There is no biblical basis for suggesting that God gives saving faith to a select group and withholds it from others.

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2.8-9).

What is the gift of God? "By grace are ye saved" whosoever believeth. Is it saying the gift is faith here? No. It is referring to salvation as the gift of God.

Experts tell us the construction of the Greek in Eph. 2.8-10 make it impossible for faith to be the gift, such as Greek authorities, including Alford, F.F. Bruce, A.T. Robertson, W.E. Vine, Scofield, Vance, W. Robertson Nicoll, Kenneth S. Wuest, Marvin R. Vincent, and others.

Among the reasons the experts cite is the fact that the word faith is a feminine noun, while the demonstrative pronoun that ("and that not of yourselves, it is the gift") is neuter and thus cannot refer to faith. Nor will the grammar, as W.G. MacDonald says, "permit 'faith' to be the antecedent of 'it.'" Of course, "it is" is not in the Greek but was added for clarity by the KJV translators and thus is italicized. Nor does it require a knowledge of Greek, but simply paying attention to the entire context of Eph. 2.8-10, to realize that salvation, not faith, is "the gift of God"-as all of Scripture testifies. The subject of the preceding seven verses is salvation, not faith: "by grace are ye saved...it [obviously salvation] is the gift of God."

Calvin even admitted, "They commonly misinterpret this text, and restrict the word 'gift' to faith alone. But Paul...does not mean that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is given to us by God...." Thus White and other zealous Calvinists who today insist that faith is the gift are contradicting not only the Greek construction but John Calvin himself. Calvinists can rarely agree amongst themselves. Satan is the author of confusion.

This is not to say our free-will ability to have faith is not a gift from God which has been given to every human being.