First Timothy 2:3-4 and 2 Peter 3:9 declare that God desires all people to be saved and come to repentance, whereas Romans 9:18 and 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 indicate that God hardens whom He wills and sends strong delusions so that some may be condemned. Traditional harmonization reconciles this by distinguishing between God's perfect desire (His moral will) and His sovereign permission of human choice and consequence (His decretive will); conversely, critical scholarship views the tension as a structural debate between early Christian universalism and double-predestinarian apocalyptic theology.