The OSAS debate consist mainly of endless repetitions of 3 points:
1. Once we are His, God will never let us go
2. There are those who have/will taste of salvation, and turn away
3. Those who tasted and turned away were never part of us.
It's easy to let numbers 1 and 3 over-rule number 2, and that's what OSAS proponents will do. But, dang it, ya just can't do that. You can. not. ignore those scriptures. You can't taste of without being part of. But the OSASers ask the right question, how could they be part of us while never being part of us? And how can someone walk away from God without violating God's promise to never let us go? It's hard to wrap one's mind around, thus all the either-or debate.
I floated an idea in another thread about how that could be. I was challenged on it and have been doing my homework. Like so many things Biblical I found scriptures that grouped together to say two different things. So I put it out to you guys for input.
It has to do with time. And the question of whether God is constrained to time. I posted a thread asking when did time start, is that an eternal thing or a created thing
http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/165496-when-did-time-start.html . That led to a poll, asking whether God was constrained to time or free to come and go in time as He pleased
http://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/165542-time-eternity.html . Those who responded seemed to think that He can come and go as he pleases. The OP of the poll details how that might work, but the jist is that eternity and time are like a wheel, God/eternity existing in the hub can like randomly inserted spokes reach out and act (in our view) in any point in time, at (in God's point of view) any time. With the example being that God can do something with us now, and then go do something that to us is already past.
In other words, God has the ability to do what we would call time-travel.
W'atsa this got to do with OSAS you say.
And that goes back to what I proposed in the earlier thread.
God's sitting in the hub/eternal and watches Bob pray the sinner's prayer on the rim/time. So God puts a marker in time, so to speak, and says from this point onward I will never let you go. So Bob lives on several years. For decades he's part of us, involved and even bringing others to Christ. You can't get much more part of us than that. But then he gets caught up in the world and backslides. He's living in sin but God holds on. But Bob sinks farther. satan and the world take hold of his heart, and Bob gets maneuvered into a place of having to reaffirm Christ. Having lost his true love, he denies God and stops believing.
God, in the eternal/hub, reaches out to time/the rim, and removes Bob's marker, which was the basis of His promise.
Bob was with us for 20 years. And yet, God is able to make it so he never was. And if he never was, he never had God's promise.