On the Act of Creation

This is something I wrote over the past two days. I don't think it's finished because I still have some problems with it (which I will explain below).

One of the questions that troubled me most a couple years ago was this: why did God create mankind? If God, all-knowing, knew that the greater part of the souls of men would be condemned to Hell, even by their own acts, then how could He in his perfect goodness create man in the first place? True, in a sense, it is we who condemn ourselves. But knowing that we would, how could a good God choose to create us? For certainly it was a choice: an omnipotent God is not compelled to create.

This does seem very arrogant, acting as if we with our limited knowledge know better than He does what is good. And unless He had decided to create we wouldn't be here to question the decision. But the question inevitably gets asked.

So here is my thought--just one possible explanation of course, and not necessarily the right one. The argument stated above rests on an assumption of equal value between the souls lost and those saved: if 199 people had been created and only 99 were saved, it wasn't worth the loss of the hundred to create the whole. But I don't think this is the case. This assumes that God's love for those 99 is outweighed by the hatred of the 100. But hatred, at the last, is a small, griping thing, a worm hardly worth noticing. That God should forbear creating, forego the possibility of love for those 99 for this--it doesn't add up. Now I know I am treading on delicate ground here, and I don't assume that this is true. But I think that if even one soul had been saved, only one soul of all the people in the world, it might still have been worth it. Not worth it for God as if He only cared for Himself. But God's love for even one soul is so great that it makes it worth creating for the sake of this one love. Love outbalances hate. The equation is satisfied, if you will.

The problem is, I feel like I've conveyed the sense of a just God, but not a merciful God. And there are a couple sentences that don't quite work.

"This assumes that God's love for those 99 is outweighed by the hatred of the 100."
No! Not their hatred, but their suffering.

"But hatred, at the last, is a small, griping thing, a worm hardly worth noticing."
And so it is, but what of the soul it inhabits?

So there you have it. Any comments or criticism would be welcome.