I do not disagree with you in that God does not cause man to sin we do quite well on our own. But where the problem comes in with the calvinist position is that they say that while man can choose to sin he can not choose to trust in God. That is an illogical position to hold.
You make a valid point here. And I think, although they tend to not write down things in systematic theology terms, that the average basic Baptist position would be that either on your own, or with persuasion by the Holy Spirit, you can at least say "I am in trouble", and throw yourself on God's mercy through Christ's work. If you do that, then God will indeed indwell you with the Holy Spirit and give you all the protection, inclination, and ability to follow Christ as a disciple. It is at the point of calling on God for help that you are born again. I have absolutely no problem with that position.
The Calvinist answer per Owen would be that if your own free will was really good enough to do that without help then you would logically be able to not sin - which no one does at all. Also, he said that your salvation would depend upon the fickle bodily mood you had at the time of say a hearing of the gospel occurred and your eternal destiny might rest on whether you had a good nights sleep or if the kids were fussing during an invitation. This also seems logically wrong to me. And, I know for a fact that Baptist free will preachers put a high premium on removing fussing babies and the music, and mood for that stated reason. They also put a high premium on their own ability to create a "mood" and use emotion provoking stories about everything from a dog, to a war hero coming home, and so on. And, Arminian guys like G. Campbell Morgan, say the same thing themselves, so it's not a false accusation.
One major difference between you and I is that you keep referring to what men, Owen, Edwards, the Puritan's etc, have said and I just go with what the bible shows us.
The Bible clearly does have a lot of verses that look to me to be God or Jesus appealing directly to men as if the decision is completely up to them. You can't deny that. But there are also verses indicating that God works with our will itself, and that our natural inclination is to consider the things of God as foolishness. Since the Calvinists I read, and the free willers, even the most extreme would agree that at the personal level of the individual himself it definitely is your will working, the only difference is whether it was your own unchanged will which has of itself enough virtue to choose wisely, or whether you choosing wisely is a result of a renewed or enlightened will (even though still your will). They agree it was you choosing.
I know you say you disagree with a few of the DoG points but since they require all to be held for that view to be consistent I am not sure why you still call yourself a calvinist.
You are correct in saying that. I definitely don't believe in a limited atonement and the modern Calvinists do indeed insist it is all five or nothing so you are right in that. I just find the writings of the Puritans to be very good theologically, and beneficial in a pastoral sense. I never was really into the theological arguments for Calvinistic determinism, never read much Haldane, or Boettner or even Sproul. But I like the Puritans and even appreciate the fact that they were more open minded than you have been lead to believe. Baxter was a 4 pointer, probably had a flawed view of justification that was close to Roman Catholicism, and yet is the most loved and revered practical preacher of the Puritans, by the Puritans themselves, as well as later guys like Lloyd Jones and Packer. It's just not as cut and dried as one might think.
