Is it beyond the scope of reason to venture that God may not have to force anyone? Your dogma dictates that people end up in a lake of either figurative or literal fire which either way is "deeply unpleasant" correct? Nobody would 'choose' this fate if they in full conscious knowledge knew that rejection would send them there. Or are you going to insist that everyone who you deem are hellbound through non acceptance are completely aware of their fate?
It does say in the bible that every knee will bow and every tongue confess. So either it's forced or given willingly. As it brings glory to God I would suspect the latter myself.
And I was under the impression that Jesus' sacrifice was a ransom for all the sin in the world. Is it somehow a failure if Jesus' debt for all sin turned out to be a 100% in the long run? Didn't Jesus say He came not to judge the world but to save it. What was that, hyperbole?
What IS amazing is that you guys take nothing litteral in the bible except that.
Cut and dry:
Wide road=destruction
narrow path=life
If there IS eternal life, then there IS eternal damnation, same wording for both, what goes for one goes for the other.
You say any intellagent being would turn to God with the threat of Hell, well where are they? NO! It is more important to them to rebel. They won't even buy a god that does not punish, like the one you sell. Satan, a created being, knows his fate yet choses to rebel and take man with him. It's all in the Word of God.
The weeping and gnashing of teeth is not sorrow, but anger. They will be dead in their sin and they will hate God for that, but they would not change.
Revelation 21:
5And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new " And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true."
6Then He said to me, "
It is done I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.
7"
He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. 8"
But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
He said, after the Great White Throne Judgment, "It is finished" the Overcomers, get life, the others get the second death. He told John to write it down because "these words are faithful and true". Jesus is "Faithful and True" we know from Revelation 19:11.
It is hard teaching but we must accept it. We will one day understand why, for now we must just accept that it IS and trust Him to do what is right.