Nothing esoteric. We can't know for sure but I would guess it's something like He created us because He wanted to enjoy a relationship with us and share His beauty with us.
God is in need of nothing (He would not be in want of anything).
Knowing of God’s Love we can believe: God’s Love would have compelled God to even sacrificially make beings whom He could gift to become like He is, in that they have this extremely powerful wonderful Godly type Love. The greatest gift He could give.
It cost God heavily to allow the few beings who will become Loving like Himself to become Loving like Himself, not only allowing satan to roam around and Christ to go to the cross, but to allow other children of His to be annihilated all to help the few fulfill their objective.
It's not a kidnapping but the word “draw” is the Greek word "helkuo" which means “to drag.” So it indicates that the one doing the dragging is imposing his will to some extent upon the ones being dragged. You wouldn't really say that a fireman is "kidnapping" the person he rescues.
God saves us not much because we want to be saved but because he wants to save us. A fireman would still rescue someone who was having suicidal thoughts at the time and might not want to be rescued. But of they ever got back into their right mind later in life they would be glad that they had been rescued. God saves us all but also brings us into our right minds so that we are glad of it.
Who in their right mind would freely choose hell? By definition, they would not be of sound mind and, like someone contemplating suicide, need help more than the freedom to carry out their desire. Unfettered free-will is not the most important thing in the world. Why don't we let children run into the road?
I am only addressing mature adults like we find in scripture; we can assume children and mentally handicapped would go on to heaven not fulfilling their earthly objective.
They are not making the choice between heaven and hell, since that is not a real choice (hell is like having a gun to your head).
To understand the free will choice everyone is making we can look to our familiar “Prodigal Son” story. We are like the older son being given a strong reason to join the Party (which represents the kingdom of God extending into heaven itself) what more can the father say, so will we join or not. Should the father “drag” the older son to the party if he does not want to go and will that make the older son happy? The problem is the father is going back to the lively party and if the older son continues to refuses to go, where can he go without the Father?
We all need to be saved surely?
I would say a new born is in a safe condition since he/she has not sinned, so not needing to be saved
I wouldn't say that but I didn't ask to be born - I find myself "thrown into existence" to use an existential term - so I certainly don't feel I deserve to be tortured forever, however naughty I've been.
Your kind of did say it by saying: “God who clearly didn't think his child deserved to starve to death”.
I have heard atheist use the excuse: “I didn't ask to be born”, which brings up the issue of free will. If you are never, ever to exist, then we all know including God what you did which is nothing, but as soon as you are to exist God at the end of time knows all the choices you made and if you went to heaven or were annihilated. To know if you went to heaven, you first have to be in the plan to exist. At the moment it is planned for your existence, everything happens for God at the end of time.
For God to create beings who will become like Himself in Love, there has to be free will, so for some it would be better if they had never been created, but God is willing to create them for the sack of those who will become like Himself.
It is good for you not to want to be tortured and/or annihilated, so that helps you with your choice to join the party, but to feel you have done nothing deserving of torture and/or annihilation means God would be forgiving you of very little and the love you obtain is very little (Luke 7).
