Okay, so why all the fuss of 1 St. Timothy 2.4 and 2 St. Peter 3.9? Apparently you will grant with us that God desires the salvation of all, but that many spurn it. I assume then you accept the Catholic distinction of God's antecedent will and consequent will - namely the antecedent will to save all and the consequent will to elect some.
In order to correctly state the Calvinist position, we should instead say that "God grants Regeneration only to the Elect".
Okay. This gives us a working basis for further discussion. This reduces the argument to the Calvinist rejection of the Catholic sacramental system and its place in the scheme of justification and perseverance. Am I correct?
But if 'the Means of Salvation are equally and indiscrimately offered to All', but 'God grants Regeneration only to the Elect' -- then what's all the fuss about? Certainly an Augustinian, or myself being a Thomist, or even a Molinist could agree with that!!"
No, a Catholic (Augustinian, Thomist, Molinist, Congruist, etc.) couldn't agree with that, because a Catholic would hold that God grants regeneration to all within the Church, but that the Church includes both the elect and reprobate, and that the reprobate within the Church will fall away and return to their sins prior to their death.
1) God grants sufficent grace to the reprobate, but they spurn it.
2) God grants efficacious grace to become justified to all the regenerate, who constitute the Church militant.
3) God grants efficacious grace to persevere unto salvation only to the elect.
The difference between class 2 and class 3 would be that only class 3 will infallibly repent of all their sins they may commit after initial regeneration and prior to their death, while class 2 will eventually infallibly fall away from justice prior to their death through sins and join with class 1 to form the totality of the reprobate.
But perhaps, in reading the excerpt from the WSQ, you may have noticed that "the real Calvinist-Catholic dichotomy appears" not over "whether or not God gives the sufficient means of salvation to all", but whether the means of salvation are efficacious at all absent prior Regeneration. A Calvinist would say that they are not, "that these outward means in themselves effect nothing" for it is only by prior Regeneration that the means of salvation become effectual.
No, that does not appear to be the actual point of contention. Both Catholics and Calvinists it appears will grant that the sacramental grace (or grace given through participation in the sacramental rite, if you prefer) is only efficacious for those who are regenerated to justification either prior to their reception or by their reception in the proper priorly formed disposition.
In other words, a wicked man derives exactly nothing by receiving any sacrament while remaining in wickedness, including Baptism or Penance. Or actually, worse, he heaps up new sins upon himself by his sacrilege. To be Baptised (or to receive Sacramental Penance) and profit by it, one must intend to receive the remission of sins by the act (or more simply, intend to do what the Church does, we would say). So we would say sacramental grace is "ex operere opereto" only for those who are properly disposed to receive them.
Here a first difference crops up. Because Calvinists deny the intrinsic efficacy of the Sacraments upon those who do not hinder their action, a new solution is required for children and retarded persons who cannot have faith held by the intellect. Catholics would simply say, they are saved only by the grace received in Baptism (and the Eucharist for juvenile and adult retarded persons). Calvinists, I think, would deny this and hold that they do not need the Sacraments, and that God simply grants grace to them by the prayers and faith of their parents, and that Baptism is thus a sign of their being children of the covenant, but not the cause.
Are the Means of Salvation efficacious unto the Regeneration of the Elect; OR...
Is it the Regeneration of the Elect which gives efficacy unto the Means of Salvation?
Actually, this seems to be dodging the issue. For the elect, the means of salvation in sacraments, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are made efficacious by their being or becoming just in them, and are obviously also efficacious for both creating their justification, causing their perseverance, and confirming their election. None of justification or perseverance comes from the elect, so it all must come from God, both by His giving it to us to come to the means of salvation, and his giving the means for us to continue in what He gave us.
The question really seems to be, can someone become justified, and then fall away? From what I have heard here, Calvinists would agree with Catholics that the Church eventually contains over time both all the elect and some of the reprobate. The distinction seems to be a denial by the Calvinists that those within the Church who are reprobated were ever truly justified. In other words, the means of salvation were not efficacious to make them part of the regenerate, and thus not part of the elect. The Catholic would say they are efficacious to make them part of the regenerate, but only sufficient to make them part of the elect, because it was not given to them to persevere.
For the Calvinist, this preserves the dictum that regeneration is efficacious unto salvation for all the elect, and thus your second proposition, that it is their regeneration that gives efficacy to the means of salvation; not that the efficacy comes from them, but that it comes through them from God.
This seems a sufficient background for beginning an examination of your next thread.
(I like "Monty Python" just fine, but without any vanity intended I'd rather debate your Post #3115 thereupon than concern myself with the Weight of a Duck)
best, OP