Consider this. Will God have His way or will, or not? There is more I want to say but don't want to say it until this is answered. If God does not have His way, whose way or will is more powerful than God's?
Stranger
Well, consider these scriptures:
1 Timothy 2:3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
1 Timothy 2:4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Matthew 7:14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
So we see two things in these scriptures. 1) God wants everyone to come to the knowledge of truth and come to repentance. 2) Many people will not come to the knowledge of truth and come to repentance.
So if you reason that out, there are three possibilities. 1) The Bible isn't true. 2) God wants everyone to be saved, but He's not powerful enough to do it. 3) God wants everyone to be saved, but He has given us a free will to choose for ourselves whether we line up with the will of God or not.
The problem with election and individual predestination is that it says God chooses who will be saved, which implies that there are those whom He didn't choose. But that contradicts the many times when the Bible says that God wants all men (people) to be saved. So what is the solution? Does the Bible contradict itself? Of course not. Any time you see predestination in the Bible, it is never talking about it being on an individual level. It's always speaking in plurality. The answer is in Galatians 3.
Galatians 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as [referring] to many, but [rather] to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.
The only one predestined is Jesus. And if you look down at verse 29, you'll see the results.
Galatians 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.
Jesus is the only one who has His destination set, and anyone who is in Christ has their destination set, too. It's like a cruise ship that is destined to go to the Bahamas. The ship is the one going to the Bahamas, and anyone who chooses to get on that ship will end up there, too. Predestination isn't an individual, cherry picking thing. It's a "whoever is in Christ" thing. God wants everyone to be saved, and we have a choice of whether to get on board or not.
Whether or not God foreknew who would be saved is a completely different situation. You can know something, but not be involved in making it happen. When my kid was little, he used to put a blanket on his head and walk around the room blindly. I could see him heading straight for the wall, and even yell at him that he was about to bust his head, but it's his choice whether to heed my call or not. If he were to bust his head on the wall when I knew that was going to happen, that is a much different situation than if I were to pick him up and intentionally bust his head against the wall. Just because God knows who will be saved doesn't mean He makes it happen. He wants everyone to be saved, but He gave us a free will to choose for ourselves, rather than programming it into us.
When Jesus talked about the parable of the sower, the sower cast seed everywhere, even in places that he knew it wouldn't grow a hundred-fold. Why is that? It's because He wants everyone to be saved, so He gives everyone a chance. When judgment day comes, no one will be able to say that God didn't invest His seed in them, and they didn't have a chance.