Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
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Welcome back to Breakdowns & Beatdowns on Skepticus — I’m your host, Adam of NOLA — and today’s episode is a reaction to a response video from the fairly well-known apologist Glenn Scrivener, aimed at Dr. Dan McClellan and his critiques of the Trinity.
I’m not going to “poison the well” up front… but Glenn pretty much does that himself.
Dan opens by framing the Trinity as an attempt to solve what he calls an “algebra problem” in the biblical data — how Jesus can be presented as divine and distinct from “God” in different texts and traditions. Glenn’s reply? He comes in hot with a list of alleged “tricks” and “sleights of hand” Dan supposedly uses all the time — including accusations like strawmanning, poisoning the well, “disparaging the unity of Scripture,” “chronological snobbery,” and even the halo effect.
And that’s where this gets ugly.
Because this isn’t just disagreement — this is an apologist trying to reframe a biblical scholar’s methodology as dishonesty. And if you’ve watched Dan’s channel, you know you don’t have to agree with him 100% to see what he’s doing: he’s talking about text, history, scholarship, and how doctrines develop — not playing rhetorical shell games.
In this reaction, we unpack what Glenn gets wrong (and what he refuses to engage), including:
Why calling the Trinity a “math problem” isn’t a strawman — it’s a blunt way to highlight the One-but-Three contradiction that Christianity has been patching for centuries.
Why Glenn’s “poisoning the well” accusation is basically… him poisoning the well.
How the debate over “unity” in Scripture gets flattened into a buzzword fight — and how Glenn appears to confuse univocality (single meaning / non-contradiction) with “everyone writing in the same voice,” which is not the same claim.
Why appealing to the Nicene Creed as if it “solves” the issue is basically just declaring victory with theological duct tape: God from God, true God from true God, begotten not made, and somehow still “one God” — with zero explanation that would satisfy anyone not already committed to the doctrine.
And I’ll say it plainly: the Trinity debate has always produced two kinds of Christians — the ones who admit it doesn’t make sense, and the ones who pretend it does. This video is for everyone watching apologists try to gaslight the rest of us into thinking we’re the ones doing “dogma over data” because we can still do basic counting.
As always — special thanks to the Skepticus members for keeping the lights on and giving this channel its backbone. If you want a voice in where we take this content next, consider jumping into the membership pool.
Until next time…
Lo I say unto you: stay skeptical.
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCQaz7qLD-NmPF0f5LCDBmkw/join
youtube.com/watch?v=KarUnN4lvb0
Welcome back to Breakdowns & Beatdowns on Skepticus — I’m your host, Adam of NOLA — and today’s episode is a reaction to a response video from the fairly well-known apologist Glenn Scrivener, aimed at Dr. Dan McClellan and his critiques of the Trinity.
I’m not going to “poison the well” up front… but Glenn pretty much does that himself.
Dan opens by framing the Trinity as an attempt to solve what he calls an “algebra problem” in the biblical data — how Jesus can be presented as divine and distinct from “God” in different texts and traditions. Glenn’s reply? He comes in hot with a list of alleged “tricks” and “sleights of hand” Dan supposedly uses all the time — including accusations like strawmanning, poisoning the well, “disparaging the unity of Scripture,” “chronological snobbery,” and even the halo effect.
And that’s where this gets ugly.
Because this isn’t just disagreement — this is an apologist trying to reframe a biblical scholar’s methodology as dishonesty. And if you’ve watched Dan’s channel, you know you don’t have to agree with him 100% to see what he’s doing: he’s talking about text, history, scholarship, and how doctrines develop — not playing rhetorical shell games.
In this reaction, we unpack what Glenn gets wrong (and what he refuses to engage), including:
Why calling the Trinity a “math problem” isn’t a strawman — it’s a blunt way to highlight the One-but-Three contradiction that Christianity has been patching for centuries.
Why Glenn’s “poisoning the well” accusation is basically… him poisoning the well.
How the debate over “unity” in Scripture gets flattened into a buzzword fight — and how Glenn appears to confuse univocality (single meaning / non-contradiction) with “everyone writing in the same voice,” which is not the same claim.
Why appealing to the Nicene Creed as if it “solves” the issue is basically just declaring victory with theological duct tape: God from God, true God from true God, begotten not made, and somehow still “one God” — with zero explanation that would satisfy anyone not already committed to the doctrine.
And I’ll say it plainly: the Trinity debate has always produced two kinds of Christians — the ones who admit it doesn’t make sense, and the ones who pretend it does. This video is for everyone watching apologists try to gaslight the rest of us into thinking we’re the ones doing “dogma over data” because we can still do basic counting.
As always — special thanks to the Skepticus members for keeping the lights on and giving this channel its backbone. If you want a voice in where we take this content next, consider jumping into the membership pool.
Until next time…
Lo I say unto you: stay skeptical.
