[annalex]

I generally liked that passage. One cannot just decide to have faith, intellectually. This is why, by the way, no scripture reading, by itself, gets one anywhere.

Now, if repentance and faith are the gifts, and sanctification is the work of God, then these are not the fruits of man's free-will

This is the only part that is not Catholic and quite false.

This is a logical non-sequitiur. Faith is a gift but you don't have it? Rependance is a gift but you don't do it?

Faith and repentance are things that I do. They are predicated on the gift of free will or else they are not what is on the gift label.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

This is why, by the way, no scripture reading, by itself, gets one anywhere.

I agree. Without the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit to guide our understanding, the Bible is just words on a page.

We must be born again by God's free gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit in order to know the things of God.

Faith and repentance are things that I do.

And you do them because God has given you eyes to see and ears to hear and a renewed mind and a heart of flesh in place of your heart of stone which was alien to God until you were born again not by blood, but by the will and purpose of God alone.

They are predicated on the gift of free will

"Free will" is an oxymoron. Our will is not "free." Our will is either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. Everything in life is dependent on the God which created it and continues to animate it, by His will, for His glory. .