A most excellent post though Calvinists rarely have any faults. ;O)
If I may add something that is often overlooked in God’s salvation; while God may love and sincerely offer His salvation to all men, the truth of the matter is that men hate God. We find this in Romans, “though they knew God they did not honor him...” among many other places in scripture. Moses tells the Israelites in Deut 30-32 that though the commandments are not hard to keep they will not keep them. Men love the darkness rather than the light (John 1).
So God isn’t predisposed to love us when we constantly hate and revile Him. He hates our deliberate and willful disobedience to all that is good and loving and holy. And who can really blame Him? It is ONLY because of His grace that He changes the hearts of any of us for we all are a very wicked people.
God’s very nature is love.
As humans we are not disposed to love those who don’t love us, but Jesus addressed that in the Beatitudes.
And I don’t think we can anthropomorphize God like that.
The motivating factor in God’s plan for redemption is His love for His creation.
Yes, God hates sin and He is angry when people do that which destroys the work of His hands and goes against His will. And such disobedience must be punished to satisfy His justice, but He doesn’t do it because He hates us. Also the definition of *hate* in Scripture from the Greek, does NOT necessarily indicate the kind of hate we mean when we use the term.
The big danger I see in people pushing the *God hates* scenario is that it will justify that person’s hatred or callous indifference to others who have not yet been redeemed. And sadly, I see a lot of that kind of attitude from self-professed Calvinists. I have not had the experience of finding them overall, as a warm, loving, caring group of people.
Indeed, that is true, Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (Romans 8:7)