I can absolutely guarantee she herself would rather we go into theology than to keep talking about her. 
And I would, too, although I think it’s important to keep real people in mind, because real people (especially God, in all Three Persons!) are the topics of theology.
So for example:
I understand that if Calv non-election is true, since we ourselves don’t know who is and who isn’t elect and non-elect then we ought to evangelize everyone. But this has nothing really to do with hoping for the salvation of sinners from sin. It’s an evangelism in disconnection from hope.
If we ourselves don’t know who is and who isn’t intended by God to be saved from their sins, then our hope for anyone’s salvation is at best only a feeling of ours, which may or may not have some correspondence with actual reality: God’s choice for some people to have the capability of being saved from their sins, and God’s choice for some people to never have that capability. My hope for my beloved could not actually be rationally grounded in God; at best my hope would be an emotional feeling that might or might not correspond to what God has chosen regarding her salvation from sin.
Covenant Theology doesn’t really change that technical issue (I won’t call it a problem because for Calvs it isn’t a technical problem, but at most only an emotional difficulty), unless it involves a guarantee that our loved ones are also chosen by God for salvation from their sins. But you yourself believe it involves no such guarantee (only a stronger suspicion in favor of them being saved maybe).
That’s consonant with Calv soteriology broadly speaking compared to Arm or Kath soteriologies (and variants). If God guaranteed that He intended to save from sin the people we love, a Calvinist could only remain a Calvinist and not shift to being a universalist by denying we’re supposed to love everyone. I think there are some Calvs who go this route, but then it becomes a question of who we’re supposed to properly love or not (over against scriptures apparently indicating we’re actually supposed to love everyone), and the only answer can be ‘those whom God has chosen to save from sin or has chosen not to save from sin (respectively)’. Which is unknowable by us at this time. And so ends the practical solace and the practical hope.
(This is aside from those Calvinists who think they’ve figured out how to tell for sure if someone is elect or non-elect–a topic of natural importance for Calvinists, at least in regard to identifying the elect, since one of the main selling points of Calv vs. Arm soteriology is a stronger assurance of salvation. But that assurance only has personal value if we can be sure that we are of the elect and not of those non-elect who think they are of the elect but were never chosen by God to be saved from their sins, and so were infallibly deceived about their own election, having been given no way in this life to tell for sure that they were not elect instead of elect. Jonathan Edwards is a notorious example of someone who thought he could figure out who the non-elect are, and so who we aren’t supposed to love more than in some incidental fashion–and who proceeded to put his precepts into practice, specifically in regard to people whom he had been previously teaching to consider themselves assuredly among the elect! But clearly you aren’t that variety of Calvinist–at least in regard to identifying the non-elect.)
I expect the particular contravening example you had in mind was Abraham’s family: you don’t think God ever has chosen to even try saving all of Israel in terms of Abraham’s family from their sins. (The distinction no doubt being that not all Israel is Israel of the flesh and vice versa.) I think technically a Calvinist could agree that God really intends to save all of Abraham’s natural family from their sins, as part of God’s covenant with Abraham, and so will get it done, even post-mortem where necessary; but that would open several cans of worms. For only one example, what about verses apparently indicating some of Israel according to the flesh will not be saved?–and if there are legitimate ways to better interpret those verses, why wouldn’t those interpretations work for Gentiles, too?
So I can understand why most Calvinists (across different variants) don’t believe the family covenant involves this. Yet you yourself seem to recognize that there is some seriously real strength to apparent promises along this line, or you wouldn’t have brought up the topic in context of the salvation of our loved ones, such that Covenant Theology provides at least a little more emotional solace that God has also chosen to save our loved ones from sin.
Only in the most trivially emotional sense of the word ‘hope’. My hope for my beloved is infinitely stronger than that (if Christian universalism is true).
This is aside from the fact that by the terms you’ve specifically mentioned, Covenant Theology has nothing to say about those we love who are not our spouse or physically related to us. That means CT, so far as you’ve talked about it, has not even a disconnected emotional hope to offer for my beloved–not unless she is the family, or is married to, someone who turns out to be one of the elect. Whoever they may be.
