Speratus,
I thank your for your thoughts, but I believe them to be in contrast to scripture. Yes, God will ultimately bring those whom He has elected to salvation, but He allows us free will, and often our free will takes us further from the truth, in order to, eventually, embrace it.
Beside the example I already provided, perhaps an even stronger example was the unwillingness of Israel to trust God and enter the promised land. (Promised land being an Old Testament parallel to salvation) And, though they would eventually possess the land, they spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness, whereas they could have possessed it immediately.
You cannot convince me that God had preordained their sinful choice, in fact it angered Him deeply. So deeply, in fact, that He discussed with Moses the complete elimination of the people and starting afresh with Moses. Certainly God's fervent desire was for Israel to trust Him, and He didn't "will" otherwise.
The author of Hebrews alludes to this passage and offers us the same choice they were given:
"Therefore as the Holy Spirit says: 'Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, "They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways. So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'"'
"So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief."
Hebrews 3:7-11,19 NKJV
And yet another powerful demonstration of our free will contradicting the will of God is demonstrated by Israel's rejection of Christ, though God had willed his salvation to flow to all the world from out of the Jews. (John 4:22) But because of the unwillingness of the Jews who said, "We will not have this man rule over us," God's salvation was carried out by the Gentiles.
In this we see the contrast of that which was immutable, that Christ would build His church, and that which was subject to man's choices; that His church did not grow predominantly from out of Israel.
I think Calvinist often disparage the notion of free-will to the offense of the Bible and common sense. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/crazyeyes.gif" alt="" />
catholicsoldier <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/takethat.gif" alt="" />
