[xzins]

I prefer to think of it as:

Totally saved by grace

lost by resistance.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Did God choose His elect based on nothing in and of themselves, or did God choose His elect based on something good inherently within them which they controlled by their "acceptance?"

That's the core difference. Men are either 100% fallen and 100% in need of God's grace through faith in Christ...

Or men are not completely fallen and can respond to some indiscriminant offer of grace on God's part since there is intrinsically something better, more righteous, more discerning about one man than the next.

And from this core difference comes all sorts of error and liberalism and universalism.

"You're going the wrong way."