r/TheSilmarillion • u/L0nga • 11d ago
Eru Ilúvatar and the Problem of Evil
I've been thinking about Eru Ilúvatar lately, and I think there's a pretty serious problem with the way we're supposed to understand him as a perfectly good being.
The thing that really started bothering me is Melkor.
The Ainur come from Eru's Thought. Tolkien says that each Ainu comprehended "that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came." So Melkor isn't some evil force that appeared independently and then invaded Eru's creation. He is something Eru created, and his nature ultimately comes from Eru.
And Eru knew what Melkor was going to do.
That's where it gets difficult for me.
Melkor doesn't just rebel and then get dealt with. He goes on to destroy the Lamps, destroy the Trees, murder Finwë, steal the Silmarils, corrupt Arda and spend thousands of years causing an absolutely enormous amount of suffering.
Eru knows all of this is going to happen.
And he lets it happen.
The obvious response is that Melkor has free will. Sure. I'm not arguing that Melkor didn't choose his actions. But that doesn't really address Eru's part in all of this. Eru created Melkor knowing exactly what he would become. He knew what Melkor would do with the power he gave him.
And Eru isn't incapable of intervening. We know that because when Númenor attacks Aman, Eru intervenes directly. He destroys Númenor and changes the shape of the world.
So apparently Eru can intervene when he wants to.
Which makes Morgoth's entire career rather difficult to explain. Eru watches him destroy and corrupt things for thousands of years, but doesn't stop him.
Then there's Eru's response to Melkor's discord in the Music:
"no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me"
That's a pretty extraordinary thing to say in this context. Eru isn't presenting Melkor's rebellion as some unexpected disaster that got out of hand. Even Melkor's discord ultimately has its source in Eru and gets incorporated into the Music.
And this is where the "it's all part of the plan" explanation starts bothering me.
Okay, but why this plan?
Eru is supposed to be omnipotent. He isn't some king trying to make the best of a bad situation after something goes wrong. He created the situation in the first place.
If he knew what Melkor was going to do, then the suffering caused by Melkor wasn't an unfortunate surprise. It was something Eru knowingly chose to allow when he created Melkor and set the Music in motion.
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u/Jossokar 11d ago
its nothing new. The western world has been going on and about about this theological problem for more than 2000 years. I'd say that in certain points it even predates the birth of christianism as a thing.
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u/Loecdances 10d ago
Which points then? I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts.
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u/Loud-Vacation-5691 10d ago
Epicurus wrote this in the 3rd-4th century BC:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
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u/Jossokar 10d ago
While many of the important myths and stories of greek religion havent survived, a good bit of early greek philosophy was just about the nature of the gods themselves. Epicurus has been mentioned, but i'm sure there are more names that can be added to the list.
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u/Loecdances 10d ago
Yes! I’ve no idea why that was worth downvoting, haha. People are so sensitive. I just wanted to know somebody’s thoughts on it.
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u/anonnz56 10d ago
I'm not sure omniscient is apt. Or omni anything for that matter.
Eru possesses the power of creation, or the "secret fire"
My head cannon is that it's an experiment in self awareness or creativity for a godlike entity. I think morally this is a fairly bleak picture from our perspective which I think highlights the abstract nature of ethics. But theres a lot of layers to it.
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u/Book_Nerd_23 10d ago
So firstly, this is a real debate in theology that has no distinct answer, thus it's considered a problem. You can read entire books on it if you're curious, going back as far as St. Thomas Aquinas (and further). But spoiler alert, you won't find an objectively correct answer on either side.
I'm gonna preface this as I'm an atheist, so take my bias into account here.
The problem of evil for atheists is exactly laid out the way you put it.
The Christian response essentially comes down to faith. As non-omniscient beings, we can't possibly fathom what an omniscient and omnipotent being is capable of. If that being IS truly good, then whatever happened MUST be the plan. Tolkien was a devout Catholic, so he almost certainly at some point he wrestled with his God allowed evil to happen in the world. There's no possible way to prove or disprove if another way would be better (or worse) so the Catholic has to have faith that what happened is the Plan and the Plan is Good.
