JOHN 8:43 This verse shows the fact that a person cannot understand unless he hears the word of God first. The Bible teaches that enlightenment comes from hearing Gods word (Ps. 119: 105; 130). Calvinists believe that a person is enlightened or have understanding first before he can hear God's word, but such teaching is contradictory to the scripture.  Another fact shown in this verse is that apart from the influence of the Holy Spirit, a person can't understand. Under the influence of the Spirit and the word, a person can hear and make a choice either to accept or reject Jesus. Jesus, in the passage, is talking to the Jews who are reprobates. The reprobates are those who hardened their hearts when the Spirit called them, and their continuous rejection caused God to give them up (Rom.1: 21-28;Heb. 3:7-13;Prov.1: 23 -33).

Acts 13:48 says, "as many as were ordained to eternal life, believe". There are two events in the passage or phrase above: 1) God's act of ordaining, and 2) the faith of many to Christ. The word "ordain" is the same as ”decree”. The question to the Calvinist is, which is first, foreknowledge or decree? Did God decree a thing apart from his knowledge or foreknowledge? Will the President of our country decree something without his knowledge? Of course not! So the order of sequence is, Foreknowledge, Decree, then the actual event in time, which is believing in or faith in Christ. Since God's decree was based upon his foreknowledge, so we can conclude that God decreed or ordained to eternal life those whom he foreknew would believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. God in eternity knew who would believe in Jesus, so he elected them before the foundation of the world. The time came that those whom God foreknew would believe really did believe. God's foreknowledge does not fail. If God knew they will believe, and they did not believe until they died, then something' is wrong with His foreknowledge. God did not elect men so that they will believe, rather, He elected those whom he foreknew would believe, and the time came that those whom He elected according to his foreknowledge really did believe. For example:

Mr. Cruz is the manager of a big company and there was a vacancy in the supervisory position. Being the manager for a long time, Mr. Cruz knew well his men -- who are those submissive to his leadership and those who are not. There were two qualified men for the position, Mr. Santos and Mr. de Leon and both were invited to apply the position but one of them seemed unwilling because of pride. Mr. Cruz, the manager, knowing the characters of these two men, Mr. de Leon who is critical and proud while Mr. Santos is humble and submissive, choose Mr. Santos to be in the supervisory position. Mr. Cruz choose Mr. Santos he knew well this man that he is humble, submissive, and he won't refuse the offer. Mr. Cruz was right in his knowledge about Mr. Santos that when he offered him the supervisory position, Mr. Santos did not refuse. When Mr. Santos received the promotion and their fellow employees heard of it, they commented: "The man chosen by the manager accepted the position". Does it sound as if the manager chooses Mr. Santos in order that he will accept the offer, or it tells us that Mr. Cruz chose Mr. Santos because he knew Mr. Santos is humble and won't refuse the offer? Such statement is similar to Acts13: 48.