According to your framework, if God made them and does not choose them, they cannot be saved. God is not surprised by this development because is it God's choice. God knew their beginning and their end.
So they become tools, not persons that image God; they are tools for God's glory. So, yes, their existence is meaningless as far as their being persons made in the divine image is concerned. They do not fulfill their purpose as creatures bearing the divine image, united in love to God and humanity. That's their created purpose, but according to your position, that purpose is abrogated for a greater purpose, God's glory.
I think if you want to hold this position not only are some not elected to salvation, but also that same set of persons were not created in the divine image because they were never intended to be conformed to the likeness of Christ. Their only end is eternal suffering, i.e. God's glory. If they are created in the image for the purpose of being conformed to the likeness of Christ, then we're back to the God who wishes but can't. So much for divine sovereignty, I guess.
You continue to look at it from Man's POV, and, in fact, using words vaguely, such as "cannot be saved". You need to qualify that, because as you use it, it implies powerlessness on God's part. It is not a question of God's ability to save, but simply God's choice, and God's predestination, God's hidden will.
Your logic then leads you to conclude that they were not created in the same image of God, like the saved are. That is false, as it is obvious that they have squandered that potential and his justice will not allow that to continue forever. They are no different from all of us in that, except that God transformed those he has regenerated. You should look at it from God's POV, not man's. And this, I argue, without even referring to what actually it means to be made in the image of God, which none of us quite understands. It is not necessary to fully understand in order to defeat the notion you present. This life is not about the saved and the lost, but about Christ.
Sure, God is transcendent. That which transcends must be revealed if we are to understand it. We can rely on the revelation of God through the incarnate Word, right?
I don't think an argument that somehow absolves God from critique is going to be beneficial. Faith depends on a God that is faithful, good, just, and love. If we empty those of meaning by saying God can do what is unjust because it's good, the whole basis for faith and following Christ comes apart. If God is not unjust, then we should have some sense of what that means.
But we cannot fully rely on, as you have said in so many ways, not through the incarnate Word nor through the written Word, if the only reliance is on our subjective experience of it or through our limited and corrupted exegesis and use. So the written Word must govern, over and over until death.
The incarnate Word of God is altogether reliable, but he has not added to his word since the last Book was written, nor ever subtracted from his Word. So even if he tells you directly to do this or that that is true, it is not in contrast to his written Word. I hope, at least you agree with that much. Nor is it doctrine in the same sense, being understood by our limited minds, they being full of weakness and self-importance and ignorance, as what the Scripture, which remains the same after all our foolish renderings. If my theology is wrong, it is tested by Scripture, as is any of our theologies.
To put it by way of example, when God gave Paul the words to write, it was not subjective, and still it remains. What Christ tells you directly is for you, and to be dogmatic on it is to claim it is for others, the whole time being subjective, or it is word for word scripture by your claim, added, or subtracting from the written Word.
I'm not ignoring that point; I disagree as I have stated. To make a distinction between what God desires and what God wills is to make God too anthropomorphic. We are composite beings with parts and problems. We might have desires that are contrary to what we will, e.g. I desire a banana split for breakfast, but I will to eat healthy in the morning so I abstain. God, traditionally understood, is One in essence. God's attributes are all essential and perfectly united so that there is no real distinction between what God wants and what God does, it all collapses into the divine eternal essence. You want God to have a desire that cannot obtain, which brings disunity into the unity of the divine. If God wants something, it happens or God doesn't desire it.
Have you thought through this idea that God chooses those who are saved but his choice not to save others has no causal efficacy? Surely someone has an explanation for how that works. It seems to me, if the divine choice is necessary to be saved, the choice not to save is efficacious. But maybe there's a good argument out there to the contrary.
So by your assessment here, (again), when Christ, being God, cries out in agony, "If there be any other way, let this cup pass" he didn't actually want relief. Or are you saying, contrary to his unity of being that you just espoused, that only his human side wanted it? Did God want something that didn't happen?
This is, in the main, the reason why I say that sin is the only thing that ever really hurt God. But he is not diminished, but only in pain, and that, for his glory, for our sakes, and for the joy that is to come.
But where do you get the idea that I think that his choice to not save others has no causal efficacy? Besides being a badly framed question*, the truth is that everything God does has causal efficacy. And I stand behind that as strongly as I do that he is First Cause.
*The question is badly framed, in that it ignores his main cause for their mere existence and their end, and it continues to presuppose that the human line of logic is more worthy than his mere Word, and because the question as framed still insists on the narrative that he had to choose not to save someone. He did not, in the sense you want it to mean, but chose to save only some. In your claim which I agree with, concerning the 'Simplicity of God' and the 'Aseity of God', the "indivisible oneness" of God, you quickly cast it aside when you fragment his direction in creation to the notion of what I can only think you must accuse me of believing in, God's delight and capriciousness in the torment of any souls. Their ultimate end is not at all meaningless.
