[[If the desired end result is to bring souls to Heaven who believe and act a certain way, why not simply make them that way to begin with?]]
Because then you lose free will and love becomes shallow forced love.
[[Wouldn’t it be better to simply destroy the failed ones? Why create a being from nothing just so you can torture it for eternity?]]
That’s a pretty deep question and one I’ll have to be feelign a bit better to tackle-
[[unequal distribution of circumstances? For example, one person could be born into a godless family of thieves, while another born into a middle-class family of devout church-goers.]]
This assumes that circumstances dictate what the soul decides and discounts the fact that the Holy Spirit works on every single soul individually- There is a universal moral code that is written on each heart, and although a person can grow up to silence that code and the promptings of the Holy Spirit, this does not mean that the circumstances force a person to choose only hte evil- God gives each person a conscience to know hte right and wrong- There are many testimonies from natives who came out of compeltely evil civilizatiosn who confessed that although it was ‘acceptable’ by hte comunity to do the evil, they never felt right about it- this is powerful testimony to hte fact that there is indeed a universal moral code, and shows that civilizations who prefere the evil have tried to circumvent hte universal moral code with hteir own subjective codes and ethics- but hte fact remains, no matter how evil the society, the universal moral code still exists and EACH person chooses which they will serve.
[[Either person could choose the right or wrong path, but wouldn’t the child born to thieves be at a much higher risk for choosing the wrong path?]]
I don’t believe so- The Hoyl Spirit works on each heart individually and just as hard as any other person’s heart. God knows the hearts that want to do the good regardless of where they are raised. I’ll try to do a better job addressing that a bit later- perhaps I’ll do a post on it on my blog- it’s a good question
re: eternal damnation - I believe that this term means “separation from God for eternity.” And does not mean that the damned will be “burning in tortuous pain forever,” but forever separated (DEAD) with no chance of existence ever again. God does not take pleasure in suffering. The Bible speaks in terms of “the second death.” The unsaved will be judged & condemned to the SECOND DEATH, and will be fully aware of the eternal gift they’ve lost during the judgment. Some will resurrect to LIFE, but many to DEATH. Death is death. There will be no consciousness left to suffer.
“And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the *SECOND DEATH.* And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
“For God son loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not *PERISH*, but have eternal life.”