Reformed theology teaches that regeneration precedes faith. They say that a person must be born again before he believes. That a person must have God’s LIFE before he can believe on Christ.
C. D. Cole states it this way: "The Calvinist says that life must precede faith, and is logically the cause of faith. Faith did not cause the new birth, the new birth caused faith." [From a tract en***led Which Comes First In Conversion--Life or Faith? By C.D.Cole, published by Chapel Library, Venice, Florida].
Calvinists put the new birth before faith, since they believe that spiritually dead humans cannot exercise faith and, therefore, need to be born again before they can believe" [C. Gordon Olson, Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism, p. 39].
The doctrine of man’s total depravity has been carried to the extreme by some Calvinists resulting in a wrong understanding of man’s inability. They believe that the sinner is dead in sin and therefore he is like a corpse, totally unable to do anything. They believe he first must be regenerated and have life and only then will he be able to believe the gospel.
But the Scripture teaches that he must believe in order to have life (John 20:31).