Following up on my previous post, here is the executive summary of my response to Jerry Walls and Joe Dongell:
Walls and Dongell believe that Calvinism portrays a tyrannical God who arbitrarily selects some for salvation and others for damnation, even though the latter are powerless to repent and believe in Christ. They maintain that the biblical passages expressing God’s general love for all mankind (John 3:16) and His desire that all be saved (I Tim. 2:4) suggest the Calvinist exegesis regarding effectual grace (for some) and definite atonement (for some) is severely misguided. In response, I argue that God’s electing love is a biblical concept, and does not negate God’s love for the non-elect, nor His genuine desire that all be saved. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33:11), but He deems it best that not all receive saving mercy. His higher goal is the manifestation of the full range of His glory in both mercy and just wrath, to the everlasting enjoyment of His saints.
A couple key verses:
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” – I Cor. 1:26-31
“What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” – Rom. 9:22-24
Related: Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate between Jerry Walls/Joe Dongell and Tom Schreiner/Bruce Ware, Book by Sam Storms on Unconditional Election