And this is the biggest issue I have with the Calvinist position. Man is required by God to repent, and repentance is a gift of God, therefore God must give us the gift in order for us to repent, yet God withholds the gift from some people, while still requiring them to repent, and He then punishes them for failing to do something He never allowed them to do in the first place.
Now you're gotting it.....
God commanded all of Israel, all those that were led out of Egypt to keep the whole Law, and those that didn't would die. Did He know they couldn't, yet still held them to the standards laid out in the Law? Yes. The same goes for today. We are commanded to repent, yet not everyone has that ability, but they're still responsible. We are commanded to be holy even as He is holy. Are any of us able to meet that standard? No. Yet, we're still commanded to be so.
How can you logically and objectively hold someone accountable for "freely rejecting" Jesus (as you stated in the second Calvinist sermon thread, C1) when that man never had the option/choice to "freely accept" Christ? The ability to "freely reject", by reason of logic, necessitates the ability to "freely accept." One cannot exist without the other. Otherwise you have to state that man never had the option to reject or accept Christ, meaning man never had any will of his own at any time.
Look, as soon as Adam, after the fall, heard God's voice calling to him, he and Eve fled like scared rabbits. They had been in communion with God prior to that, yet that time, they fled. That's the way people are nowadays. They are running from Him. They want nothing to do with Him....
"And this is the judgment, that the light hath come to the world,
and men did love the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil; for every one who is doing wicked things hateth the light,
and doth not come unto the light, that his works may not be detected; but he who is doing the truth doth come to the light, that his works may be manifested, that in God they are having been wrought."(John 3:19-21 YLT)
Here's a prime example of what I am conveying. People want nothing to do with the Light, because their works are evil. You and I were that way once as well. Unless God overcomes that, they will remain that way.
So if fallen man is bound by a sin nature to always reject God unless God moves within him and enables/regenerates him unto belief, then is it safe to say that pre-fall man, Adam in the Garden, was of the opposite nature? After all, it is by reason of the fall that we are separated from God, so it stands to reason that pre-fall we were not separated from God. If Man has no will of his own, how did Adam choose to sin in the Garden? How was Job found to be perfect and upright if his sin nature should have rendered him as lowly as everyone else?
Adam was in communion with God prior to the fall. I believed he daily communed with God. But when they fell, they saw their nakedness and tried to cover it up. People still are trying to do that to this very day.
Man does have a will of his own, it's called self-will. They do that which pleases "self". The will is bound by its nature.