Jesus did not say a man must be born of the Spirit to have the ability to believe in these verses, you are inserting that into scripture. Jesus said a person must be born of the Spirit before he can see the kingdom of Heaven. That is, a person must be born again before he can enter Heaven.
Jhn 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
You interpret the word "see" in this verse to mean having the ability to believe. That is not what it says or means. If Jesus wanted to say a person must be born of the Spirit to believe, that is what he could have easily said. No, Jesus is speaking of entering heaven as shown in vs. 5.
Jhn 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
This is what Jesus meant in vs. 3 when he said unless a man is born of the Spirit he cannot "see" the kingdom of heaven, he was saying a person cannot "enter" the kingdom of heaven. Jesus does not say one word about the necessity to be born again to have the ability to believe, that is a Reformed insertion that is not supported by the scripture.
That's exactly the point I have been trying to make, Jesus did not mention beliieving or having faith whatsoever in verses 3 through 6, you are inserting into scripture what is not there. Jesus doesn't mention believing until verse 12. After verse 12 Jesus mentions faith many times, and always says a person must believe to have life.
Regeneration means to have life. Actually, it means to have life AGAIN which proves we were not born dead in sin. If we were born dead in sin then you could never say we are alive AGAIN, but that is exactly what the word "regeneration" literally means.
No, Jesus repeatedly says no man is regenerated or has life until he first believes. You ignore all of this scripture.
You need to learn to read for yourself, Jesus does not even mention faith or believing until verse 12, you are inserting your ideas into scripture when they are not there.
Jesus did not use the word "saved" here, you are playing with words. Jesus said you have to believe to have LIFE, and that is what we are discussing, regeneration or LIFE.
And Jesus repeatedly said a person must believe to have LIFE or regeneration.
I would agree that no man can believe without the work of the Spirit. That work is the convicting and persuading power of the word of God. No man could possibly believe in Jesus unless God had revealed Jesus to us through prophets who wrote the holy scriptures and men of God who preached those scriptures. This is a work and grace of God.
But nowhere do the scriptures say a person must be supernaturally regenerated to believe the gospel. You have not proved that here, you have not shown one word of scripture to support your view whatsoever. You can't do it, because no such scripture exists.