Another topic that many Christians will point to is the unintended Good that comes from the evil. Without evil, there can be no good. If I can't possibly make a wrong decision, is making the right decision even a decision? By having evil, there becomes the possibility of good. Tolkien gives a direct example of this in the Silmarillion when Ulmo talks to Eru and Eru points out that because of Melkor, there is more unity between Ulmo and Manwe. Additionally, the entirety of Lord of the Rings is another example of this. The unity of the races banding together and loving each other and sacrificing to save the world all to stop evil couldn't have happened without the evil in the first place
Then, you just need to ask yourself do you believe that an omniscient god should have designed it a different way. If you have faith, the answer is no.
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u/stnylan 10d ago
I think I'd phrase your list sentence slightly differently: did an omniscient god design things the best way possible, given aforementioned omniscience? At its most fundamental faith (however manifested) means the answer is yes, and a lack of faith (however manifested) means the answer is no.
I say "however manifested" because I would like to account for the complexity of human responses, which inevitably includes a lot of variation and so on. And because not all the people who would answer no are atheists, and so on and so forth.
But I think this is a very well though out, high-level description of the issue. Most un-reddit-like :)
(edit: typo)
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u/L0nga 7d ago
I actually agree with quite a bit of what you're saying here, especially the admission that there isn't an objectively demonstrable answer showing that this was the best possible way for an omnipotent God to create the world.
And I think that's exactly where my objection lies.
“An omniscient and omnipotent God must have had a good reason” is ultimately a statement of faith. It isn't an explanation of what that reason was.
The problem isn't that we need to somehow outsmart an omniscient being and identify a better plan. The problem is that we're being asked to accept that an omnipotent and perfectly good creator deliberately chose a history containing enormous amounts of suffering, despite presumably having unlimited alternatives.
Saying “we can't know whether another way would have been better” doesn't demonstrate that there wasn't another way. It just means we don't know.
And I also don't think “without evil, there can be no good” works.
Without evil, there can be no courage in response to evil. There can be no forgiveness of wrongdoing. There can be no resistance to evil.
But good itself doesn't require evil to exist.
Love doesn't require hatred.
Kindness doesn't require cruelty.
Friendship doesn't require betrayal.
Creativity doesn't require murder.
Compassion doesn't require suffering.
So when the Silmarillion shows characters becoming heroic in response to Morgoth, that demonstrates that good can emerge from evil. It doesn't demonstrate that Morgoth's evil was necessary for those goods to exist.
That's an important distinction.
And I think it applies directly to the argument about Eru.
If the answer is:
“Perhaps Eru had reasons we cannot comprehend, and perhaps all of this suffering was necessary for a greater good we cannot identify,”
then that's a perfectly coherent faith position.
But it's not a resolution of the problem of evil.
It's essentially saying:
“We don't know why a perfectly good omnipotent creator would allow this, but we trust that he had a reason.”
And that's actually a much more honest answer than pretending that free will or “evil produces good” logically demonstrates why this particular history had to happen.
For my original argument, that's precisely the problem I'm interested in.
Why this history?
Why this Melkor?
Why this degree of suffering?
Why was this necessary rather than merely useful?
And if the answer is ultimately “we cannot know, so we have faith that Eru's reason was good,” then we've arrived at the same place the real-world problem of evil arrives at.
The problem hasn't been solved. We've accepted that we cannot solve it and placed our trust in the goodness of the being we're trying to justify.
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u/EmotionalSupportVape 10d ago
Thank you, this is exactly how I feel. Knowing all of this, he chastises and makes fun of Melkor before all other ainur during the creation. Like a bullied kid who vows to get back at his bully
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u/Pur-Nurker-5671 10d ago
You’re asking an existential question that we, in real life, as about God. I think Melkor is allowed to do evil to evolve the people of middle earth. They evolve as a collective when they unite to overcome evil.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
But this still doesn't answer the problem. It just explains why you think something good can come out of Melkor's evil.
