SD-"This is an absolutely, stunning, mind-boggling statement."
Hmmmm...I can see where this would be mind-boggling. It is a rather stupid statement. :O)
God in His sovereignty does shows partiality. But how does God selecting His elect out of Hell differ from God selecting Jeremiah in the womb to go to Israel?
I think part of the problem is that we're never simultaneously talking about the same thing. There is no difference between the two that I can see.
The objection to Calvinism is that God selects people for hell without ever giving them a real, honest, good faith opportunity to choose otherwise.
The denial of a free will and the insistence on total depravity places all of the blame for damnation upon God Himself as sovereign author of all creation.
It is unfit for a just and merciful God to create simply to destroy. If men have a real opportunity to choose good or evil, then they bear the responsiblity for their actions. Thus damnation is just. But if they are hamstrung by design, then there is no justification for punishing them.
If the Calvinist position is simply that punishment or anything is simply God's perogative and it need not follow any principles of responsibilty or rationality, then we will disagree. But I don't think that is your position.
SD
Romans 2:11 "For there is no partiality with God."
Can't get much clearer than that. But there are numerous verses both in the Old and New Testament stating the same thing.
In going through our discussions I see no apparent contradictions in either of our perspectives so I tried to understand what the Bible deems God's impartiality and reconciled that to the verse "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated."
In researching this I found that the word “partiality” we use today is far different than used in the Bible. Our definition of partiality from the dictionary is defined as:
1). fondness: a liking for something or 2). biased attitude or behavior: an unfair preference for one person or thing over another.
However, the Greek definition of partiality in Romans 2:11 is
the fault of one who when called on to give judgment has respect of the outward circumstances of man and not to their intrinsic merits, and so prefers, as the more worthy, one who is rich, high born, or powerful, to another who does not have these qualities
God knew both the qualities of Jacob and Esau (not their merits) and loved Jacob’s qualities and hated Esau’s. But God shows NO partiality to our merits.