Islam critiqued questions the divine scheme; Allah gives everyone a chance prior to sealing the hearts?

In answer to the video "No Compulsion in Religion"

Prior to reaching that stage, they had all the time, and opportunities to re-evaluate their inner condition

35:37"Did We not preserve you alive long enough, so that he who would be mindful in it should mind?".

Guidance is present all around man and within his self to stimulate spiritual deductions. Repeated neglect and denial of these signs leads one to a point where he is incapable of changing his course. Eventually the level of wickedness becomes such that they beome deserving of divine retribution in this world 42:21,29:53,18:58. Instead of destroying them outright, God lets them add sins upon sins. Their continuous conceit, thinking that despite their condition and behavior they are beyond the reach of divine justice, this very thought process becomes a means by which their suffering is increased 7:182-3,68:43-5. In the era of prophethood, such people would think that God not punishing them despite the presence of a prophet among them was due to their being fully justified in their position.

The Quran would answer that God controls a system much more intricate than their shortsighted mindset. Not only were they in God's grasp, letting them add in sins until they are severely retributed, but God's witholding His immidiate retribution for sins takes also into consideration those who have yet the potential to reason and reform themselves, whether from among them or other independant groups and individuals 20:129-132. But whether in the times of the messengers or today, the fate of the spiritually dead is sealed

17:45-7,18:56-7"And We do not send messengers but as givers of good news and warning, and those who disbelieve make a false contention that they may render null thereby the truth, and they take My communications and that with which they are warned for a mockery. And who is more unjust than he who is reminded of the communications of his Lord, then he turns away from them and forgets what his two hands have sent before? Surely We have placed veils over their hearts lest they should understand it and a heaviness in their ears; and if you call them to the guidance, they will not ever follow the right course in that case".

Their earthly end does not depend on their spiritual condition, it will occur when their appointed time expires. As equally stated in the Hebrew Bible, the sending of prophets to those type of hardenned disbelievers is not meant at reforming them anymore but rather at annuling all arguments they might have the day they are raised. They will not deny that warnings were indeed issued to them, even by prophets

Ezek2:5"And they, whether they listen or whether they refuse to listen-for they are a rebellious house-they shall know that a prophet was in their midst".

As already said, there are typical patterns of behavior prior to the spiritual senses becoming sealed. The passage from sura 18/kahf shows an example; they were people who never understood the Divine Call, mocked it, contended with its Truth, turned away from it countinuously. They were walking the typical road leading to spiritual self-destruction. The second part of the verse explains the consequences of such behavior; God causes the death of their spiritual senses as a natural consequence of their advanced level of spiritual degradation. Their spiritual senses are caused to die just like Allah causes the physical death of the one who would continuously mutilate himself. The consequence of such spiritual condition is the incapacity to recognize, accept, and follow moral and spiritual uprightness.

This divinely decreed process, which is actually an imperceptible punishment already occuring on earth, is similarily described in 7:100-1. Allah sets a seal over the spiritual senses of the repeated, willful rejecters as a punishement for their attitude. Although they do not perceive it, they remain in darkness until death takes them. It literally is

"by means of their sins" (bi dhunubihim)

that God "sets a seal" upon the hearts of men. One causes himself to reach that point where he can no longer react positively to spiritual guidance until his appointed time comes 3:178,7:182-3,68:43-5. As said many times, the phenomenon is attributed to Allah since He has decreed this law of cause and effect but it is the immidiate consequence of one's own, willful behavior

92:4-21,41:5"And they say: Our hearts are under coverings from that to which you call us, and there is a heaviness in our ears, and a veil hangs between us and you".

They acknowledge that they have closed their understanding to any calls for spiritual reform.