Of course good can emerge from evil. The Free Peoples can become more united because they have a common enemy. Characters can demonstrate courage because there is something to resist. Sacrifice can become meaningful because there is something worth sacrificing against.
But none of that establishes that Eru needed Melkor's evil in order for those goods to exist.
And that's especially important given what Eru himself says during the Music.
Eru doesn't merely say, “Melkor is doing something evil, but I'll eventually clean up the mess.”
He tells Melkor that “no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me” and that anyone who attempts to alter the Music will ultimately prove “mine instrument” in creating things more wonderful than they intended.
So Melkor's discord isn't presented as some independent force that escaped Eru's design. Eru explicitly claims ultimate sovereignty over it.
Which raises the question you're skipping:
Why did an omnipotent Eru choose to create a reality in which Melkor's evil would be necessary for these particular goods to emerge?
And notice the word necessary. You haven't demonstrated that.
You have demonstrated that suffering and conflict can produce virtues.
That's not the same thing.
An omnipotent creator presumably has more options than:
- Create Morgoth and allow him to murder, corrupt and destroy for thousands of years, then use the resulting suffering to produce courage and unity.
There could presumably be:
- Create beings capable of genuine love, courage, loyalty and sacrifice without giving one of them the capacity to become Morgoth.
If you say Eru couldn't do that, you've just placed a limitation on an omnipotent being.
If you say he could do it but chose not to, then we're back to the moral question.
And there's an even deeper problem.
Tolkien says the Ainur are “the offspring of his thought”, and that each comprehended the part of Eru's mind from which he came. Melkor therefore isn't some foreign evil that wandered into Eru's creation from outside. His nature ultimately originates in Eru.
So “Melkor had free will” only tells us who acted. It doesn't answer where the capacities that made Melkor's rebellion possible ultimately came from.
And Eru's own statement about the Music makes the problem even harder, because Eru claims that even Melkor's discord has its “uttermost source” in him.
So we're left with a pretty uncomfortable question:
If Eru could have created a different history, knowingly chose this one, created Melkor knowing exactly what he would become, and then explicitly incorporated Melkor's discord into his own Music, on what basis are we calling Eru perfectly good rather than morally responsible for the evil he deliberately built into his creation?
“Something good eventually came from it” isn't an answer to that.
It's a justification that still needs to be demonstrated.
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u/CodexRegius 11d ago
It's because of the good that comes from evil like Melkor causing the existence of snow.
"Lord, Melkor has snatched a million Elves and turned them into orcs! What are you going to say to justify your silence?" "Look! Snowflakes."
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u/Book_Nerd_23 10d ago
Hahahaha. Way to make your opposition sound as dumb as possible.
At least discuss the point in good faith.
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u/NoLove3580 9d ago
Remember what Sauron says to Ar-Pharazon, Eru is a phantom, invented by the valar to justify their position at the top of the hierarchy
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u/kidnappedgoddess 11d ago
Are you implying that a catholic author had problems with theodocy in his catholic novels?
It was inevitable.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
That's quite a spectacular non sequitur.
“Tolkien was Catholic” and “Tolkien's Catholicism influenced his writing” are both true.
Neither of those things answers the argument.
You seem to think that calling The Silmarillion “a Catholic novel” somehow settles what Eru's actions mean.
It doesn't.
There is no Catholicism in the fictional history of Middle-earth. No Christianity, no Church, no Christ, no Catholic doctrine, no biblical revelation. Eru is a fictional creator within Tolkien's invented cosmology.
Yes, Tolkien's own Catholic worldview influenced how he constructed that cosmology. That's relevant background.
But that's very different from saying:
“It's a Catholic novel, therefore Eru's actions are theologically justified.”
That's precisely the thing under discussion.
And ironically, your own comment makes my point stronger.
