Certainly not! At least there is no Scriptural basis for supposing they are.
Hank
You replied: "Certainly not! At least there is no Scriptural basis for supposing they are."
How can you have it both ways? Didn't you previously say that God decides who will be saved based upon their "choice" to allow him to save them?
You're now agreeing with these Scriptures, then?:
"Yet before the twins were even born, or had done anything good or bad -- in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works [making a "choice"] but by him who calls ...".
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."
"It does not, therefore depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy."
Are you now admitting then, that God (the potter) does have the perogative to take his lump of clay and to elect (make) some of it for a noble purpose and some of it for common use?
"Does not the potter *have the right* to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? ...who are you, O man to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'why did you make me like this?"
[Romans 9: 11-24]