Nothing in regards to man's willingness to choose God on His own.
Christ's death did not save all mankind. There will be those, who of their own desire, will go to Hell. Christ's death satisified God's requirement for justice for those who are saved. It didn't do away with an inclination to Sin. All still will desire to turn from God. It made possible the reconciliation of the objects of mercy to God. And, not a drop of Christ's blood is spilled in vain.
Scripture can be, and is, used to build systematic theologies for opposite readings, however this, and the story aspect is not what I was originally asking for.
It was more about your personal knowledge of the God you have a relationship with. Whatever the history or back-story or rationale, God creating a human being pre-destined, or unavoidably fated, for damnation is incongruous to me.
If I'm understanding you correctly, this is not the same for you. And the back-story essentially takes this responsibility out of God's hands.
Is this close to a correct understanding of your view?
Let me try to reword this to make it clearer..
[God creating a human being pre-destined, or unavoidably fated, for damnation is incongruous to me.]
If I'm understanding you correctly, this is SOMEWHAT the same for you. So, the back-story is essential to take this responsibility - predestined damnation - out of God's hands.
Is this close to a correct understanding of your view?
Do you have a specific scripture reference for that statement?
He made it possible for us to be saved. Again, salvation does not come from crying Lord, Lord, or from going to Church every Sunday, or from fasting, or from confession, communion, prayers, tithing, etc. We cannot buy or earn our way into heaven. Only God, in His mercy, can save us.
We are never good enough, clean enough, Christ-like enough, devout enough, to be worthy of God's richess.
But, we also know that God did not make Hell for mankind. He made it only for satan and his angels. But we also know that many will end up in Hell for following satan rather than God for a number of reasons, some of which have to do with our will and some of it with our nature.
There will be those (possibly a vast majority) who will, fail to attain the likeness of Christ through wrong choices and weakness of faith, and some who will (although baptized) outright reject God, and there will be those who will never know Him because they were never evangelized and, given our nature, are very unlikely to become Christ-like by exercising our will without God's presence in our hearts.