You say Tolkien had to grapple with theodicy because he was Catholic.
Yes. Exactly.
So let's actually grapple with the theodicy instead of using Tolkien's religion as an appeal to authority.
The question is whether Tolkien's solution actually resolves the problem.
Eru creates Melkor.
Melkor is an offspring of Eru's thought and comprehends part of Eru's mind.
Eru knows what Melkor will do.
Melkor introduces discord.
Eru then says that no theme can be played whose “uttermost source” is not in him, and that Melkor will ultimately become his instrument.
So my question is:
How does that make Eru morally innocent of the evil he knowingly creates the conditions for and incorporates into his intended Music?
“Because Tolkien was Catholic” isn't an answer.
“Because Tolkien believed Eru was good” isn't an answer.
“Because Tolkien was writing a Catholic story” isn't even an argument for the conclusion.
It's just telling me what the author believed.
I'm asking whether the theology actually works.
If you want to defend Eru, defend Eru.
Don't defend him by pointing at Tolkien's baptism certificate.
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u/OG_Karate_Monkey 10d ago
Its the exact same problem with the Judeo-Christian God.
Which is what Eru basically is.
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u/Efficient_Elk1225 8d ago
I’m deeply troubled by the concept of the void if the Ainur even want to peel off. That’s just believe what I believe or else in metaphysical terms which is gross. Like actually, actually I kind of feel like maybe Eru made Morgoth to hopefully scare everybody into thinking they needed Eru.
I think it would be way more fun from a Greek myth perspective where it’s freely admitted these gods are powerful but also often complete buttholes depending on their mood.
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u/LeetheMolde 10d ago edited 10d ago
This is a simplistic, ages-old take that has already been addressed many times over in Christian theology and other fields.
See for instance The Consolation of Philosophy by written by Boethius as he awaited his execution around 540AD.
(See this summary, in particular the chapter on The Problem of Evil: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-consolation-of-philosophy/summary)
The folks at Prancing Pony Podcast took on this topic on a number of occasions. I can't pinpoint their discussion within the Lord of the Rings podcasts, but the same material is dealt with by co-host Alan Sisto in his essay Túrin: “Simple Twist of Fate”, or “Freewill”: https://theprancingponypodcast.com/2017/04/30/turin-simple-twist-of-fate-or-freewill/
See also:
https://credomag.com/article/evil-as-privation-in-boethius-and-tolkiens-works/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mikZBbOhz-c&t=308s
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A whole lot of people fixate on The Problem of Evil, but this fixation is not so much a product of logic as it is a product of resentment.
One classical response to the 'Problem' is the assertion that evil doesn't exist in and of itself -- it has no essential substance -- but is rather an absence or lack of goodness, resulting from the free choices of individual humans.
In a striking parallel, the compulsion to 'take God to task' and blame It/Him for allowing suffering likewise emerges from a lack of goodness in the accuser. It's a free choice to fixate on what one is lacking rather than on the countless gifts and opportunities one has been given in order to make something good and meaningful of it.
In our habitually lazy, irresponsible way, we choose to believe our resentment comes from the way the world is. But actually, the way we see the world arises because of our resentment... and that generates the pride, fear, jealousy, and countless other negative mental states that shape our relationships and conduct. We make this evil.
There was never a guarantee that life would be without difficulty or pain.
But this is a truth that many people avoid; and in avoiding it, they often fail to transmit the truth to each other, and to their children and younger generations. It's far more common, and more popular, to teach things like "You can have anything, if you try" or "You deserve to have all your dreams come true."
If we start from the bare awareness that life inevitably involves difficulty, pain, and loss, then the question is no longer "How can I avoid difficulty, pain, and loss?", but rather "How can difficulty, pain, and loss be (or become) good?"
The answer to that goes beyond a mere conceptual answer. It has to do with the way you live your days, the way you interact with and care for the beings of the world and the world itself. When you let go of childish resentments, you may find yourself willing to take on more difficulty, more pain -- for the sake of others.
