If faith is a gift then Calvinism is false as the I in Tulip is false, because these assert that God forced you to accept a gift, which, since it was impossible for you to reject, was not a gift, thus making Calvisnism, if true, a disprover of either the Bible or the dictionary, either for English or Greek.
Eternal life is a free gift. Romans 6:23. Salvation is of the Lord, not of us.
I think you've the wrong idea about 'Irresistible Grace'. Think about how I pointed it out in the scriptures to @Eternally Grateful .... here.
If while you were weak, how could you have resisted Christ dying for you?
If while you were a sinner, how could you have resisted Christ justifying you by His blood?
If while you were an enemy, how could you have resisted God reconciling you by the death of His Son?
If when you were dead in sins, how could you have resisted God making you alive?
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
How you conclude that grace is not unmerited favor is beyond me.
For some non-biblical reason, you don't like salvation by grace alone. You will have to prove your position rather than make comments about a position you don't like, such as salvation by grace alone.
Calvinism is not an all or nothing.
I am not a Calvinist because it is not an all.
But there are specifics that are not true.
And they are what need to be set against the truths of Scripture to be clearly seen as such.
Election is not unconditional.
And our salvation is not unconditional and cannot be merited, it being the gift.
That argument can be made against any offer of salvation to people God already knows will reject the gospel.
Please explain the difference between God commanding believers to proclaim the gospel to all even though only the elect will respond (Calvinism) and God commanding believers to proclaim the gospel to all even though God already knows who will reject the gospel.
Did you mean to say election is not conditional and salvation is not conditional or did you really mean to say that election and salvation are conditional (not unconditional = conditional)? I ask this because right after your statement you say election and salvation cannot be merited since it is a gift.
In other words your statement seems contradictory.
God doesn't give salvation to all. That is God's choice to make, yet we are still ambassadors, preaching reconciliation to anyone who believes. Mark 16:15 is not found in the earliest manuscripts, but even if Peter actually said it, it doesn't contradict the truth that only those the Father gives to Jesus will believe.
I don't know about you, but I don't have a list from God regarding whom it is He has chosen, therefore I share the message of reconciliation with whomever will listen, knowing many will not respond to the message.