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Thanks for your reply. I'm hoping you're far enough behind that I can take a rest after this lengthy reply to yours.

we are coming to the same end from different directions. That is perfectly fine with me. Free will discussions often wind up like this.

If discussed calmly and intelligently, I've noticed that too. It shouldn't surprise since we're discussing something we have direct experience with - it's in the abstractions and redifinings and speculative systems with special vocabularies that things fly off into contrariness.

God created in a specific way to get what He wanted

God is sovereign, omnipotent and omniscient is a sufficient premise.

man was not free to thwart God's will within time

God is sovereign, omnipotent and omniscient and created man with free will is sufficient. [Else you're leading toward Man's will=God's will, unless you speculate more on God's methodology or derive a term of art for what precisely "thwart God's will without Man's will=God's will" means.]

because the individual was created just so

Unnecessary given the previous and misleading into more speculation about God's methods.

Hoping not to spoil the mood of your agreement with my previous point.. :)

It's important, very important IMHO, to resist the temptation to define God as we would a man with a plan, as "me" if I were God. We do not know God as a man; as man we can only "define" God so far. Much less than we commonly do. We end up doing such things as descibing moods of God, changes in God's mood, variations in his treatment of individuals, assigning specific reasons that God did this and that and such.

God is neither completely knowable or completely unknowable. We can know that He is One, is ineffable, eternal, uncreated, unchangeable, invariable, incorporeal, invisible, infinite, good, just, creator of all things created, omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign, judge, love..

So we can say a lot about God, but not that he thinks like we do. That he rules like we would, that he judges like we would and so on.

The problem I see with systematic theologies such as Calvinism is they read like they were written for the legal profession - and a noble profession it is; however, there's too much system, too much construct to fit man's mind of how all the pieces must fit - and all the pieces MUST fit. They're too humanized and speculative.

We cannot know the mind of God, else He would not be God.

I'm hoping you're far enough behind that I can take a rest after this lengthy reply to yours.

Based on my delay, consider yourself rested. :)

It shouldn't surprise since we're discussing something we have direct experience with - it's in the abstractions and redefinings and speculative systems with special vocabularies that things fly off into contrariness.

Yes, I fully agree. I don't even have any problems with people wanting to use words differently, we should all just explain that first.

After you wrote this you have recently seen me use the term "perceived free will". That is my little attempt at a "bridge". Perceived free will exists and is real for us. Nobody who asks Christ into his heart does so feeling forced or under duress, because it isn't true. What most people do not fully understand, including me at the time, is the HOW of having had come to that decision to accept Christ.

At my time, I had no real idea about the "elect" and how all that worked out. I saw the whole thing as an offer, and so I accepted in my free will. And, even though I had no clue what God had done to bring me to that point, it still "counted" just the same. My failure to understand did not negate the acceptance. So I started as a lost sinner. Then God changed my heart. Then, I heard the word (maybe again) and it made sense to me. I also felt the need for God for the first time. After some learning I came to a point where I wanted to invite God into my life. So who did this thing, who should get the credit? Was this really a joint effort, or was God just executing His plan? I think it has to be the latter because God touched me first by changing my heart.

We end up doing such things as describing moods of God, changes in God's mood, variations in his treatment of individuals, assigning specific reasons that God did this and that and such.

Well, I would think that scripture would take care of any of these dangers. The Bible as a whole does not describe God as the moody sort, etc. But we do know that He has emotions because we know that He loves.

So we can say a lot about God, but not that he thinks like we do. That he rules like we would, that he judges like we would and so on.

I completely agree, and so does scripture.

If you didn't already know, you will not be shocked to hear that Calvin indeed had a law degree, as his father was a lawyer. Hence, his long-windedness at times. :) It must be in the genes or something.

Anyway, as a lawyer-type I am drawn to a system like Calvinism because it really is internally consistent and matches the scriptures as I claim the Holy Spirit has led me to understand them. I believe that our God is a rational being and does everything He does for a rational purpose, EVEN IF it doesn't seem rational to me at the time. Reformers have no problem with the concept of the "mysteries" of God. We CAN'T explain "everything" and do not pretend that we can. We just say that for whatever reason He did such and such, it was not an irrational act without purpose.

In our system, we believe that the Bible does not give us everything there is to know, but it DOES give us everything we need to know. That still leaves open mysteries, but answers all questions that God wants us to know the answers to. "How much stuff is that?" is a good question. :) But, we take the totality of the Bible as a good indicator.