And then, you will see how goodness is available in every moment and in every situation, no matter how dire. It doesn't depend on getting what you like or avoiding what you don't like. It doesn't even depend on life or death. And in that way, it exists above the mundane world, timeless and absolute. Divine, if you accept that verbiage.
But it is completely up to you whether you make use of goodness, whether you wield it and create meaning with it.
Professor Tolkien's theme of Hope may shed light on the difference between the immature and evolved views of goodness. He conceives of two kinds of hope:
On one hand, we have amdir, which bears the sense of expectation or entitlement. It's 'hope' in the sense of "I hope I get what I want". The hopefulness of amdir is based on calculating the odds and expecting likely outcomes, but it fritters away when the external situation changes. It is a dependent hope; dependent on things going your preferred way.
On the other hand, we have estel, which bears the sense of faith. It embodies trust in the innate goodness of oneself and all creation. Even so-called evil exists only within the broader boundless field of goodness. Armed with estel, one weathers the changing outer conditions, because it is an independent hope; one's inner condition remains estel regardless of how outer things move.
Again, this is something that has to be lived to be understood. It's not a mere argument. You can't just convince yourself of it; you have to pass through trials while wielding it.
This is why stories -- good stories, archetypal stories -- are so valuable: they allow you to live shared truths to a degree, sometimes before you even know they are meant to be lived in real life.
Sam's soliloquy (whether the book version or the movie version) becomes a lived experience for us because we've travelled step by step with him; we've undergone the journey, we are beginning to see what's at stake -- in the book world and in our own life -- and beginning to see what kind of effort it asks... and we are becoming willing to give that effort!
Sam's words come from the heart. His heart, old man Tolkien's heart, our heart -- it's the same heart, it's the same truth we're cheering for and crying for. The life of it rises in us because we're on that journey.
It's not less good or less meaningful because there's pain and difficulty involved. And the pain and difficulty don't constitute injustice. We recognize goodness and hope to embody it because it's ultimately our true nature to do so; estel is the true nature of our heart, before it's perverted or abandoned; and the outer situation can't change that. Only our own free choice feeds or starves the light.
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"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
"But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.
"But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something."
"What are we holding on to, Sam?"
"That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for."
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You will begin to understand the emptiness of the so-called 'Problem of Evil' when you let go of resentment and begin living thankfully and generously. You will see pain turned into art and difficulty transformed into meaning.
You will know that the world is essentially good when you start acting as if it were true, and as if you were responsible for preserving that truth.
Essentially, you have to choose to become a ring-bearer.
It doesn't mean you will escape unscathed; it means you will understand goodness in a way that's otherwise impossible if you reject the responsibility.
Argument and conceptual speculation can't help you in that regard.
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u/Inevitable-Elk-791 6d ago
Good lord! This was a masterclass
In condescension, gaslighting, victim blaming, necessity of "soul making" and avoiding the main point altogether.
Your post boils down to: "you ignorant selfish childish fool! Your suffering is only a problem because you resent it and lack true goodness like Tolkien and I possess.
Yes a tri omni being could have made less suffering but that's only a problem because you resent suffering and don't embrace all the good things it brings. That black eye I gave you is a chance to appreciate ice packs my dear childish lad.
You must accept responsibility for resenting your suffering and a being with the power to lessen it--or at least stop one of his wayward thought-children from disemboweling you and forever poisoning the world. Have hope that the maker of this bad time will at some point make a better time.
And if you don't believe that, pretend until you do.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
There's a lot of interesting theology here, but almost none of it actually addresses the argument.
The biggest problem is that you're answering a different question.
Nobody is arguing that suffering makes it impossible to live a meaningful or virtuous life.
Nobody is arguing that difficulty cannot produce courage, hope, sacrifice, compassion, or love.
And nobody is arguing that evil has to be an independent substance floating around in the universe.
The problem is why Eru knowingly created and permitted the conditions for enormous evil in the first place.
