The Great Commission negates Calvinism/predestination teaching

We come now to the final post of the final round. If you have made this far, give yourself a pat on the back, and make the effort worth while by voting. :-) In this round, I'm just going to try to make some clarifications in case the debate was hard to follow, and I'll also give some short responses to what Pro said in his closing. The resolution of this debate is that the great commission is inconsistent with the Calvinist view of predestination, which means that given the great commission, the Calvinist view of predestination must be false. According to the Calvinist view of predestination, some people are predestined by God to be saved, and some are not. That raises the question of why Jesus would command his followers to preach the gospel. After all, it would seem that if a person is predestined to salvation, then God will save them regardless of what we do. And it would seem that if a person is not predestined to salvation, then God will not save them regardless of what we do. Either way, it doesn't seem to matters whether we preach or not. It's hopeless to preach to the non-elect, and it's redundant to preach to the elect. That is basically what Pro has been arguing in this debate. He uses Ezekiel as an analogy. Just as the apostles were commanded to make disciples of all nations, so also was Ezekiel commanded to warn people so they would repent. But if Ezekiel refuses to warn people, and those people die in their sins, God holds Ezekiel responsible for their blood (Ezekiel 3:16-21). Now, it only makes sense to hold Ezekiel responsible if his warning could make a difference. That shows that Ezekiel's warnings can have some effect on whether the wicked repent or not. That, in turn, is supposed to show that it is not predestined whether the wicked repent or not. And by analogy, that is supposed to show that the great commission is inconsistent with predestination. That is the sum of Pro's argument. The bottom line is that Pro think preaching would be superfluous given predestination because whether we choose to preach or not will have no effect on whether the elect are saved or the non-elect are damned. I gave six arguments in response, explaining why the great commission is not inconsistent with predestination. Some arguments are meant to show that even if some are predestined to salvation, preaching still serves a purpose. Other arguments are meant to show that even if some are not predestined to salvation, preaching still serves a purpose. 1. God ordains the means as well as the ends. In any deterministic chain, each link in the chain is essential for everything that comes after. So if God predestines people to be saved, and uses means to do it, then the means have everything to do with why people end up saved. Preaching is the means by which God calls the elect. It is not superfluous because it is effective in bringing about God's desired end. Pro never responded to this argument. He claimed in his conclusion that his Ezekiel analogy is his response. But this argument actually answers his Ezekiel analogy. The reason Ezekiel is held responsible for his warnings is because his warnings do, in fact, make a difference. Ezekiel is the means by which God intends some people to repent. 2. The elect are spread throughout the world, mixed in with the non-elect, and prior to conversion, we don't know who is who. It makes sense, then, for us to preach the gospel to all creatures, leaving it to God to determine who will respond and who won't. In the conclusion, Pro dropped this argument, admitting that the had not made a good response to it. This argument explains why Jesus would have the apostles preach even to the non-elect, which is one of the things Pro objected to. 3. The great commission is more effective given compatibilism than libertarianism. Under compatibilism, our choices are determined by our strongest desire and motivations, which can be influenced by preaching. Under libertarianism, preaching can only be effective insofar as it diminishes libertarian freedom. Pro agrees that the point of libertarian freedom is that there are no antecedent conditions that are sufficient to explain a person's conversion. By extension, he must admit that preaching can never be a sufficient explanation for why a person converts. That means preaching is less effective under libertarianism than it is under compatibilism. Pro insists that 1 Corinthians 10:13 is relevant to this debate because it's relevant to the nature of choice. I agree with him that it's relevant to the nature of choice, but it is not relevant to this debate. If the resolution were simply, "Calvinism/predestination/compatibilism is false," or "Libertarian freedom is true," then he could use both the great commission and 1 Corinthians 10:13 to try to prove his point of view. But this debate is over whether the great commission in particular proves that we have libertarian freedom. If there happen to be other passages, like 1 Corinthians 10:13, that prove the same thing, that's irrelevant to this debate. If he wanted to use 1 Corinthians 10:13 to refute compatibilism, then he should've had a different resolution. 4. The gospel is not just an invitation, but also a proclamation, and God has a motive to make his name known even among the non-elect. Pro doesn't bother to dispute my claim that the gospel is a proclamation or that God would want it proclaimed even to the non-elect. He just points out that the great commission is an invitation. But that's beside the point. There's no question that the great commission involves an invitation. The question is whether it also involves a proclamation. In Pro's definition of the great commission at the beginning of this debate, he said Jesus commanded the church to "preach the gospel to every creature." The gospel is a proclamation about the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-5). 5. I made two points: (1) that even non-believers are influenced by Jesus' moral teachings, and (2) that the gospel reveals the depth of depravity among people. Pro ignored my second point. He responded to my first point by simply denying it. Admittedly, I didn't offer much in support of that first point, and I don't think it would be appropriate for me to offer a new argument in this last round in support of it. Pro disputes it with nothing more than assertions, though. Since it's his assertions against mine, I suppose we are at an impasse with that point. But keep in mind that Pro has the burden of proof in this debate. 6. Jesus did not think it was inconsistent to preach the gospel to every creature in spite of the fact that some creatures commit the unforgivable sin and therefore can't be saved. Pro claims that nobody could have committed the unforgivable sin until after Jesus sent "the advocate" and those people had been witnessed to. If you read this passages in its context (Mark 3:22-30), the reason Jesus brought up the subject of the unforgivable sin was because he was accused of having an unclean spirit. In other words, some people were committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit by calling the Holy Spirit "unclean." So yes, some people were guilty of the unforgivable sin, and Jesus commanded his apostles to preach to every creature anyway. This answers Pro's argument that Jesus wouldn't have commanded us to preach to every creature if there were some who could not be saved. That's about it. The only issue left is what to name the fallacy Pro admits to committing by calling my position "Pantheism." I don't care what you call the fallacy. It's enough for the purposes of this debate that Pro admits it's a fallacy and continues to commit it. Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. And thank you, Marauder, for being a gentleman and a scholar.