 In sum, opponents of universalism must either restrict God’s redemptive love to a limited elect or admit that God’s love will suffer an ultimate defeat in this sense: God’s own desire for the human race as a whole, as expressed in a place like 1 Timothy 2:4, will never be satisfied. Because the Arminians and the universalists agree that God could never love an elect mother even as, at the same time, God rejects her beloved baby, they both agree that the first alternative is utterly impossible. But because the issues surrounding the idea of free will are so complex and remain the source of so much philosophical controversy, perhaps they can also agree that a free–will theodicy of hell is the best philosophical account currently available for a doctrine of everlasting separation from God. 