Claim about Predetermination

Claim:

“God knows exactly who will and who won't believe in Him, and by extension, He knows exactly who and who will not be redeemed. Which is fair enough, except that He created them. Combining His role as all-knowing and as creator, everything happened according to His plan and so every action one takes, especially in regards to those that determine your relocation to Heaven or Hell, was determined the exact moment God created that individual. He picks the starting point knowing the entire path and the ending point for each individual.

Therefore, one's placement in eternal paradise or eternal torment was determined from the very beginning, as since God's all-knowing and creator, there is not a single action one could ever take that He did not know would be taken and did not plan for it to happen.

Meanwhile, assuming the Bible is truth, He created entire cities (Sodom and Gomorrah) of people doing exactly what He planned for them to do (since they couldn't be engaging in sodomy without Him knowing, having created them knowing it would happen, and by extension having planned for it), just to later destroy them and have people blame the individuals in those cities for being "godless" when it was exactly God that had designed them for precisely that purpose.”

Answer:

He knows, but He does not want it and does not determine it. I know that my friend is addicted to heroin, but so long as he himself does not want to get rid of it, there is very little I or even God can do, if we are to grant him any degree of freedom of choice. Sometimes it might be good to override his freedom of choice, but if we leave him no freedom, then we don’t allow him humanity. And this is exactly what will happen in the end if we don't repent, but nobody and especially God does not want such a thing. He desires our true progress and humanity.

So you think it would have been better not to create? Not to create a person with a degree of freedom of will of his own. Fair enough. But I am sorry to say, but most of humanity disagree with you. Most parents, especially loving parents, have a freedom not to have children, but still they have them and by so doing show that they think that human existence (even as it is) is better than no human existence.

And, as explained below, not everything happened according to His plan. And, the relocation to Heaven or Hell was not determined at the creation. And, again, He knows but does not predetermine. One can know that something happens, without willing it. God didn’t wish anyone to go to Hell, but He did wish man to have the freedom to make a choice to go to Heaven or Hell and this implies that all those who wish to go to Hell, go to Hell. He didn’t design them for that purpose, but as they themselves chose it, He did the best that could be done out the mess we chose to get into.