Why should anyone believe Christianity? This undergraduate course, with a differentiated graduate pathway, equips students to understand, evaluate, and communicate the Christian faith as a coherent account of reality.
APOL101
Elective
Introduction to Apologetics
Truth, reason, and the Christian faith
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Dates
10 weeks
Workload
12 hours per week
Class
Tues 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Online and in-person
Location
1/14 Vanessa Blvd Springwood QLD
Tuition Fees
Enrol AUD $1,948
Audit fee is 50% of tuition fees
12-week payment plans available
Applications close
14 Oct 2026 at 5:00 pm AEST
Course Overview
Why should anyone believe Christianity? How can Christians speak with confidence in a culture that often treats faith as private, irrational, or morally suspect? This course equips students to understand, evaluate, and communicate the Christian faith as a coherent account of reality.
It begins with the foundations every argument relies upon: truth, logic, meaning, reason, and the knowability of the world. It then examines existence, personhood, morality, revelation, miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus. Students learn to test competing worldviews fairly, use philosophical and historical evidence responsibly, identify what particular arguments can and cannot establish, and explain why the Triune God revealed in Scripture provides the deepest ground for the world we know and the lives we live.
The aim is not simply to win debates, but to strengthen faith, answer honest questions, and bear clear, courageous, gracious witness to Christ.
Rather than treating apologetics as a catalogue of disconnected proofs, the course develops a cumulative Christian case. It asks what any worldview must explain before it can argue at all, then follows that question through reason, reality, personhood, morality, history, and hope. The result is confessionally Reformed, philosophically serious, evidentially responsible, and directed toward evangelism, discipleship, and public witness.
This is a two-credit Haddon open elective for Trimester 3, 2026 (123 learning hours over 10 weeks), with a differentiated graduate pathway. PRTS recognition as an open elective is subject to formal approval.
Please note that this course is a part of the Credential: (Majors: Theology or Ministry or Leadership) program. Explore the full program to see how this course sits within the wider course of study.
Introduction to Apologetics
Why apologetics, why now
Queensland's Christian identification has fallen from 87.3 per cent to 45.7 per cent in fifty years. The church is not called to fall silent: common ground exists, but there is no neutral ground.
Course Learning Objectives
1
Explain the biblical purpose, theological foundations, and proper limits of Christian apologetics.
2
Identify the assumptions that shape claims about truth, knowledge, reason, morality, personhood, history, and God.
3
Reconstruct and evaluate central arguments for Christian theism, distinguishing their premises, conclusions, strengths, limits, and principal objections.
4
Compare Christian and non-Christian worldviews for internal coherence, explanatory power, and their ability to sustain rational, moral, and personal life.
5
Integrate Scripture, Christian doctrine, philosophical reasoning, and historical evidence in a coherent case for the Triune God and the resurrection of Jesus.
6
Communicate a well-reasoned apologetic response to a contemporary question with accuracy, intellectual honesty, pastoral sensitivity, and clarity for a non-specialist audience.
Course Details
Please note that the following information is subject to change up until the course commences.
Applications close
14 Oct 2026 at 5:00 pm AEST
Timeframe
27 Oct - 29 Dec 2026
Lecture times
Tuesday 6:30 PM ⎯ 8:30 PM
Location
1/14 Vanessa Blvd Springwood QLD
Duration
10 weeks
Workload
12 hours per week
Credits
2
Tuition Fees
Enrol AUD $1,948
Audit fee is 50% of tuition fees
Assessment
Argument Analysis Portfolio
Four short exercises reconstructing an argument, identifying premises and conclusion, stating the strongest objection, and judging what the argument actually establishes. Undergraduate: 1,200 words total. Graduate: 1,800 words total.
Due Date
TBC
Est. Hours
14
Weight
20%
CLOs
Contemporary Worldview Case Study
A focused analysis of a live public objection or rival account of reality (relativism, naturalism, the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, or the claim that faith is irrational). Undergraduate: 1,500 words. Graduate: 2,000 words with wider scholarly engagement.
Due Date
TBC
Est. Hours
16
Weight
25%
CLOs
Integrative Apologetics Research Essay
A sustained defence of a major Christian claim or response to a major apologetic question, integrating Scripture, doctrine, philosophical argument, historical evidence, and serious engagement with objections. Undergraduate: 2,500 words. Graduate: 4,000 words.
