The way I see it, at the core of all of this is ONE tenet which is wrong and not established in scripture.... SAVING faith is a gift from God only given to some and not others.
The case is always made by a negative inference fallacy >> saving faith/belief must be gifted due to the fallen nature of man... yet Jesus and Paul never teach this, ever
Now they will say "dead in sin" "children of wrath" "blinded by Satan" etc, etc.,
They cannot prove saving faith/belief is a gift according to scripture, that is why they always build their case with indirect concepts to make the argument.
They confuse the gift of eternal life from God with the i
nstrumentality of saving faith/belief, whereby that gift is received.
Eph 2:8-9 does not say faith is the gift from God.
In the Greek, the word for faith, pistis, is a feminine noun.
The word for “this” is touto, and it’s a neuter demonstrative pronoun.
“This” can not be referring to faith; you can’t have a neuter pronoun referring to a feminine noun.
“This” refers to the entire phrase “for by grace you have been saved through faith.” The gift that “this” refers to is salvation, not faith in this verse.
God’s grace offers the gift of salvation; it’s up to us to choose if we want to apply it to us through faith.
That is why it is “gospel”—good news. We cannot earn it, so God, in His grace, gives is to us freely. We just have to accept it by faith.
There really is no debate.