Sad thing is their take on God giving them eternal life because he saw they'd choose him is nothing but hypothetical nonsense, it is a philosophy, it isn't the Gospel or Biblical.
Again, it isn't grace, it's merit.
Agreed.
Merit definition: the quality of being particularly good or worthy [self generated faith via free will], especially so as to deserve praise or reward [salvation].
How one can, without God's help, save himself by self generated salvific faith and not claim merit escapes me given the definition. Which is to say, "I did 'X' to be saved which has no merit .... while the guy who didn't do 'x' to be saved gets a different result. Very strange logic; so, so similar to what I call 'merit' which I asociated with 'works' ... which relates to the topic, Saved by Works.