What has it accomplished? It all seems like small potatoes looking back...
Not small potatoes, just impractical ones. Faith is like driving a car. Sound doctrine is knowing how all of the machinery under the hood works. Both an Arminian and a Calvinist can arrive at the same spiritual destination by the same means. For all
practical purposes there isn't much difference between the two, necessarily. Either can be a good Christian, or even a good Baptist, or whatever, as well as a bad one, and either one can live the same kind of life and have the same kind of faith. It's the practicality of the matter that technical debate misses. My wife can drive the car, keep it filled with gas and take it in for servicing just fine, without any real understanding of how it works, but the way that the car works is no small thing, at all. It's a big complicated thing, and every aspect of its machinery is vitally important, even to the matter of life and death. Yet, all of that complexity comes down to a very simple interface, just as all of the complexity of Christian doctrine comes down to the simplicity of faith in Jesus and obedience to the commands of God. Our religion is really quite a simple one, when it comes down to the practical matters. As long as we stay above the hood, so to speak, there's not much to discuss, beyond the wisdom or idiocy of
where or
how our church is being driven. When our discussion gets down below the hood, then things start to get more technical. It's less practical, and it's far more complicated, and it's much harder to see, but it is still vitally important.
It comes down to having peace of mind when things go awry. At the very least, it comes down to knowing how to deal with problems. The car groans strangely when making turns; on the practical level, you can either ignore it and hope for the best, or you can get advice from someone who does understand the workings. He might tell you that your power steering is shot, because you've been putting transmission fluid down the power steering fluid tube, because you did not understand the impractical things. You might think that the entire burden of evangelism rests upon your shoulders, and you might lose sleep at night wondering if your efforts to win people to Christ have actually chased people into Hell. You might suffer from the burden and guilt, and you might be in need of good sound advice from someone who really does understand the doctrine. Either way, on the practical level the Great Commission is the same for all who believe, but knowing or not knowing the impractical implications of predestination will affect how we understand the outcomes, and whether we will be in need of psychiatric help when a loved one dies at enmity with God.