Due Date
Week 10
Est. Hours
28
Weight
40%
CLOs
Oral Apologetic Defence
A public-facing presentation of a developed argument followed by live questions. Undergraduate: 10-minute presentation and 5-minute Q&A. Graduate: 12-minute presentation and 8-minute Q&A.
Due Date
Week 9
Est. Hours
7
Weight
15%
CLOs
About the Lecturer
A strategic ecclesiologist, he has pastored, planted, and revitalised churches in Australia and the United States, leading high-risk mission trips among unreached peoples. Through worldwide seminars, networks, and conferences, Dr. Ireland delivers theological depth, pastoral warmth, and prophetic clarity, fostering church faithfulness and renewal in turbulent times. Holding a Doctor of Education (University of the Cumberlands, USA), Doctor of Ministry (Columbia International University, USA), M.A. in Theology (University of Chester, UK), and B.A. in Theology (Charles Sturt University, Australia), his doctoral research examined leadership, innovation in theological education, and adult learning theories. At the Haddon Institute, he lectures in theology and worldview, leads Spurgeon symposia on spiritual warfare and missional advance, and has authored works such as By Grace Alone (an updated All of Grace) and No Higher Calling: Shepherding God's People According to Paul. Married to Katarina for over 22 years and father to four, he embodies conviction and compassion in scholarship and shepherding.
Lecture Content
1
Faith, reason, and the myth of neutrality
What apologetics is; its biblical purpose; why no one reasons from nowhere; and how faith, reason, evidence, authority, humility, and witness belong together.
Date
27 Oct 2026
2
Truth and logic: what every argument already assumes
Truth, meaning, logical laws, and rational norms; whether relativism and radical scepticism can be stated consistently; and what must ground thought and argument.
Date
3 Nov 2026
3
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Contingency, dependence, explanation, and the ordered character of existence; the case for a necessary source of all that exists; and the limits of philosophical proofs.
Date
10 Nov 2026
4
What kind of God?
Divine self-existence, simplicity, freedom, creation, and evil; why God is not merely a larger being within reality; and how Christian revelation identifies the living, Triune God.
Date
17 Nov 2026
5
Mind, meaning, and personhood
Consciousness, reason, personal identity, language, unity and diversity; whether impersonal nature can finally account for persons who know, value, choose, and speak.
Date
24 Nov 2026
6
Goodness, dignity, and the hiddenness of God
Moral obligation, evil and suffering, human worth, the image of God, and the charge that God is not obvious enough; engaging arguments and the experience behind them.
Date
1 Dec 2026
7
Has God spoken and acted in history?
Revelation, Scripture, testimony, the knowability of the past, miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus; how theological conviction and historical evidence relate.
Date
8 Dec 2026
8
Hope, beauty, and apologetics in public
Providence, purpose, eschatological hope, and beauty; bringing the Christian case into church, university, workplace, family, and online conversations with clarity and grace.
Date
15 Dec 2026
9
Oral apologetic defences
Student presentations and live question-and-answer sessions. No new lecture content.
Date
22 Dec 2026
Notes
Undergraduate: 10-minute presentation and 5-minute Q&A. Graduate: 12-minute presentation and 8-minute Q&A.
10
Course synthesis and final research submission
Integration of the course argument, consultation as required, and submission of the Integrative Apologetics Research Essay. No new lecture content.
Date
29 Dec 2026
Required Readings
The Holy Bible. Weekly passages listed in the LMS.
Link Unavailable
Ireland, Craig. Borrowed Light. Selected supplementary chapters from the forthcoming manuscript.
Link Unavailable
Haddon Institute Apologetics Course Reader. Selected primary and academic readings from Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, Van Til, Schaeffer, Plantinga, Anderson and Welty, and contemporary philosophy of religion.
Link Unavailable
Recommended Readings
Sproul, R. C. Defending the Faith.
Link Unavailable
Bahnsen, Greg L. Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith.
Link Unavailable
Schaeffer, Francis A. He Is There and He Is Not Silent.
Link Unavailable
Lewis, C. S. Miracles: A Preliminary Study. Rev. ed.
Link Unavailable
Plantinga, Alvin. Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Link Unavailable