When I said permit, I said nothing about salvation. I was correcting the false assumption that "God decrees that sin will come to pass" and "God permits sin" were mutually exclusive.
Regarding Calvin’s teaching: So if God wills sin to come to pass, then people really have no choice but to sin, for who can resist God’s decree?
Really has nothing to do with what I explained. Pardon me for not chasing your red herring.
Well of course: If God decrees/determines that sin will come to pass, He must give permission/authorization/license for it to come to pass otherwise He would be impotent.
But then people don’t really freely choose to disobey God, they MUST disobey God.
In other words, decree trumps ability, as people are totally depraved and totally unable to choose to obey God (per Calvin) — and MUST sin, thereby incurring separation and wrath forever. They are NOT permitted to exercise faith – there is no authorization from God to believe, indeed no provision for them, per Calvinism’s limited atonement and in contradiction to 1 John 2:2 and 1 John 4:10.
So, apparently, your definition of permission (God permits) does not correspond to what most people understand when they think of the word (though it may be technically correct).
People are able (have God’s permission) to sin, but they are not able (do not have God’s permission) to repent or believe.
Is that how you would characterize it?