In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. Acts 17:30
command = require obedience
repent = change the mind about the direction of one’s life
The calvinist position is so hidebound by the overweening doctrine of Total Depravity that it redefines simple words and sentences to conform to that doctrine.
However, it is all quite theoretical. I say a man can walk away from a covenant made in good faith between himself and God, and the calvinist says he was never saved to begin with. Of course, maybe he is *still* saved, who knows?
As with all systematic theology, ultimately the system becomes God, a God whom arrogant men feel they understand with their puny logic and intellect, and in a sense control (control, as in winning debates).
Is Roman Catholicism systematic theology? I suppose some defenders of it will cite Tradition to get off the hook, even as they seek to explain the systematic logic of Tradition? for otherwise it can boil down to "because we say so" which can frequently be shown it's not always all it's cracked up to be, sort of like things that appear not to fit in regards to Calvinism, such as Acts 17:30 as you bring.
I don't know what they'd say but that those who failed to repent upon sufficiently hearing the Word were not awoken, not quickened thus still dead. They were dead already. in the sense the Calvinists most use regarding alive/dead.
Back to Acts 17 "...but now he [God] commands all people everywhere to repent."
Command? Sounds like God laying down the law (or rather commanding His law to be obeyed).
Dead men (still dead in their sins) don't follow orders of God, do they? They can't obey. they're still dead.
The Calvinists incorporate Paul's letters allowing those to help inform & interpret other principles as they also look to the wider Word to understand what Paul was writing about.
The Roman Catholic incorporate Tradition on par with scripture utilizing a systematized body of written work to explain it, asystematizedhierarchy, and a written system of church law in aim of rationally enforcing the same.
What was that you were saying about systematic theology again?