Rick can't reconcile:
God has elected, based solely upon the counsel of his own will, some for glory and others for damnation
So, just what is God's WILL? This is explained in 1 Timothy 2:4: His will is that He "...wants ALL people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." But we know He obviously allows, and is angry about, and will eternally punish, those who go against His will. That God hates sin and yet we know men do in fact sin tells us we can choose to go against His will, that this is something He allows but will also punish.
So, we know God wants "ALL men EVERYWHERE" to repent. We see everywhere in Scripture a clear choice - which also explains His anger (which is irrational otherwise) at those making a choice against His will. We see Peter and Paul working hard to CONVINCE unbelievers of the truth of the Gospel - not merely just telling them about it. So if it is God's will that men obey His command to repent, does it not also make sense that He would choose, ahead of TIME, those who He also knew would welcome and embrace His enlightenment, that THESE would be the ones He wants in His house forever, and that He would choose eternal damnation for all those he foresaw who would FOREVER reject all of his prompting and enlightening? "Counsel" also implies a weighing of information - but WHAT information might that be? Our eventual choice - to either reject His Spirit's leading and enlightenings or not - HE prompts, HE leads, there is a response Scripture repeatedly informs us of.
Scenario: There are two helpless, penniless men, living in the park. There is a wealthy man who has compassion for both. But this particular wealthy man has the amazing gift of knowing ALL things, all choices, and exactly what is on the hearts and minds of both men. This rich man desires to help change the lives of both, forever, for the good. But this wealthy man also knows that one of the two will embrace all of his benevolent efforts, will enthusiastically listen and obey and cooperate with all of what He tells him it will take for him to be able to help the poor fellow. And so knowing full well that impoverished man #1 is one that he can help, because the poor man is: 1)aware of his own dire straits; 2) knows of the help promised; 3) realizes he has nothing to lose and is desperate; 4) is eager and enthusiastic to get all the help the wealthy man has to offer; and 5) the wealthy man knows the poor man will do all he instructs.
The wealthy, benevolent man also foreknows impoverished man #2 would only rebuff all of his offers of help, no matter how hard he might try to convince him he needs help. After kindly approaching him, making poor man #2 aware that he wanted to help him, he already knew that any further efforts would be in vain, because he foresees that poor man #2 would only cynically reject his further offers of help, being wrongly convinced that 1) he needed no help; 2) thinking he'd be better off on his own; 3) suspicious that he'd have to give up some of the very things that had so long kept him impoverished and a panhandler. So the wealthy man already knows that all efforts of helping poor man #2, if provided, would be rejected and a ultimate waste of time.
So, which poor man do you think the wealthy man would choose beforehand to help? The one who he foreknows would REJECT all help, or the one who he foreknows would WELCOME and EMBRACE his help? You see, it is HE who is even willing to give the two men choices to begin with. And without his help both poor men will remain mired in their poverty. But if your will is to help, would YOU not choose in accordance with your will to help - and as you COULD help - without FORCING acceptance of help (which you already know would also be pointlessly squandered)?
1 Peter 1:2 says God chooses us "ACCORDING TO the foreknowledge (not independent of it) of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit,
for OBEDIENCE to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood." God has chosen in conjunction with the counsel of His foreknowledge of all future choices, knowledge of the hearts and minds of all, AND in light of His will and command that "ALL men, EVERYWHERE" come to repentance!