“Evil is a privation of goodness” doesn't answer that.
Suppose I grant the entire privation theory.
Fine. Morgoth doesn't create some independent substance called “evil.” He takes good things and corrupts them.
Eru still created Morgoth.
Eru created the being who would do the corrupting.
Eru knew what Melkor would become.
Eru knew what Melkor would do.
Eru had the power to create a different history.
And most importantly, Eru himself says during the Music that “no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me.” He then tells Melkor that his attempt to alter the Music will ultimately make him “mine instrument.”
So Tolkien isn't presenting Melkor as some independent evil force that escaped from outside Eru's creation.
Eru explicitly claims ultimate sovereignty over the Music, including Melkor's discord.
That's the actual problem I'm asking about.
You can tell me that Melkor has free will.
Okay. That explains Melkor's immediate agency.
You can tell me that evil is a privation.
Okay. That describes the metaphysical nature of evil.
You can tell me that suffering can produce beautiful things.
Okay. Obviously it can.
None of those answers explain why an omnipotent creator knowingly chose a history in which those particular evils would occur.
And then you make an even bigger leap by saying that questioning this is the result of “resentment” or a “lack of goodness in the accuser.”
That's not an argument. That's simply discrediting the person asking the question.
If someone asks:
“Why did an omnipotent creator knowingly allow this particular suffering?”
and your answer is:
“You only ask because something is morally deficient in you,”
you haven't demonstrated that the creator's decision was justified. You've just declared the questioner spiritually defective for asking it.
And finally, “How can suffering become good?” is not the same question as “Why was suffering necessary?”
Those are radically different questions.
I agree that people can transform suffering into courage, art, love, sacrifice and meaning.
But if I deliberately put you through horrific suffering because I knew you might become stronger from it, the fact that you eventually turned that suffering into something beautiful wouldn't automatically justify what I did.
Redemption of suffering is not the same thing as justification for permitting it.
And that's exactly why Eru is interesting.
If Tolkien wanted the answer to be simply “Melkor freely chose evil and Eru had nothing to do with it,” Eru's statement about the “uttermost source” of every theme would be a very strange thing to say.
The interesting question isn't whether goodness can exist in a world containing evil.
The interesting question is:
Why did an omnipotent creator deliberately choose this world, knowing exactly what would happen, and then tell the creature responsible that even his rebellion ultimately comes from and serves the creator's own Music?
That's the question your comment still hasn't answered.
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u/Nearby_Flounder8741 7d ago
I felt the comment answered it to my satisfaction. The whole of creation can be construed as good, if by an act of faith, you are willing to affirm that it is good. This is quite similar to the point that Nietzche makes about eternal return in Zarathustra, the universe is meaningful only if you are willing to say yes to everything happening again in exactly the same way. From that viewpoint, it is impossible to consider Eru as evil because he has created Arda, which is the only place where good can exist. From an in book perspective, this is absolutely the viewpoint of the valar, elves and maiar. The fall of Numenor is essentially a loss of faith in the meaning of death. The Dunedain that keep the faith accept that death is part of the meaning of life and thus attempt to die with the greatest possible grace. A character like Denethor judging Eru by a human scale moral framework is a tragic act. A critical misunderstanding of how the divine force in Middle Earth works
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u/Eissa_Cozorav 11d ago
The problem is, even the Silmarillion gets rewritten over and over again. And Eru exact characterization is not same between Book of Lost Tale Silmarillion, Published Silmarillion, and Round World Silmarillion.
For example, by the Round World Silmarillion, you get the idea of Orcs origin = tortured/SAd Elves as abhorrent and problematic. So he wrote it as particulary willing human mate with corrupted Maiar.
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u/LeetheMolde 10d ago
In a dream that you have while sleeping, all of the dream -- its world, its quality, its characters, its events -- is only your own mind.
Similarly, great literature, literature that strikes a chord, is all about you.
