Do you accept Calvinistic doctrine?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2004.

You ask about my attitude towards Calvinistic doctrine. My answer is: No, I do not accept Calvinistic doctrine.

I believe that God always takes the initiative in salvation: the Son of Man came not merely to save, but to seek that which is lost. Similarly, God would have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). I believe also that God lays down the conditions upon which we can be saved.

But on the other hand, man is responsible to seek God, and to accept Christ. God, who originally created man with free will, will never take away free will; not even in order to save people. Calvinists hold that no man or woman can be saved unless God gives them the power to believe; and that, further, God has from all eternity decided to give this power to some, and not to others. That means that, according to Calvin, God has decided from all eternity to pass by multitudes of people who will never be saved, because God will never give them the power to believe.

This seems to me to contradict what God himself says in Romans 10:21: 'All day long did I spread out my hands unto a disobedient and rebellious people'. Here God shows his attitude to those who persistently rejected his gospel. He held out his hands to them—a gesture that indicated that God longed for them to respond to him, and to believe him, and to accept his salvation. But they rejected God's pleading and invitation.

How can we believe that, as God stood before them holding out his hands and pleading with them, and giving the impression that he wanted them to come and believe—yet, all the while, he knew that they couldn't possibly believe. The only way they could believe would be if God gave them the faith, so that they could believe. But Calvinistic doctrine says that God had decided not to give them the faith. In other words, he did not want them to come and believe; and yet he stands pretending that he wants them to believe, by stretching out his hands toward them and inviting them to come and believe.

But this is a very much debated topic. In centuries gone by in Britain, there were two famous evangelists: Whitfield and Wesley. Whitfield was a thoroughgoing Calvinist; Wesley repudiated Calvinism completely. Yet it is the fact that God used both men to the salvation of thousands of people.

The Lord's richest blessing be upon you,