Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of the Trinity.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

We've just finished a very long excursus on natural theology, looking at arguments for and against

the existence of God. Before we begin our next section, let's step back and reconnoiter. This excursus

on natural theology is a subsection of a larger unit that we've been covering on the

doctrine of God. The first subsection of the doctrine of God that we looked at was the attributes

of God, in which we discussed God's nature. Then we temporarily took this excursus

on natural theology to look at arguments for God's existence and against it. Now we want to come

to the second subsection of the doctrine of God, and this is on the doctrine of the Trinity.

So point A on your outline, if you're taking notes, will be introduction.

Introduction A.

Now, if I were to ask you here this morning, how many of you think that God is a person?

Probably a number of you would say yes. Well, technically, it's

incorrect to say that God is a person. Rather, God is three persons. This is the Christian doctrine

of the Trinity. God is personal, yes, but he's not a person.

And this is what serves to distinguish Christianity from other monotheistic faiths, like Judaism or Islam, which also agree that there is one God who is personal

but they think that there is only one person who is God. This also serves to

distinguish Christianity from various Christian cults and sects like Mormonism Latteratter-day Saints, or Jehovah's Witnesses.

You'll find inevitably that these sectarian groups get the doctrine of the Trinity wrong.

It's almost like a thermometer that you can use to test these different groups to see whether or not they adhere to biblical Christianity.

Unfortunately, the average Christian has little understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.

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