In his The God of Israel and Christian Theology R. Kendall Soulen make a case why God’s love must be exclusive in his election of the physical people Abraham-Israel. The same principle can be applied to the Divine electing love of individuals—Jew or Gentile—who are in Christ.

But why should God be a God of election at all? Does not God love all persons equally? Why should God choose one people and not another? Wyschogrod’s insistence upon God’s freedom prohibits him from saying that God had to elect one family over the rest. Yet given the fact that God has done so, it is possible to seek reasons for what God has done in order to display ground for human gratitude….

For Wyschogrod, this account of love [sharp distinction between agape and eros love]  is suspect because it bifurcates the human condition in an unreal way. In this respect it resembles the distinction between body and soul. Body and soul are aspects of the one being that God created in God’s image. To regard a person primary as a soul rather than as a concrete unity is to risk missing the human being who is really there. Similarly, true love is impossible without an element of eros that orients agape on the reality of the particular one who is loved. This introduces an element of exclusivity into true love. Without this directedness and exclusivity, agape because fictitious:

Undifferentiated love, love that is dispensed equally to all must be love that does not meet the individual in his individuality but sees him as a member of a species, whether that species be the working class, the poor, those created in the image of God, or what not.

Real encounter is possible only when humans are regarded as more than instance of a class. Genuine human love is directed to the concrete individuality of the other; therefore, genuine human love requires exclusivity (7–8).

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