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The concept of election, predestination, salvation and the interplay between God’s sovereignty, His grace, His plan of salvation, and man’s freewill do raise some apparent contradictions. Let's look at some Bible passages that are sometimes brought up when discussing this topic.

1 Timothy 2 (God's plan)
3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Ephesians 2 (God's plan)
1. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2. in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
3. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
4. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
5. made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.
6. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7. in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--
9. not by works, so that no one can boast.
10. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

John 6 (Election & Predestination)
44. "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day....
64. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
65. He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

1 Peter 1:1-2 (Election & Predestination)
1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,
2. who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..

And Romans 8:29-30 (Election & Predestination)
29. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Mathew 7:13-14 (Man's Free will)
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

2 Peter 1:5-10 (Man's Free will & Election)
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;
6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;
7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall.

And in Luke 2: 13-14 (Election)
13. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

Notice it is not to all men, but only to men on whom his favor rests. Yet, God desires all men to be saved. 1 Timothy 2:3-4

And in Acts 13:48 (Election & Predestination)
48. When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

John 10: 29 (God's Sovereignty)
29. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.

And yet,

2 Peter 2:20-21 (Man's Free Will)
20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

But...

Romans 9:11-12; 15-23 (God's Plan & Sovereignty)
11. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand:
12. not by works but by him who calls--she was told,..." 15. For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
16. It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
17. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."
18. Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19. One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"
20. But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, `Why did you make me like this?'"
21. Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
22. What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction?
23. What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory--

What is one to make of all these twists and turns in Scripture as to what depends on God and what depends on man in the working out of his salvation?

Following is the The Navarre Bible Commentary on Romans 9:14-33 which I think sums up and addresses all of the issues that the above Bible passages raise. I have formatted certain parts of it for emphasis. If you have not already done so, I recommend you read my short article on God's Sovereignty and Man's Free will.

14-33. The selection of the people of Israel in preference to all other nations, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and the punishment meted out to him, individual salvation or rejection as indicated by the vessel of clay: these are all examples which point to the profound mystery of predestination. Our faith teaches us that God, who is almighty and all-knowing, not only knows all future events but by His infallible will arranges them to achieve His design: divine Wisdom, Sacred Scripture tells us, "reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and she orders all things well" (Wis 8:1).

God ordains from all eternity that rational creatures shall attain eternal bliss with the help of grace and with their own free cooperation. The essence of the mystery of predestination lies in the fact that our limited minds cannot fully understand how the inevitability of the success of God's plan fits in with human freedom. Human freedom must play its part "because the beverage of man's salvation certainly contains the power to benefit all, but if one does not drink it, one is not healed" (Council of Quierzy, A.D. 853, Doctrina de libero arbitrio hominis et de praedestinatione, chap. 4). Nor is it possible for us to understand the mystery of how God can allow some people to be rejected despite His desire that all should be saved.

Because we are free agents, we might think that salvation or repudiation is entirely dependent on ourselves; on the other hand, if God's will really is infallible, then salvation or rejection seems to depend entirely on His choice. In the process of dealing with these two erroneous positions, the Church has, over the centuries, spelt out its teaching in greater detail. Against those who over-emphasize the part played by human freedom, the Magisterium has stated that "the free will of man was made so weak and unsteady through the sin of the first man that, after the Fall, no one could love God as was required, or believe in God, or perform good works for God unless the grace of divine mercy anticipated him" (Second Council of Orange, De gratia, conclusion). Quoting St. Augustine, that Council went on to say that when men freely follow the will of God, even when they do what they do voluntarily, their will nevertheless is the will of Him who is disposing and ordaining what they desire (cf. ibid., can. 23; In Ioann. Evang., 19, 19). To put it more graphically: loving God is a gift of God.

"Almighty God desires that all men without exception be saved (cf. 1 Tim 2:4), though not all may be saved. That some are saved is due to the gift given by Him who saves; that some perish, however, is because they deserved to perish" (Council of Quierzy, Doctrina de libero arbitrio, chap. 3). Elsewhere the Magisterium teaches: "We confidently believe that the elect are predestined to life and the reprobate to death; but in this election of those to be saved, the mercy of God is prior to merit; whereas in those who will perish, the punishment they deserve [for their sins] precedes the just judgment of God. . . But that some are predestined to evil by God, that is, as if they could do nothing else, not only do we not believe, but if there are any who hold that opinion, we, with the Council of Orange, heartily shun them" (Third Council of Valence, De praedestinatione, can. 3).

The mystery of predestination reveals THREE VERY ENCOURAGING TRUTHS.
FIRSTLY, the absolute freedom and generosity of God in granting us His grace without any merit on our part: all men are sinners against Him (cf. 3:9ff), yet out of His goodness and mercy He offers them His love and justifies them (vv. 15-16).
SECONDLY, God's salvific will extends to all mankind: "He desires all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:4), and Christ, sent by the Father to effect our Redemption, died on the Cross for all mankind.
THIRDLY, God, in the work of our salvation, counts on our free cooperation and inspires us, through His grace, to cooperate.
This means that man can always resist the grace God gives him. The work of our redemption, therefore, is a continuous interplay between divine grace, which takes the initiative, and man's response, with man's free decision being prepared by God. See also note on v. 18 below.

Therefore, we have no reason to fear God: He is a Father who has no desire to reject His children. St. Augustine, after exploring this mystery, ends with an exhortation to hope and to prayer: "You, therefore, ought to hope that this same perseverance in obedience will come to you from the Father of lights (cf. Jas 1:17), from whom comes every good endowment and every perfect gift, and you should ask for this in your prayers each day, and when doing so you should be confident that you are not far from the predestination of His people, for He it is who enables you to do as you are doing" (De dono perseverantiae, 22, 62).

18. In freely distributing His grace unequally among men, God desires this variety to contribute to the beauty and perfection of creation. This unequal distribution of grace also includes the gift of final perseverance, which is NOT something to which man has a right: GOD GIVES IT TO WHOMEVER HE CHOOSES. HOWEVER, GOD GRANTS EVERYONE THE GRACE OF CONVERSION AND REPENTANCE AND OPENS TO ALL THE GATES OF SALVATION; IF THE PERSON IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS FREEDOM REJECTS THESE GIFTS, GOD RESPECTS THIS HUMAN DECISION.

ONLY IN THE SENSE THAT HE ALLOWS IT TO HAPPEN CAN ONE SAY THAT GOD IS THE CAUSE OF RESISTANCE TO GRACE; strictly speaking, the sinner is entirely responsible for his hardness of heart. St. Thomas Aquinas uses this comparison to explain the matter: "Although the sun, for its part, enlightens all bodies, if it encounters an obstacle in a body, it leaves the body in darkness, as happens to a house whose window-shutters are closed. Clearly, the sun is not the cause of the house being darkened, since it does not act of its own accord in failing to light up the interior of the house; the cause of the darkness is the person who closed the shutters. So God chooses not to give [the light of] grace to those who put an obstacle in its way" (Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 79, a.3).

The coincidence in God of infinite justice and infinite mercy is another unfathomable mystery. All that we really need to remember is that God always offers man the opportunity to change and repent. The Church invites us, therefore, not to close our heart to God's invitations: "O that today you would hearken to His voice! Harden not your hearts" (Ps 95:8).