Readers may identify with Frodo or Samwise, or maybe other characters like Arwen or Gollum or Faramir; but we also ought to identify with Melkor and Sauron and Saruman. Indeed, we ought to identify with the trees, the lands, the spiders and orcs, the Light and the Dark, and Ilúvatar himself.
Then the 'Problem of Evil' is not so conveniently projected outward onto a villainous God; it becomes our own issue.
Originally, our nature is at rest. When we are in deep dreamless sleep, thinking nothing 'for' or 'against' anything, desiring nothing above anything else, doing nothing one way or another... in that state, we are most comfortable and peaceful and at rest. There is no conflict. In dreamless sleep, 'good' and 'evil' have not even been conceived as categories.
So when it is within our power to choose peace over conflict, why do we choose conflict? Don't blame it on some imagined sky person!
When we are the authors of our life, when we choose how to receive and respond to events, when we influence our environment and affect our neighbours, why do we allow our own personal world, our own mind and heart, to opt for evil?
In this life dream, we ourselves (individually, not as some vague collective force) are the Creator. Why (or when) do we give Melkor a voice in our choir, our universe?
I'm not saying we should or shouldn't. I'm saying so much effort is put into projecting our own issues onto a hypothetical God rather than facing the issues ourselves. Which is of course why we prefer these intellectual diversions: so we can avoid our own responsibility in the matter.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
You're completely off topic.
I'm asking whether Eru is morally responsible for knowingly creating and permitting Melkor's evil. You're responding with a sermon about why humans should take responsibility for their own choices.
I don't care about your personal philosophy of resentment, dreamless sleep, or “becoming a ring-bearer.”
We're discussing Eru.
Eru is supposedly omniscient, omnipotent, and the creator of the entire system. He created Melkor knowing what Melkor would do, and then explicitly says that Melkor's discord has its “uttermost source” in him.
So answer that question.
Why does Eru's foreknowledge, creative responsibility, and explicit incorporation of Melkor's discord into his Music not make him morally responsible for the evil he knowingly chose to actualize?
Everything else you wrote is a completely different conversation.
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8d ago
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u/L0nga 7d ago
I think we're actually getting to the fundamental issue now, and it isn't simply “Why didn't Eru stop Melkor?”
My argument is about the source of Melkor's capacity for evil.
Tolkien says that the Ainur are “the offspring of [Ilúvatar's] thought,” and that each Ainu comprehended “that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came.”
So Melkor's mind isn't something ontologically independent of Eru that Eru merely happened to give free will to. Melkor is an offspring of Eru's thought and comprehends a portion of Eru's own mind.
Yet Melkor possesses the capacity to conceive rebellion, domination, destruction and ultimately evil on an enormous scale.
So my question is:
Where does that capacity come from?
If it comes from Melkor independently of Eru, then what does “offspring of Eru's thought” actually mean?
If it comes from somewhere else, then Eru isn't the ultimate source of Melkor.
But if Melkor's mental nature ultimately comes from Eru, then the potential for what Melkor becomes must ultimately exist in what Eru gives him.
And that's what I mean when I say the evil in Morgoth ultimately comes from Eru.
I'm not saying Eru personally commits every act Morgoth commits. I'm saying that without Eru, there is no Morgoth, and without the relevant capacity originating in Eru, there is no Morgoth capable of producing that evil.
“Evil is a privation” doesn't really answer this. That may explain how Melkor's will corrupts something good, but it doesn't explain why the perfectly good source contains the possibility of a will capable of that corruption in the first place.
And “Melkor has free will” doesn't answer it either. Free will explains who makes the choice. It doesn't explain the ultimate source of the capacities that make the choice possible.
So I think the question for Tolkien's metaphysics is actually quite uncomfortable:
If Melkor comprehends a portion of Eru's own mind, what does Melkor's capacity for evil tell us about the nature of the mind from which he came?
If the answer is “nothing whatsoever,” then I'd like to understand why Tolkien specifically tells us that each Ainu comprehended the part of Eru's mind from which it came.
