What a great question, @Angela275. One that is not only important theologically, but also has important pastoral (and emotive) implications. I’m sure that like me you have non-Christian friends and family, so this question also impacts them whichever side you fall down on. On the one hand, “If salvation is for a select set, is there any chance God might pass over them?”. On the other hand, “If salvation is only an act of free choice, does that mean their eternal destiny is more or less up to chance?”. Again on the one hand, “Is God abusively forcing himself on others by predestining people?” On the other, “If he has the power to save, but leaves it up to our choices does that make him negligent?”.
I say all that, not so folk will necessarily answer the questions but more to illustrate that this is not theological minutia. Rather, if one imagines theological doctrines like countries on a map, ones view of predestination and free-will directly borders one’s theology of God and one’s theology of Church Mission. These are big important questions; let me try to offer some basic, stumbling, reflections.
It is worth considering what one means by ‘free will’. My own view is that our will follows our desires, so I do not believe then that the will is ‘free’ from any and all coercion anyway. One chooses Pepsi over coke, for example, because one desires Pepsi more and so the will chooses that brand. I would argue that sinners never choose to submit to God because their heart desires sin more than righteousness and so the will chooses to rebel instead. As such, left to our own devices none of us chooses God on our own. As such God must intervene to give us a new ‘heart’ (the core of humanness) so that we desire to choose him rather than rebellion.
Unsurprisingly then, I am a convinced Calvinist. And not even necessarily because I want to be but because that is what I see in scripture and, personally, find the most convincing position. Others have and will disagree - I’m cool with that.
As a subset of Calvinists, I follow Don Carson’s Biblical Compatibilism model. Justin Taylor gives a good overview of the position (with bible passages) here. However, here are the headlines:
D. A. Carson… argues that the following two propositions are both taught and exemplified in the Bible:
- God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions in Scripture to reduce human responsibility.
- Human beings are responsible creatures—that is, they choose, they believe, they disobey, they respond, and there is moral significance in their choices; but human responsibility never functions in Scripture to diminish God’s sovereignty or to make God absolutely contingent.
Again folks are welcome to disagree. I have answers to some common objections, other stuff I just have to go, ‘yeah, don’t know really…’. I certainly have no answers to Mitchell’s consciousness critique, that is information above my pay grade I am afraid. Yet, not being able to answer an objection does not necessarily make Calvinism invalid, it is more a recognition that I am not as smart as he is(!) 
I guess what I am saying is this: at the end of the day, I’m just another finite human trying to get my head around an infinite being’s operations. Even with the bible and 2000 years of theological reflections, we’re all still ants trying to comprehend the ocean. So whatever direction one approaches the debate I think it is incumbent on us to do so with grace and humility.
Sadly that has not always been the case. The Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate has been dividing churches for centuries and it is often, not to put too fine a point on it, due to stupid behaviour on both sides. Again, I often wonder if part of the reasons one lands on one side of the theological fence or the other on these issues is personality type, background, etc. It also wouldn’t surprise me if when we reach glory Calvinists and Arminians (and everyone else) finds out they were both partly right and both partly wrong.
I hope you can salvage something useful from all that. What’s your thoughts on the issue, Angela?