Catholic Soldier,

You said

"I think Calvinist often disparage the notion of free-will to the offense of the Bible and common sense."


I see where you are coming from. Yes I have thought this way for 20 years myself just from having "arminian" teaching and have never really read about Calvinism and the Reformed belief until recently. Wow what an eye-opener for me. And really most it resonates to what I really already felt was true.

Now it's interesting that you bring up common sense. You should definately read the article by John Piper about the two wills of God. Maybe someone can put a link there because I'm not sure how to do that. But you can search for it and find it I'm sure. That explains nicely the dilemma you bring up and sure made me think. Yes it's God's will that he would like things a certain way - you brought up some good examples. Yes Jonah didn't do what God wanted him to do (at first). And that's the whole problem -- man's sin. We never do what God would like us to. I'm not sure why God didn't put it into Johah's heart to just go the first time (except that Jonah's example is referred to by Christ and seemingly used as an example to Christ's death and resurrection (sorry I do not have the verse reference here)- maybe that's the whole reason why right there). But God knew Jonah would act this way because of his sinful nature. God purposely didn't intervene with Jonah right away. Unless God intervened, Jonah would have never gone to Ninevah ever. Do you get it?? Unless God intervenes in ANY situation in anyone's life, salvation or whatever God wants will never happen to anyone. And God even intervenes in those who aren't His own - how about Pharoah heart being hardened, etc. How do you explain that? You are saying it's kind of up to us when God moves. It's not.

Anyways another common sense idea is this - How could God write down in His Word all of the prophesies and foretelling of future events if He weren't in control of situations??? It doesn't make sense. And if you say that He just knows the future and what decisions we will make, etc. well that doesn't really make sense either and you will have to go be an open theist who says that God doesn't really know the future because he's given us free will - and of course that's not biblical. If one really thinks about this free will issue really hard, the Calvinist ideas are the only conclusion that one can come to to be inline with Scripture.