I truly don’t believe that predestination is tangential to the topic. Honestly, do you think that a predestined person never sins? And that if he sins, he will lose his salvation?
2. I do not claim to have a satisfactory understanding of election and predestination, so I would rather not make so many comments on that. What I can know is that it cannot mean what you all claim it does, for a few reasons: a) "the elect obtained, the rest were cut off", yet Paul goes about seeking the salvation of the "non-elect" who were cut off, and affirms they can be grafted back in if they do not remain in unbelief, and, also, that those branches which had been grafted in by faith (the "elect") can be cut off for unbelief (as we see occurring with the Galatians--"you are so quickly deserting Him Who calls you... having begun in the spirit... [they were nevertheless] severed from Christ"), and b) as stated, if God "predestined" good works for us to walk in, and every sin "thwarts" that predestination, it is not as "firm" a predestination as you would have it.