Personally, in my very uneducated opinion, I believe that the essence of God is forgiveness, because He knows how flawed we are.
The only way to love man is to forgive man.
Forgiveness involves the setting right of erring mankind. This must be voluntary of acceptance, or else it is not love. It makes the terrible fate of hell possible to choose, but the Lord would rather that souls be able to choose to embrace the devil forever in hatred and rage at Him, than that they be mere puppets whose love could not be true.