That is just a convoluted way of saying: "I chose those who will be saved and those who will be damned." Obviously, if God gives the will to some and withholds that will from others, it is not that some won't but it is that they can't make a decision.
What good is offering salvation to all men if some can't choose to accept it because they were never given the will to do so?
This is like giving half of your children the money to buy candy and saying the other half "refused" to buy it!
If God gives will to some and not to others, then God is to be credited for our salvation as well as our damnation. That is not what the Church teaches.
God offers salvation to all. We choose or refuse His gracious offer based on our free will. It is God who saves us; but it is us who decide if we shall take the train that leads us to God or to hell.
God gave free will to all mankind to use or abuse. We are free to make choices not because we merit it, but by God's permission.
Your view makes for a partial God and the Bible tells us in plain language on numerous occasions that God is impartial.
Correction: the sentence that reads "His gracious offer based on our free will" was garbled up and I missed to notice it in the final review. It was much longer and it was NOT meant to imply that god's offer is based on our free will!
It said that, having received the free will from God, we accept or reject His gracious offer based on our free will.
You are looking at it backwards. Its not that they can't make the decision, its that God knew they would not want to make the decision.
What good is offering salvation to all men if some can't choose to accept it because they were never given the will to do so?
They are given the will to do so, but they do not want to be saved. God foreknows their not wanting to be saved and creates a world where that happens by their own free choice. You seem to assume that it is a default condition in humans to want salvation, but cursory experience with a cross-section of humanity will quickly reveal this is not so. Surely you have run into people who almost delight at the thought of their own damnation, frequently stating things like "well, I'm going to hell anyway", or "see you in hell", and the like.
What good is offering salvation to all men if some can't choose to accept it because they were never given the will to do so? This is like giving half of your children the money to buy candy and saying the other half "refused" to buy it!
But that isn't what I said!
Lets look at Judas. God made the world knowing Judas would be lost, but giving him sufficient grace that he could have saved himself if he had wanted to, although he did not. That is the meaning of predestination - God made a world foreknowing the salvation of some and the damnation of others - "those he foreknew he also predestined". But He also knew that if Judas had been given certain additional holy inspirations, he would infallibly have been saved. That Judas was lost is not because God did not give him the means. But God made Judas knowing he would be lost by his (Judas') own free choice, and also not chosing to ensure Judas' salvation. God did not choose to make Judas be damned. Judas chose to damn Judas. God did not choose to make Judas unable to be saved. Judas could have been saved if he wished it, although God foreknew he did not wish it. It is Judas who chose to neglect the gifts of God, not God who neglected to give them.
To go to you kids and candy example, think of it this way, with the kids being the 12 Apostles, and the candy being salvation, which costs $1. God gives all the Apostles $1. 11 of them choose to spend it on salvation candy. Judas sticks his in his pocket, because he thinks he can't afford the candy because he always feels short of money, so now that he has some, he's just going to hold onto it, rather than using it like God intended. God could have given Judas $2, so that Judas would feel like he had enough money to both buy the candy and stick some in his pocket, but he doesn't. So God both could have saved Judas had He wanted to make such a world, and Judas could have saved himself, had he used the grace of God wisely. The damnation of Judas, however, is not because God did not provide the means, but because Judas didn't wish it.
The deeper question is why Judas is made such an example of despite the grace of having 3+ years in personal companionship with Jesus on earth. A little thought reveals one possible reason. Watching the actions of the other 11, all but one of them fled and denied Christ in His hour of need, and the whole of Jerusalem came out to revile and mock Him. It seems quite reasonable to suppose that Judas was the next best possible choice after 9 Apostles fleeing and one Apostle fleeing and doubting, and that had anyone else (including ourselves) been made Apostle #12 in the milieu of AD 33, they would only have done worse than Judas managed. One need only look at the early careers of the multitude that would make up the early Church (forming a few weeks earlier a cruel and bloodthirsty mob demanding the mocking and crucifixion of Innocence itself after several failed stonings), or of the great Apostle to the Gentiles (spending years of his life attempting to exterminate the Church and all Christians), or of the general population of the Empire (urgently attempting to send all Christians to an early death for threatening the social structure of paganism).
Your view makes for a partial God and the Bible tells us in plain language on numerous occasions that God is impartial.
In fact, the damnation of Judas is a show of God's impartiality. Judas was given the same sufficient grace that he could have been saved had he wished it. Judas was lost because God was not impartial towards him, giving him the extra graces He knew would be needed to certainly effect his salvation.
God is impartial. St. Paul teaches us of God that He assures us "my grace is sufficient for you". Because of that pledge, the Church prays to God to "number us among the flock of Thy elect". But God also (fore)knows His own, which is why there is a "Book of Life". God has created a world where some people will reconcile themselves with God and others will not. And He is not in suspense as to the outcome because by creating the world He also predetermined the outcome human free will would effect.
God died for Judas, but His death was not efficient for him.
God offers salvation to all. We choose or refuse His gracious offer based on our free will. It is God who saves us; but it is us who decide if we shall take the train that leads us to God or to hell.
I agree, provided you are not asserting that the number of the elect is not fixed, because Jesus assures us of the elect "I will never erase his name from the book of life" (Rev. 3.5), or that their names are not unknown to God from the foundations of the world with certainty because St. John says that the followers of Antichrist are "all those whose names were not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life" (Rev. 13.8). The Semipelagians implied that the universal salvific will of God means that God predestines all, and that the eventual damnation of some is because the number of the elect is not fixed, and that it is only determined by the free will of man, rather than by the election of God.
I say this because you are neglecting to state that God foreknows all that will happen. Because of God's foreknowledge, we are indebted to God to the result if it is good, because we could never have accomplished salvation on our own - it was necessary for God to give us the means to accomplish it (cf. 1 Cor. 4.7). That's why the Church prays:
"Direct, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspirations, and carry them on by Thy gracious assistance; that every prayer and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and through Thee be happily ended."
But we are indebted to ourselves if it is bad, because we were not lacking the means to be saved, only the good use of them because of our own perverted will.