Is unconditional election fair?

Last Sunday, I preached on John 15:16, where Jesus declared, "You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you."

The idea that God sovereignly chooses some for salvation while bypassing others, and that this choice is not conditioned upon any future faith or works of the believer, is known as "unconditional election." I believe in this doctrine because the Bible clearly and consistently teaches it (cf. Deut. 7:7-8; John 10:3; Ac. 13:48; Rom. 8:30; Eph. 1:5; 1 John 4:10).

But some wonder how God's election can possibly be fair. Doesn't God's choice eliminate our sense of "free will" or human responsibility? Is it possible a person could want to be saved, but not be elected by God? Charles Spurgeon answers this objection in a very helpful way:

But there are some who say, “It is hard for God to choose some and leave others.” Now, I will ask you one question. Is there any one of you here this morning who wishes to be holy, who wishes to be regenerate, to leave off sin and walk in holiness? “Yes, there is,” says some one, “I do.” Then God has elected you. But another says, “No: I don’t want to be holy; I don’t want to give up my lusts and my vices.” Why should you grumble, then, that God has not elected you to it? For if you were elected you would not like it, according to your own confession.

If God, this morning, had chosen you to holiness, you say you would not care for it. Do you not acknowledge that you prefer drunkenness to sobriety, dishonesty to honesty? You love this world’s pleasures better than religion; then why should you grumble that God has not chosen you to religion? If you love religion, he has chosen you to it. If you desire it, he has chosen you to it. If you do not, what right have you to say that God ought to have given you what you do not wish for?

Supposing I had in my hand something which you do not value, and I said I shall give it to such–and–such a person, you would have no right to grumble that I did not give it to you. You could not be so foolish as to grumble that the other has got what you do not care about. According to your own confession, many of you do not want religion, do not want a new heart and a right spirit, do not want the forgiveness of sins, do not want sanctification, you do not want to be elected to these things: then why should you grumble? You count these things but as husks, and why should you complain of God who has given them to those whom he has chosen? ("Election," Spurgeon's Sermons, Vol. 2, p. 75-76)