this is foolish as this presumes God is dangling his incoming gracious acts before men so that they can make a decision before God proceeds (or not) with his gracious actions. "Resisting grace" is a logical construct totally not supported in scripture.
You seem to disagree with the conundrum theory. So on your view God forces men to act, in fact it is "foolish" to presume God allows men to choose Christ.
Did you ever ask yourself, or your teachers, "Why did the NT writers spend so much time appealing to men to accept the message of the Gospel and be saved, if those authors knew that "Grace was irresistible?"
Why do we need Acts 2, 4, 9,10, 13-19?
Everywhere the apostles go they are appealing to men with rational arguments and evidence. Almost as if they were free rational agents (like the Trinity). Why does Paul inveigh against those who have turned away from the Gospel if he knows what you know that it is impossible for men to either choose or reject the Gospel. The answer is God predestined (fated) them to choose or reject the Gospel. No complaints could be lodged by Paul if he understood the resistibility as you do.
In Acts 17 we meet the Bereans.
One Calvinist commentator says of them:
"These Bereans exhibited several positive characteristics that marked their response to the gospel message. First and foremost, the Bereans were “more noble” because of their willing reception of the Word of God. Unlike the unbelieving Thessalonian Jews, the Bereans were eager to hear the teaching of Paul and Silas.
Second, the Bereans examined what they heard by comparing it to the Old Testament Scriptures. The fact that they honestly listened and conducted further personal research led many Bereans to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. This expansion of Christianity was not limited to those within the synagogue, but also extended to many Greek men and women in Berea."
for more see (
https://www.gotquestions.org/who-Bereans.html)
The point is why is Paul commending men who don't have the will to examine the scriptures?
This is an example of what Calvinists call semi-pelagianism or a description of the work of salvation as God and human beings work together to bring about regeneration. Men and women seek God and then God responds with His grace.
In fact Arminians like Charles Wesley would say that God provides a work of the Holy Spirit that draws men and enables them to see false beliefs (there is no god, or "I'm a good person"), and acquire new beliefs (Jesus died on the cross for my sins, He is calling me to make him Lord). He calls this concept prevenient Grace and argues that it is applied to all.
It is hard to argue against God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that WHOEVER shall believe him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Not "whoever GOD elected" shall follow mindlessly and fatalistically like a zombie or a robot.
Again, John 1:12, "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
All who what? Received him.
Received ; "seize, take hold of, pick up; welcome, accept,"
Hmm now those sound like action verbs.
However, In order for me to receive something, something has to be given.
On your inference, no one receives the Gospel. No one can. They don't have free will to accept it.
John further makes the mistake of putting it into a future subjunctive conditional statement.
Did someone receive (Action requiring free will)? Yes
Then they will be given the right to become children of God.
Else
They will not be given the right to become children of God.
Who is providing the action of receiving?
Men are.
We have a problem here in that Calvinism does not explain the types of actions the NT authors describe in the soteriological texts of the NT. It explains the work of the HS and Jesus and the Father but has no explanation for hundreds of passages that hold people responsible for seriously considering the offer of salvation. Attempts by scholars to resolve this incoherence have been to eisegete (read into passages) "the elect" as a synonym to "all." I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Tim. 1:18,19
" Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. 20 Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme."
Fight
Holding on to faith
rejected
Whether it is acquiring belief in Christ, or
Maintaining belief,
we have an active role to play.
One must disrespect the text of the NT in order to make the scriptures comply with the Calvinist inference.
My claim is there is no way one can examine all the data of the NT and make the claim that people don't have a responsibility to receive, study, investigate, examine, choose, accept true beliefs, reject false beliefs.
It is only through cherry-picking the Biblical data, and abusing the prima facie meaning of these subjunctive conditionals that one can produce a monergistic soteriology.