“The word ‘election’, as applied to Israel, usually carries a further connotation: not simply the divine choice of this people, but more specifically the divine choice of this people for a particular purpose.””
Paul and the Faithfulness of God, pg. 775
“YHWH’s choice of Israel as his people, was aimed not simply at Israel itself, but at the wider and larger purposes which this God intended to fulfill through Israel. Israel is God’s servant; and the point of having a servant is not that the servant becomes one’s best friend, though that may happen too, but in order that, through the work of the servant, one may get things done.”
PFG, pg. 804
“Much like Rom 2:19, the Jewish sibyl refers to Israel as “the guide of life to all mortals” (Sib. Or. 3.195), while in 1 Enoch the righteous and wise are given the Scriptures to enable them to be “guides” for all the “children of the earth” (1 Enoch 104.12-13; 105.1). In the Jewish scriptures, Israel’s Torah and Temple-worship were meant to have a quasi-kerygmatic character so that the Lord is “praised among the nations” and the “word of the Lord goes forth from Zion” (Deut 4:6; Ps 22:7; 117:1; Jer 31:7; 33:9; Isa 2:3; 12:4; Mic 4:2; Zech 14:16; Tob 14:6; Sir 24:6, 8, 23-24, 32-33; Wis 1:1). Thus, Israel’s “advantage” (Rom 3:1) was to be recipient of a divine revelation (Jer 18:18; Ezek 20:11; Ps 19:7; 103:7; Neh 9:14; Rom 3:2; 9:4), which was intended to be transmitted afar (see Philo, Mos. 2.22-26; Josephus, Apion 2.123, 2.261, 282; War 7.45, on the penetration of the Torah among the nations), and in shorthand we can appropriately designate this as Israel’s stewardship of the “oracles of the Lord” (Rom 3:2).”
Michael Bird
In Judaism and early Christianity, election was God’s choice of a group for a particular vocation. Now turning to Augustine:
“You have not chosen me,” He says, “but I have chosen you.” Grace such as that is ineffable. For what were we so long as Christ had not yet chosen us, and we were therefore still destitute of love? For he who hath chosen Him, how can he love Him? Were we, think you, in that condition which is sung of in the psalm: “I had rather be an abject in the house of the Lord, than dwell in the tents of wickedness”? Certainly not. What were we then, but sinful and lost? We had not yet come to believe on Him, in order to lead to His choosing us; for if it were those who already believed that He chose, then was He chosen Himself, prior to His choosing. But how could He say, “You have not chosen me,” save only because His mercy anticipated us?”
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. Chapter XV. 15, 16.
“In Manichaeism, Primeval Man (the first human) used free will to abandon his position in the realm of light and went down into matter and darkness. Escape then became impossible…. Mani invented Manichaeism to be a syncretistic (a combined) religion for all persons worldwide by combining Judaism and Buddhism, then adding Christianity…Mani also borrowed the concept of humanity’s total inability to respond to God from the ancient Indo-Mesopotamian Maitrāyana Upanishad IV. This work describes humans as robbed of freedom, imprisoned, drugged by delusion, and in deepest darkness. “He awakens Adam from the sleep of death, shakes him, opens his eyes, raises him up, exorcises demons to free him of demon possession, shows him all of imprisoned [physical] matter and suffering light soul. The Redeemer commands (an awakening from drunken slumber) and then gives what he commanded by granting grace (in order to gaze upon deity): “The Redeemer, the just Zoroaster, spake thus with his soul: ‘Deep is the drunkenness in which thou slumberest, awake and gaze upon me! Grace upon thee from the world of peace whence for thy sake I am sent.’” (M.7.82–118, Mir. M. III, p.27).
Foundations of Augustinian Calvinism, pg 24
“Fortunatus the Manichaean also cited John 14:6 to prove unilateral determinism, “No one can come to the Father except through me,” since “He chose souls worthy of himself for his own holy will … and were imbued with a faith” (Against Fortunatus the Manichaean 3). Augustine defended the Christian view by mocking the Manichaean god: “corrupted and worn out I have lost my free choice. You know the necessity that has pressed me down. Why do you blame me for the wounds I received?” (cf., Sermons 12.5, 100.3). Augustine does not cite these verses until after 412 CE when he uses the Manichaean interpretations to prove his new total inability/incapacity for human faith (Grace and Fee Will 10, Against the Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.13–16, ep.186.38).”
Foundations of Augustinian Calvinism, pg 56
Augustine (and the Manichaeans and contemporary Christians) thought of election as God’s choice of which individuals will be saved and were preoccupied with what roles human choice and foreknowledge play. Here’s a compilation of references to this issue in the patristic period. Augustine had been a Manichaean for 10 years prior to his conversion, and initially argued against the Manichaean view of free will, but at some point shifted back to using their arguments. Calvin was influenced by Augustine especially on the issue of free will:
“”Augustine is so wholly within me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I could do so with all fullness and satisfaction to myself out of his writings.”
A Treatise on the Eternal Predestination of God, pg. 38
‘Moreover although the Greek Fathers, above others, and especially Chrysostom, have exceeded due bounds in extolling the powers of the human will, yet all ancient theologians, with the exception of Augustine, are so confused, vacillating, and contradictory on this subject, that no certainty can be obtained from their writings.’
John Calvin, Institutes, book 2, chapter 2, section 4
As N.T. Wright has said,
“The questions Paul asks arise within this worldview, not within that of the Fathers, the medievals, the reformers, or post enlightenment historical scholarship. They are, mutatis mutandis, the questions that Paul’s Jewish contemporaries were asking as well: how is God fulfilling the covenant? What is happening to Israel? How is evil being defeated? What has God apparently done the opposite to what one would have expected? And, granted Paul’s belief about Jesus and the Spirit as the inauguration of the renewed covenant, further questions were bound to arise, concerning the constitution and maintenance of the new covenant community itself: should Christians keep Torah and why? What happens when different races come together as the people of God? What has happened to the Jewish dream of the ingathering of the nations? What happens when Christians sin? And so on?”
https://youtu.be/UV1U7DEGHgY
He supports God having prescience, but places responsibility with every persons will.
So, it would be closer to the Reformed idea of Compatiblism.