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This is a great question, and still no answer from Hank.

If man makes his own choice of salvation, how do infants and the mentally handicapped choose salvation? Does God step in and make the decision for them?

I'm sorry, I was called away on a much more important mission - entertaining grandchildren.

Actually I did answer the question, but I see a little more is required. I think the original post actually answered your point, so, if you forgive me, I am going to repeat the part that answers it:

I originally wrote: I believe God is sovereign over both. I believe God determines both who will be saved and who will be lost, and He decideds how He will accomplish this, not Calvin, and He has chosen to make some of his created beings rational/volitional agents (for example, humans and angels) and as such, they are judged according to their choices within the limits of whatever ability the sovereign God has chosen to give them, and He uses that choice to determine who will be saved and who will be lost, and only those who limit God deny Him that power.

I think you may have missed the fact God holds people responsible to the exact degree that He has enable them. It is God that teaches us the meaning of Justice. It is God that teaches us, it as accepted of a man according to what has, not according to what he doesn't have. It is according to the knowledge one has that God judges, not the knowledge they do not have.

2 Cor. 8:12 For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.

John 15:22-24 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.

James 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

Now there is one expression you use that is really not quite right. It is these words, "makes his own choice of salvation," which I not seen used by anyone else. I think you are referring to those who believe God saves those who "obey the Gospel"

You many not like that Biblical expression (Rom. 10:16, 2 Thess. 1:8, I Pet. 4:17, and compare Rom 6:17) but God likes it, and does not consider obedience to His Gospel to be making one's, "own choice of salvation."

Repentance and faith cannot be construed as "work," because they only mean to "cease work," and trust in the finished work of Christ. Repentance and faith are nothing more than "giving up any attempt to make one's own salvation, and surrendering to God's commandment to trust only in Him." Now I ask with Paul, what have you that you have not received from God. What ability or what knowledge does anyone have they have not received from God. (I cor. 4"7, Jas. 1:17) There are two expressions Christians often use, for very opposite things, both of which blaspheme the goodness of God. One is, "the ... (non-elect, unsaved, whatever) cannot trust God in their own stregth." The other is, "I failed because I was trying to do it in my own strength."

Now, my good friends, there is no such things as "one's own strength," and whatever any person fails to do that he ought to do is never because God hasn't given him the strength or the knowledge required to do it, but because they just plain refuse to use what God has given them.

The question, "why does a man choose to disobey God," contains a contradiction. A choice by definition does not have any cause, else it is not a choice. The question, "why is such'n'such choice made," assumes an answer, but any answer would be the "cause" of the behavior, and "caused" behavior is not chosen behavior. To ascribe any explanation or cause to any behavior of man excludes that behavior from the field of chosen behavior. Except for whatever reasoning an individual, himself, chooses as the basis for a choice, there cannot be a "reason" for chosen behavior.

Since God only holds men responsible for their choices, not for things that happen to them involuntarily, to say that predestination is the reason (or cause) some men choose to obey the Gospel, and others do not, is a contradiction. Predestiniation cannot be the cause of any choice, because choices to not have causes. No limitation on God's sovereignty is implied in this, because to assert otherwise would be to assert and absurdity about God.

God is absolutely sovereign, and predestines all things according to the good pleasure of His will, inlcuding the eternal destiny of all men. With this all Christians may agree. What they disagree on, is not that He does it, but how he accomplishes it. It cannot be means of a method described in terms without meaning, such as "predestined choice". Just because you cannot understand how God can predestine all things without causing choices implies no limitation of God's power and authority, only your own ability to understand.

Hank