A very interesting but lengthy article. I didn't have time to read everything but here are a few comments:
Scripture speaks always and only of predestination to full membership in Church.
Not so. God spoke of predestining His Son to death.
The Eastern Fathers, absolutely all of them, and Westerners before Augustine
Partially correct. The Eastern Fathers, absolutely all of them that I can gather, did indeed subscribe to a synergistic view of God. Their foundation rests upon Saint John Cassian who was a student of Pelagius. The Westerner fathers, OTOH, are mix. Augustine, in his Treatise of the Predestination of Man ascribe his change of heart to Saint Cyprian, a great leader of the Western Church. And, if one is objective, the monergistic view was formally documented in the Council of Orange creeds about a 100 years after Augustine. I can’t deny that a few western fathers may have erroneously held to the synergistic belief, but they were in the minority. The Pope (I forgot his name at the moment and don’t have time to look it up) allowed both the eastern view and the western view to coexist as a favor to Cassian.
So in that theory, God does not really love anyone, He merely uses the few for His own purposes, not for their sake….Of course Augustine did not see this fact, or he would surely have stayed away from his theory.
God has a great love for His elect-those that He has chosen. Augustine saw this and commented on it:
Why, then, does He not teach all that they may come to Christ, except because all whom He teaches, He teaches in mercy, while those whom He teaches not, in judgment He teaches not? Since, "On whom He will He has mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth." [Rom 9.18.] But He has mercy when He gives good things. He hardens when He recompenses what is deserved. Or if, as some would prefer to distinguish them, those words also are his to whom the apostle says, "Thou sayest then unto me," so that he may be regarded as having said, "Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth," as well as those which follow,—to wit, "What is it that is still complained of? for who resists His will?" does the apostle answer, "O man, what thou hast said is false?" No; but he says, "O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Doth the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump?" [Rom. 9.28 ff.] and what follows, which you very well know. – Augustine A Trestise on Predestination
(Hence, within that framework, he thought that the words of Romans 9:13,"I have loved Jacob and hated Esau" meant that God really hated Esau. And without even looking at Esau's life wanted to damn him) . Actually, St. Paul does not speak of any such thing
Everyone’s life damns them. That is what original sin is all about. What Augustine recognized was that God has to intervene to overcome this damnation. Augustine’s argument is based upon Cyprian’s argument; you have nothing that hasn’t been given to you by God. This would include your knowledge, faith, understanding, everything. Consequently, Esau, like everyone is damned. But God revealed Himself to Jacob and not to Esau. If Esau didn’t come to God it wasn’t because of Esau trying very hard or that he lived a worst life than Jacob. It was because God chose to reveal Himself to Jacob and not to Esau, just like God chose to reveal Himself to Paul and not to the rest of the people on the Damascus road.
WE WERE ELECTED AND PREDESTINATED, NOT BECAUSE WE WERE GOING TO BE HOLY, BUT IN ORDER THAT WE MIGHT BE SO. - Augustine