So as a practical example, I know her grandparents insisted on church, but who knows whether they were of the elect? She herself doesn’t think her parents are more than slight cultural Christians; I don’t know about her brother; she married a man whose parents are outright apostate cultural Catholics and who only had him baptized because his grandfather called from Eastern Europe to insist on it–but who knows whether his grandfather was elect. Or whether she would be grandfathered in, so to speak. But even if she was, there would be no real assurance from that route–because ultimately Calvinistic soteriology isn’t about God keeping covenants to families. It’s about whether He chooses to make a saving covenant with a person in regard to that person him-or-herself. Not in regard to their family or in regard to those they love.
That’s why even if I happened to know (per impossibility?) that I was of the elect, or that her mother was of the elect, or that her husband was of the elect, none of those things matter a single solitary jot in regard to her salvation if Calvinistic soteriology is true.
That’s why, even though I know you meant well by it, I know better than to think Covenant Theology offers any more hope for the people I love (especially if they are not even of my family), if Calvinism is true. Any emotional improvement from that would be, at best, an illusion that somewhat incidentally happens to correspond to reality. They have hope in God, or they do not, the end, period–and I would have no way to tell for sure this side of judgment. And once I know for sure in the judgment, then any ultimately misplaced hope for people who turned out to be non-elected by God, would be revealed as not only ungrounded after all but dashed forever. Hopefully (???) to be replaced by something better than hope for their salvation from sin and reconciliation to God, something better than hope for their becoming doers of righteousness instead of doers of injustice (or perhaps annihilated out of existence). Whatever better than that hope might be.
But only if He has chosen to grant them the capability to be drawn to Himself. The gospel is a means to this only for the elect.
We could technically believe that He might have chosen to do so (and that He has certainly chosen either to do or not to do so). But not that He may eventually choose to do so if He hasn’t done so yet (as an Arminian might hope). And not that He certainly has chosen and will choose to do so (as a Universalist would hope). Unless we know for sure that someone is of the elect, we can have no grounded hope for them if Calvinism is true.
That they are elected, you mean. All babies grow up eventually, or die as babies, so in fact if Calvinism is true not all babies/children can be saved. But if they die early that would be sure and certain evidence they were of the elect. (How early, with no age of accountability?..who knows. Before they have developed any rational faculties I guess.)
Not sure I’ve ever heard a Calvinist per se distinguish between permanent and temporary reprobates per se, but it’s a flexible term so I suppose that isn’t impossible. Anyway, it’s blasphemy only to do so if we don’t already know they are of the non-elect–it wouldn’t be blasphemy in the eschaton. But then, by the same principle, if (before the eschaton) we look at someone who currently seems to be a believer and declare them one of the elect…?
It doesn’t matter to the non-elect. I understand that if we don’t know then we might as well try, and of course it matters to the elect. But not to the non-elect. God hasn’t chosen to allow it to matter to the non-elect–not in any way that involves them becoming doers of righteousness and saved from their sins.
Which means we really can’t know whether it matters or not to anyone this side of the eschaton. Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn’t. For all we know it could matter, so for all we know we might as well try, but it really only matters for the elect, if Calvinism is true.
But it really and certainly matters for every sinner if Universalism is true. And won’t ever stop mattering.
Calvs and Kaths can both say with St. Paul, “Now thanks be to God Who is giving us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! So become settled, unmoving, superabounding in the work of the Lord always, being aware that your toil is not for nothing in the Lord.” Which is something no Arminian can consistently say about our evangelical work. But if universalism is true we can say this about all sinners. Not only some. If Calvinism is true, my toil for the salvation of someone who turns out to be non-elect will be for nothing, because God authoritatively chose that it would always be for nothing. It would literally be for nothing in the Lord.
(My toil might be for other purposes, of course, and so not for nothing in those regards. But it would be for nothing in regard to my intention that they would be led to God to be saved from their sins. Maybe I’m not supposed to have that intention for anyone in my evangelism!–no intention for anyone to be saved, so no failure if someone isn’t saved! But if Universalism is true, I’m supposed to have that intention for everyone in my evangelism.)
Meanwhile, out of curiosity: do you think God loves any children of wrath with saving love? Or not?
But I can see some ways that the phrase could be qualified: in one sense, the sense that most importantly matters, the elect are really children of the inheritance, but while still in rebellion they have not yet received the inheritance. They have no hope in the world, but do have hope in God. St. Paul would certainly agree that those he was speaking to, who had no hope in the world, had hope in God after all!–and I don’t believe any Calvinist would disagree with that.
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