TLDR:
Human beings are victims of an asymmetry of consent. We do not choose to exist. God establishes the rules of the game, knows exactly who will lose the game, and physically forces the losers to play the game when He had the absolute power to simply leave the board in the box. Therefore, God does not merely allow people to go to Hell; He actively engineers the reality in which their damnation is the inescapable, predetermined result of His choice to create.
The Argument: The Determinism of Divine Actualization
The core of the argument rests on the distinction between possible worlds and the actual world, and God's role as the sole bridge between the two.
Premise 1: The Asymmetry of Existence. No human being consents to their own creation. Existence is non-voluntary; it is forced upon the human subject by an external agent (God).
Premise 2: The Establishment of Conditions. God, being sovereign, unilaterally established the ontological, epistemic, and moral conditions required for human salvation. God could have established different conditions, or created a universe where such conditions were universally met.
Premise 3: Infallible Pre-Volitional Knowledge. Prior to His decree to create anything, God possesses infallible knowledge of exactly what any specific, legally identifiable individual (soul) will do (or would do) under any set of created conditions.
Premise 4: The Sovereign Decree of Actualization. Out of an infinite set of possible worlds - including the possibility of creating nothing at all - God freely chose to actualize this specific world.
Premise 5: The Conversion of Possibility into Actuality. By choosing to actualize this specific world, God knowingly instantiated specific individuals whom He infallibly knew would fail to meet the conditions for salvation, thereby incurring eternal damnation.
Conclusion: Therefore, God is the ultimate, sufficient cause of the individual’s damnation. By forcing a soul into existence within a specific set of conditions where its failure is infallibly known prior to creation, God logically destines that person to Hell.
Anticipating and Defeating Common Objections
When presented with this argument, classical theists and apologists typically retreat to two primary defenses.
Objection 1: "God’s foreknowledge doesn’t force people’s actions."
The Objection: This is the classic Ockhamist or Boethian defense. It argues that knowledge does not equal causation. Just as a meteorologist knowing it will rain tomorrow does not cause it to rain, God knowing S will sin and reject salvation does not cause S to do so. S is still freely choosing.
The Refutation: Foreknowledge + Actualization = Determinism.
This objection commits a category error by treating God as a passive observer. The meteorologist analogy fails because the meteorologist did not create the weather system.
God is not merely a spectator looking down the corridors of time; He is the author of the timeline. The argument does not claim that God’s knowledge alone causes damnation. The fatal blow is God’s Knowledge + God’s Decision to Actualize.
Imagine a structural engineer who knows with absolute, infallible certainty that if he builds a specific bridge with specific materials, it will collapse and kill everyone on it. He has the option to build a different bridge, or to build no bridge at all. If he freely chooses to build that exact bridge, he cannot stand before a judge and say, "My knowledge of physics didn't force the bridge to collapse; the metallurgical stress did!"
Similarly, God’s foreknowledge merely informs Him of what would happen if He created a specific soul in a specific context. But it is God’s Decree of Actualization - the act of breathing that world into reality when He could have refrained - that forces the outcome. By actualizing the world, God signs the death warrant. The human’s "choice" is entirely enclosed within a paradigm God deliberately selected and executed.
Objection 2: "This is the best possible world / The best God could do."
The Objection: Rooted in Alvin Plantinga’s "Free Will Defense" (and concepts like Transworld Depravity), this argues that God wanted a world with the maximum amount of free creatures choosing salvation. Unfortunately, creating truly free creatures entails the risk of rebellion. Therefore, a world with some people going to Hell is the unavoidable "cost of doing business" to achieve the greatest possible good. God couldn't do any better without violating human free will.
The Refutation: Capitulation and the Tacit Admission of Fatalism and Utilitarian Damnation.
If an apologist argues "this is the best God could do," they are conceding the core premise: God sealed the fate of the damned for the sake of the system.
If God looks at the blueprint of "The Best Possible World" and sees that Individual S will burn in Hell forever, God has a choice:
Actualize the world, condemning S to Hell to achieve a "greater good." Refrain from creating the world, sparing S from eternal torment. If God chooses Option 1, God is making a utilitarian calculation. He is using Individual S as a means to an end (collateral damage) to achieve His desired universe. S's damnation is entirely sealed by God's preference for this specific universe over an empty one.
Furthermore, this obliterates the defense of a perfectly loving God. A God who forces an individual into an existence of eternal torment because that individual's existence is somehow mathematically necessary for the "optimal balance" of a universe is indistinguishable from a deterministic architect.
The individual in Hell can rightly say: "I did not ask to be part of your 'best possible world.' You knew before you made me that I would suffer eternally, yet you forced me into existence anyway because my damnation was an acceptable price to you for your creation. My fate was sealed the moment you said, 'Let there be light.'"