“You need to make up your mind on this. So if God foreknows that there are people who will “never” follow Him, and you say He will then not bother to draw them because they are “beyond” salvation, how do you now turn around and say that they are drawn to some degree, but on a lesser level?”
I have explained it in detail, using paragraphs. I see no hope of explaining it in sufficiently short words and sentences for every poster to read with understanding. So I’m going to quit trying to explain to you for now, for the same reason I sometimes walk away from someone I am witnessing to...
Me: He claimed those saved are saved, not because they responded to God’s revelation with belief, but without any regard for anything they did.
You: This is exactly correct!
That is utterly contrary to scripture. God repeatedly says we are saved by grace through faith. He says to repent and believe as the condition for salvation. And he never says he has a ‘secret will’ to irresistibly give faith and belief to people after giving them life, because their names were on a list.
God very explicitly says, again and again, what man must do to be saved. Yes...what man must do. It is in response to God, but it IS a response. It is done by the man who repents (turns away) and believes the promise of God (faith). It is a verb, not a description of something done to a man.
Hundreds of times, the Bible explains what man must do to be saved. I cannot make Calvin accept the Word of God, and I see no point in continuing to repeat what you refuse to listen to. It is rather like discussing math with my dog...
No, you have expressed your conclusion, but you haven't answered my questions, just like now. And every time we debate on this matter, I will shove those questions in your face until you answer them.
That is utterly contrary to scripture. God repeatedly says we are saved by grace through faith.
Grace by definition is gratuitous, which means it is undeserved. It is given freely without the recipient in any way deserving it. We are saved by grace through faith, and faith itself is the gift of God. Hence:
Eph_2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
The 'that' here is in reference to faith, since grace is already the gift of God. It be a tautology otherwise. Either faith is worked in mankind, or else there is something "good" and spiritual in mankind that makes them to differ from other people. But we do not differ from the rest of mankind, and until God works in us both to "will and to do," we cannot believe, no matter how much persuasion is used. It is because we are dead in our sins, and are happy to be dead, and unwilling to listen to the truth.