It isnt a strawman if you are a strict Calvinist. Pre election is God choosing who He would save and would not.
Agree. Accept I believe God actively seeks all people. That is the only way all are without excuse Romans 1:20. But people have the will to either reject or accept.
As for too much optimism. Idk about that. Sounds like more of your doctrines talking than anything because of course if you believe in pre election as Calvinist do then I suppose someone thinking they accepted Jesus is too extreme for you.
Ah funny. Says every denomination. Elite mentality.
There is no pre- and post-election distinction.
If you want to be honest, simply state that you don't believe God elects ANYONE. They choose themselves by placing their faith in Christ.
That is exactly what free-willers teach. There is no reason why they should attribute election to God himself, when it comes to salvation.
Yes, God chooses who he will save, and lets the others suffer the result of their sinfulness. This is not at all unjust. God isn't obligated to save anyone. And, you really have a problem reconciling Romans 8-11 with this doctrine that God does not choose...
And, as I have repeated about ten times or more on this site, you or free-willers CANNOT exegete 1 Corinthians 1:26ff in light of your teaching. You cannot. I haven't seen one of you attempt it. It is obvious that Paul is emphasizing HIS RIGHT TO CHOOSE and that he even chooses people with undesirable characteristics to make his glory shown more clearly.
I can refer to many more verses that would teach the same things, but some of them are more susceptible to claims that they are referring to service rather than salvation. So, I only use the clearest example and I have found no one who has a good explanation of these verses from a free-willer context.
And..to be honest...I don't really think most Christians are capable of handling the reality that God exerts his sovereignty in salvation. They don't think it is fair for God to fail to extend salvation to all people. However, that isn't what I see in Scripture.
I can understand the tendency to want to shape God in our image, implying our standards of right and wrong to him, though. I did it as an annihilationist. I didn't think it was fair for anyone to suffer eternally, therefore I rejected Scriptures that seemed to indicate this, or twisted them around to claim the opposite. That's what I see with free-willers. They cannot handle the reality that God actually does elect certain individuals to salvation so they reject it.
Instead, they come up with doctrines like corporate election..God elects a class rather than individuals. And, you choose whether you want to belong to that class. So, in essence, what they are doing is twisting around election so it is them who elects God, rather than vice versa.
No matter what they say, that is the end result of their word games. I am sovereign, and not God. God doesn't really have to change my heart to cause me to desire Him. It is already capable of this. And, then when I choose God, he changes my heart. Such is the insanity of decisional regeneration.
Like I have said, that's what it boils down to. Free-willers believe they dredge up faith and repentance out of their stony, dead hearts, and after this, they are given a heart of flesh. Reformed believers are convicted that they could never dredge up faith and repentance from their heart of stone, therefore God must give them this heart of stone, and faith and repentance issues forward from it.
Free-willers believe that they were merely seriously sick but are still capable of response. Reformed people believe that they were spiritually dead, and God resurrected them so they could respond.
I'll leave it to the reader to decide which is more coherent. I know what my decision is
I spent probably 2/3 of my Christian life listening to free-willers. Their teaching was about as clear as mud. And, I attended some decent free-willer churches like CMA and Calvary Chapel. I begin attending a Reformed-leaning fellowship and things all of a sudden come into clear focus. It all makes sense in light of my experience AND the Bible.
Like I've said, I wonder if some free-willers are saved because they don't seem to see how the doctrine aligns with the experience of salvation. There was a younger guy in the jail who I talked with, one on one. I had given him a copy of the 1689 London Baptist Confession, which lays Reformed teaching out clearly. He read it and told me he knew it was true because it perfectly aligned with his experience and explained it well in terms of Scripture. That's where I am with it.
And, as I said, I am not impressed with free willers whatsoever. I may have learned a little from a few Calvary Chapel guys but they were straddling the line between synergism and monergism.
Regarding Romans 1:20, I agree that no man has any excuse with regards to knowing whether God exists. They know it. They are simply in rebellion against him. They know God exists, but they do not have relationship knowledge of Him. There is a difference between general revelation and special revelation, though. Not all men have been given special revelation. And, when they are given special revelation, unless regeneration occurs, they do not respond. This is related to the concept of general call versus effectual call. There is a general call, which many receive, but there is also an effectual call, which produces a positive result because the person is regenerated by God causing this positive result.