Scripture holds two things at full strength that later systems often trade against each other: God genuinely initiates and governs, and human refusal is genuinely real. Watch how the Bible actually uses "chosen": it is overwhelmingly a people chosen for a task — Abraham chosen so that "all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2–3), Israel chosen as "a kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6). Election in Scripture is a commission before it is ever a rescue list. And the chosen can fail the commission — Saul was genuinely chosen and genuinely fell.
The famous drawing texts belong together. "No one can come to me unless the Father draws him" (John 6:44) is real: no one ascends on their own. But Jesus glosses the drawing in the next verse as being "taught by God" — heard and learned (6:45) — and in that same chapter many disciples hear and walk away (6:66). Then in John 12:32: "I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself" — the drawing thrown open to the nations. Necessary, wide, and refusable: "How often would I have gathered your children... and you were not willing" (Matthew 23:37). Foreknowledge is not causation; a doctor who knows the diagnosis did not cause the disease. So the text's answer is both: nothing happens outside God's governance, and "choose this day whom you will serve" (Joshua 24:15) is a real choice, or it is a cruel sentence — and Scripture never treats it as one. Don't settle for this summary: John 6 and Romans 8 are short chapters, and this briefing should be tested against them, not the other way around.
Genesis 12:2–3 — chosen in order to bless: election as commission
John 6:44–45 with 6:66 — the drawing: necessary, taught, refused in the same chapter
John 12:32 — the drawing widened to all peoples at the cross
Matthew 23:37 — divine desire, human refusal, stated by Jesus himself
Romans 8:29 — foreknown, and predestined to be conformed to the Son's image
Joshua 24:15 / Deuteronomy 30:19 — "choose life"
Don't take this briefing's word for it — read these and test it.
The Reformed tradition holds unconditional election and effectual grace: God's choice logically precedes and produces the individual's faith. Wesleyan-Arminians hold that God's grace reaches everyone first and enables a free response that can be refused. Catholic teaching affirms both real predestination and real free cooperation, with schools (Thomist, Molinist) differing on the mechanics. The Orthodox East never adopted irresistible grace at all, holding divine initiative and human response as cooperation from start to finish. As a matter of historical record, the individual-irresistible reading enters mainstream theology in the fifth century in the West; the reading above — corporate commission, real refusal — has the older and wider company. The Reformed reading remains a serious position held by serious readers of the same texts.
None of these texts is an instrument for calculating anyone's status — yours or anyone else's. Scripture aims its election language at worship and commission ("chosen... that you may proclaim," 1 Peter 2:9), never at auditing souls.
This question is best carried into a church where you can watch called-and-choosing people live it, not just define it.