Sometimes people begin, either in debate or in their own thinking, first by settling beliefs and then by discovering the behavior produced by such beliefs. In my view, beliefs and behavior are not so easily disentangled, especially when it comes to communicating our beliefs to others; that is, it is often difficult to truly understand what someone believes until they explain how it affects their behavior.
Take, for instance, the (in)famous "sandwich debate". Some take an extreme view that anything between two other things counts as a sandwich. In this view, a board of wood between two slabs of rock would count as a sandwich; even three molecules in a row counts as a sandwich, since one of them is between the other two. Some who oppose this view reject these examples because they are not food; a sandwich is for eating, they say. But even amongst adherents of this view there is disagreement on how to address hot dogs and tacos.
Which view is correct? It depends on the context in which the word "sandwich" was used. If someone says, "go make me a sandwich," they'll be disappointed if you bring back two rocks with wood in between. But if they instead say, "sandwich that wood between these rocks," it wouldn't be appropriate to complain that such a setup is not technically a sandwich because you can't eat it. The point is that context matters, so the sandwich debate is about semantics instead of truth. Neither view is "correct"; rather, they are more or less useful in different circumstances. Those engaged in the sandwich debate do not actually disagree on anything; rather, they are merely speaking different languages (or, if you like, different dialects of the same language).
The sandwich debate is a silly one, but there are a lot more serious matters that have a similar pattern. Sometimes friends and spouses get into seriously tense arguments about a topic on which they agree about everything but the way they explain their position. Theological debates, too, often end up missing the crux of the matter due to a mere disagreement in terms (more on this later).
In my view, truth is fundamentally related to behavior. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? I choose not to engage with the question, since it makes no difference to me. It's not that I'm uncurious; it's that the answer has no effect on anyone, so "yes" and "no" are equally valid answers. The question is moot. (Maybe you'll argue that the sound may shatter some nearby glass so it does actually matter; fine, but that's just the point: what the question only matters if the answer matters)
The view I have just expressed may sound post-modern and relativistic, and in some ways it is, but it does not reject objective reality. If you say, "quiche is the yummiest breakfast," I'll happily reply, "That's true for you, but not for me." What I would mean by that is that you should adjust your behavior based on that statement, but I should not (in fact, I very much dislike quiche). In contrast, if you say, "I bet jumping off a cliff is a lot of fun," I'd instead say, "you're in for a rude awakening." Truth is a servant of reality; your beliefs can't change the fact of a hard landing.
Often there are multiple models of reality that turn out to be suitable. For example, the foundation of physics has gone through several iterations, including Newton's Laws, Einstein's Relativity, Quantum physics, and a wealth of other outlandish new ideas. Each model has its strengths and weaknesses, but they're all "true" in the sense that they are useful and trustworthy as a basis for behavior. Truth has some flexibility in everyday life, too. What if I, too, decided to model my behavior off the assumption that quiche was the yummiest breakfast? I would end up eating a lot more quiche, which would result in more unpleasant breakfasts, but also more healthy ones, since I would be eating more eggs and fewer donuts. Would it then be true that quiche is yummy to me? In most cases I would say no, but if I'm hanging out with my health nut friends, I might say something like, "man, I sure do feel good after eating quiche", so maybe there are some situations in which I would say yes.
I hope it is already evident where I stand on this, but I want to be clear that I believe in absolute truth, and the importance of honesty. When speaking to others, we're in a shared context in which we generally know how they will understand something we say; thus, it is dishonest to say something we know to be false and then say, "well, I was not technically lying, since it's true in this other context." To the contrary, in my view the honest thing to do is to take into account the current context at all times.
In short, what I'm advocating for is that if you are going to have a philosophical debate, be prepared with a reason why your opinion matters. In other words, what behavior change does it call for?
One of the debates that motivated this essay is the classic question of how God's sovereignty interacts with man's free will. Calvinists tend to emphasize God's sovereignty more than free will, and Arminians tend to do the opposite; compatibilism is the view that both coexist in a mystery that cannot be fully understood by our limited capacities.
I've participated in this sort of debate countless times, usually taking the compatibilist view, with a stronger emphasis on Calvinism for whatever reason. Every time, I come away disappointed with the result; I've never succeeded in changing anyone's mind, and I always end up feeling like we haven't actually gotten to the heart of the matter. The discussion often gets stuck on more abstract points like whether God is 100% sovereign, whether sovereignty and free will contradict, if sovereignty turns people into robots, and whether God's work stops at regeneration or goes all the way to saving faith.
What is the heart of the matter? Again, the point of this essay is that a philosophical position is fundamentally related to the behavior it prescribes. The Bible tells us many things about God, man, and how they should relate; some are more abstract and some are more concrete, but they are all meant to change us. As I've tried to argue here, truth is never about filling our brains with fun facts; it's about equipping for good works.
I don't plan to avoid debates about election in the future, but I do plan to focus far more heavily on behavioral questions, and I expect to find a lot of common ground, and perhaps to discover the actual disagreements that exist. My experience is that many Calvinists actually do believe in evangelism, and many Arminians believe that God's plans cannot be thwarted and God will sustain the believer to the end. But there are a lot of nuanced behavior questions that perhaps they would have differing views on. How obnoxious should evangelism be? Should we be doing alter calls all the time, or take a more reserved approach? If someone leaves Christianity, should we attempt to win them back? I have thoughts on each of these questions, of course, but this is beyond the scope of this essay.