The calvinist agrees that the non-elect are condemned specifically only for their acts of evil after they’re committed, but what was predestined was that they be left in their natural state in which they inevitably will end up doing acts of evil, for which they will eventually be condemned. Whereas the elect are regenerated and rebirthed by a supernatural work of God to overcome their hardness of hearts in their natural state. God, in not choosing to do anything about the non-elect’s natural state of depravity, is in effect consigning them to their eventual condemnation – a predestined reprobation.

Sound logic. But the facts are wrong – God does indeed do something about the non-elect’s natural state. Anyway, salvation is predicated on the common grounds of faith in Christ – He sends His Son to die on the cross so any and all may be saved by faith, for God so loved the world. Isn’t this sufficient to deny predestined condemnation? The calvinist redefines what ‘all’ and ‘world’ mean to suit their system of beliefs.

But the Gospel of Christ is the means to being saved – in preaching the Gospel to the non-elect, we are essentially passing on God’s message that if they indeed put their faith in Christ, they would be saved. Is God making an empty promise at that point? The calvinist replies that technically God needn’t make good on the promise as long as the conditional isn’t met – so, as long as the non-elect do not put their faith in Christ, God’s Word isn’t broken.

Deceptive Message?

Technical grounds apart, the very fact that this promise was even communicated implies God should’ve considered the truth of it in Himself – and apart from any other man, did God communicate duplicity within Himself? The calvinist denies this and concludes the Gospel was never meant to save the non-elect – the promise, conditional and all, was meant only for the elect. But why is it then even shared with the non-elect? Oh, that’s because we don’t know who the elect and the non-elect are. True, but God knows – why does God will to communicate the wrong message to the unintended listener?

The calvinist replies this was intentionally preached as judgement to the non-elect – and in that it was never meant to be deceptive. But when making an If-Else conditional, God is communicating His desires over the matter. When commanding the non-elect to believe in the Gospel and be saved, God is expressing His desire that they do so. Eze 18:23 stands on its own.

The calvinist presents Piper’s Two Wills teaching as the response – where God could desire two opposite things while purposing only one of them to come to pass. There, it is demonstrated that the Gospel was meant to harden hearts in Israel when Jesus came. Isn’t this evidence that the Gospel, conditional and all, need not always be meant to save? Yes, God has and can use even the Gospel message in hardening hearts – but the hardening of hearts is not a predestined decree. There is a fundamental contradiction with the Two-Wills theory, when applied specifically to predestined condemnation – and without this theory, we are back to how God has contradicting desires in Himself.