You know that's not fair. You brought up the issue of tense in #376 and I specifically responded to it in #423. I said that tense didn't matter for the point we were then discussing because Baptists believe salvation is a single event. I understood how tense fitted your view, and that was fine. I was just explaining my view, I didn't dodge the issue.
I have no idea what you're talking about in the next paragraphs.
You said: "Jesus said that He came to save many (not all), not because God would not will all men saved, but because some shall not find the path..."
I said: "So, God does not get what He wants. God is thwarted."
You said: "How naive! God gets what He wants but not in the way you see Him. ... And the way you seem to see God, He does whatever He wants, just the way some powerful people act. How wrong you are!
I was commenting on your statement that God wills that all men should be saved, but yet your admission that God doesn't get what He wants. I disagree and say that God gets everything He wants. Yes, He also does whatever He wants, but in no way like "some powerful people act".
Man's nature is not opposed to God; man's nature thinks we are God.
Perhaps the quote of the thread. :)
What did the High Priest say to Jesus on the Cross? He said if you are the Son of God, then take yourself down from that Cross. For no one could imagine a God being humiliated, tortured and killed. No one would respect such a god in Israel -- and, based on what I have read from your side, I see that the Protestant idea of God is more akin to that of the Jewish High Priest than of Jesus.
I still don't understand this assertion, and you are by no means the first to make it. Your side says that our side thinks of God as a God with human weaknesses (like the Greek gods). None of "us" has said this. God has no weaknesses, human or otherwise.
For one of countless examples, we say that God showed "anger" because the Bible said so, and did not use any other word for it. The meaning was clear. The trick is that when God shows anger, it is not a weakness because it is justified according to God. It is a righteous anger. Of course, when we act out on our own anger there are often sinful results, but that cannot happen with God. God is sinless, blameless, and perfect by definition. The High Priest certainly had no understanding of that.
I was mocking your view, obviously. That's how the Protestants understand God: setting people up and then pulling some out of trouble while letting others suffer. To a Protestant God people are but toys in God's workshop. And if your label does not say "elect" -- oh well!
I will write in simpler terms from now on lest I be misunderstood.
You [Kosta] said: "Jesus said that He came to save many (not all), not because God would not will all men saved, but because some shall not find the path..."
Okay, I will do this one more time (trying to be simpler): although the NT makes it clear that God would have all man saved, not all man shall be saved. Any father would want all his children happy and successful. But, if we love our children we must set them free, and by setting them free we allow them to make choices, some of which may not be good for them, some of which may be their perdition. Otherwise we will keep them captive and that's no love.
God can either put a tractor beam on us and control our every move, lead us into temptation and error (how does that square with our Lord's Parayer, because the way you guys see things why bother!), or He can give us the freedom to choose and help us make the right choices knowing that not all will follow.
Thus Jesus says "few shall find the path." Finding is something that is not controlled. Clearly, God gives us a choice to seek and find or to reject his overtures and remain lost.
Nothing we do can threaten God's sovereignty as you call it. Our freedom is His gift. Nothing we do can diminish God either, who exists because of Himself, and because of Himself only, Who is the only true Existence. God exists ourside of His creation. God's sovereignty, as everything of God, is love. Love can only give, never take. Love can only bless, not condemn. If you don't know that, you don't know love. I am sorry if that is so.