elsewhere is the one who guides. He is described by terms like “the bringer down,” “the compeller,” “a tyrant” and “haute.” As they conclude, Muslim scholars cannot avoid the contradiction that God has logically opposed characteristics.

So, is Allah the same as the Christian God?

Absolutely not!

Check out the blog at Trinity Insight by heading over to TrinitySem.edu today for more that will help you grow as a thinking Christian.

The post Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? first appeared on Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary.

In this Trinity Insight video, Dr. Braxton Hunter introduces to the Contemporary Apologetics course at Trinity’s online bible college and online seminary.

If you are interested in getting online apologetics degree or taking an online apologetics course, complete the “Request More Information” form on the right side of this page.

Video Transcript

Greetings. I’d like to welcome you to this course on contemporary Christian apologetics. I have no doubt that it will be an exciting time of learning.

• What challenges face Christian apologetics?
• What are some of the common misunderstandings about the apologetic enterprise?
• Are there any good evidences for God’s existence and the resurrection of Jesus that still stand up to scholarly scrutiny in the 21st century?
• How do contemporary Christian apologists respond to arguments from atheists and other skeptics?

These are just some of the fascinating issues that we will walk through together as we learn to enrich our ministries with Christian defense.

We’ll also take a look at various apologetic methodologies, so that you can objectively make a choice about which approach is the most appropriate to your distinctive denominational and doctrinal background and your ministry practices.

By the time you complete this course, if we work together at this, you will have all the tools you need to begin using Christian apologetics in your counseling, preaching, teaching, and personal evangelism endeavors.

Dig into the books, get excited about the material, and prepare yourself for the journey!

The post Online Apologetics Course: Contemporary Apologetics first appeared on Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary.

Are Christians scrambling for some new explanation of what the Bible means?

In this Trinity Insight video, we look what one new scientific study claims about evidence of early humans and whether it is incompatible with the biblical story of creation in Genesis, and specifically the existence of a literal Adam and Eve.

If you are interested in getting online apologetics degree or taking online theology courses, complete the “Request More Information” form on the right side of this page.

Video Transcript

Welcome to Trinity insight the home of the thinking Christian. Today we’re asking the question, has science removed the possibility of a literal, historical Adam and Eve.

Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee is under fire this week after making a change to its belief statement, which affirms that Adam and Eve were actual historical figures. A number of professors either resigned over fired because they could not agree with the idea that Adam and Eve actually existed in a literal sense.

This prompted University of Chicago ecology and evolution professor Jerry Coyne to demand that claiming bible-believing literalism is compatible with science is like saying that eating broccoli is compatible with being a lion. He says that the latest studies on this – although he fails to give us any citations – say the smallest size of population that could have initially spread from Africa would have had to have been 20,250. Then he makes the lead to say that since 20,250 isn’t 2, that Adam and Eve must have never existed as the Bible claims they did.

So, are Christians in trouble here?

Well, not really.

First of all, that there were 20,250 that came out of Africa just begs the question, where did the 20,250 come from? Atheists will answer this question in one way and believers in another. Moreover, even if the uncited studies were right – not that I think they are – it would not mean that Christianity was in any danger.

Christians have had young-earth creationists, old-earth creationists, and progressive creationists for a long, long time. Any one of those could believe in a historical Adam and Eve. They would just describe how Adam and Eve got there and when they existed a little differently.

Coyne then goes on to complain that to a rationalist all of these sophisticated theological gymnastics are amusing. But as I said orthodox Christians have understood the when and how of the historical Adam and Eve in slightly differing ways for hundreds and hundreds of years. Now I don’t agree with what many Christians say about this, but it’s not as though the church is all of the sudden trying to come up with new understandings just because of a couple of new studies.

So, has science destroyed the idea of a literal Adam and Eve? Absolutely not.

Check out the blog and podcast at Trinity Insight today by visiting TrinitySem.edu to learn more and continue growing as a thinking Christian.

The post Christian Apologetics: Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? first appeared on Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary.