I really don't understand the reformed view, but as a non-reformed person I have never heard anyone say that God is inept at anything. He made a plan for salvation for all, but not all will accept. That's not on Him. He made the plan, we just have to accept it or not that's up to us.
It is not his will that any should perish...and we know God is capable of making his will happen so there has to be a reason that many have already and many will continue to perish. So what does the reformed believe that reason is?
It is because all mankind, by default, hates God and his law, and is deceitfully wicked.
Until God acts to change their heart. And, when he changes their heart, their fundamental orientation is turned toward him, and not toward their idols.
The free-willer claim is that man is in a position to decide for God, and in essence, this results in regeneration....a changed heart. In other words, like I have said, they believe that somehow the man, dead in sins, must exercise faith and repentance in order to cause himself to be spiritually resurrected. The Reformed view is that God gives the person a new heart, from which faith and repentance comes forth.
We have no issue with election. Mankind all deserves eternal punishment, because Adam rebelled against God, and his rebellious nature continues to exhibit itself in his physical descendants (this is called being "in Adam" in Romans 5, I Cor 15). Not only that, but Adam's sin is imputed to them, so all mankind deserves spiritual death.
God saves some of them, and leaves the rest to their just fate. The ones who are saved are given a new nature, and united with Christ. This union produces spiritual fruit over the life of the man. God conforms him to the image of Christ.
That is the background of Scripture. This free-willer theology is simply garbage.
By the way, I don't use the word "Arminian" generally because even Arminius had better theology than his later followers, who basically influence free-willer theology. At least Arminius knew that man was radically corrupted by the Fall, which is something later free-willers denied. They are more like the Pelagians.
And, I don't think many modern day Sunday school teachers of the free-willer perspective will talk much about original sin, and how Adam's sin is imputed to all mankind. That's because it goes against their free-willer presuppositions. The idea that someone else's sins can be imputed to them is abominable to them. However, that's what the Bible teaches, and they simply don't have the storyline of Scripture correct.
I could discuss a lot of concepts that are fundamental to understanding this storyline, and most free-willer Christians would not understand what I'm talking about. That is because they reject large segments of the biblical revelation and cannot make sense out of the Bible, too much beyond the "Romans Road" spiel.
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