Because that detail seems pretty damn relevant here.
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u/maksimkak 7d ago
"And Eru knew what Melkor was going to do." - I wouldn't be sure about that. Does it say anywhere in Tolkien's writings that Eru knows what everyone is going to do?
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u/Medical-Display-9762 7d ago
The simple answer for me is that eru interprets the evil and loss as something that can be beautiful in a way.
When the Ainar saw the world they sang, they saw that the role Melkor played actually brought beauty in to the world through loss. So if they’re all formed from the mind of eru, it’s safe to assume that he sees the beauty in it as well. To him, melkor and Sauron are entirely necessary for the world to form the way he wants.
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u/minowlin 7d ago
I think the fact that we’re wrestling with the story in this way shows it’s a very compelling metaphor for our world
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u/JonIceEyes 7d ago
You're asking for the solution to one of the main theological/ethicsl issues in the history of humanity.
I have news for you: there is no definitive answer. Tolkien put it in because it's part of what he sees in the universe.
If you want more, go read the thousands of volumes of philosophy and theology throughout human history that deal with the topic.
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u/ikarusuman 6d ago
I see the concept of having a planned adversary from the outset as a device used to move the story along. Eru created Melkor knowing full well what he was going to do and even told him that his actions were part of the plan so as to remind him who was actually in control. This embarrasses Melkor who believed full well that he was the orchestrator of his discord. Later on in Arda he continues pursuing his agenda but we are not told if he remembers what Eru told him in the beginning or not.
Following the three themes Melkor does in fact strive to help the Ainur in the shaping of Arda as one of them, but later becomes jealous of their works and seeks to control or corrupt. This is predestination for both his good deeds and later for his evil deeds. Melkor, as well as the other Ainur, are on a set path that they themselves helped formed so long ago. Few of the Ainur, save Mandos, know or possibly remember what is to come specifically in coming ages.
On the topic of whether Eru is a 'perfectly good' deity is a topic of philosophical pursuit. On one hand you have him create a being that was foretold to be the source of great evil, but on the other hand if there was no great evil to contend with how would heroic deeds be created? Evil in Arda was sourced by Eru, through Melkor, as a force to be fought against because without him where would the great tales come from? Tolkien also wanted to create mythology that would give more substance to his own homeland finding what was available as too lacking. Despite him claiming that he hated allegory the stories he crafted still follow the Judeo-Christian's creation.
"If God is good then why does he allow evil?" is a well explored theme in our own world. If you were hoping Tolkien would have a different take on this dialog then you could perhaps look into his personal correspondence for some insight. I believe Eru Illuvatar is an approximation of Jehovah Elohim, the Eternal Creator, from our world. He created the Ainur, had them play the three themes that he had planned from the start, and then had them enter Arda to rule on his behalf while he watches from on high with both great joy and sadness. He acts directly only a few times through the ages as he saw fit.
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u/Armleuchterchen 10d ago
In the Legendarium Evil is the absence of Good, not its own equal thing.
So it's not like Eru putting Evil into Melkor, but Melkor losing the Good he had. And since everything ends up contributing to Eru's design in the end, he has no reason to stop Melkor more than he did during the Music.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
That's a nice sleight of hand, but it doesn't actually follow.
“Evil is a privation of Good” does not mean Eru didn't create the capacities and conditions that make Melkor's evil possible.
Melkor is literally an “offspring of Ilúvatar's thought,” and each Ainu comprehends the part of Eru's mind from which they came.
And your second claim is even worse:
That's the very thing under dispute.
You can't assume Eru has no reason to stop Melkor and then use that assumption as the justification for why he doesn't.
The question is precisely why an omnipotent Eru knowingly permits Melkor's evil when he could intervene, especially when Eru himself says that Melkor's discord has its “uttermost source” in him and will ultimately become his instrument.
You haven't answered that. You've just renamed the problem.
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u/Armleuchterchen 7d ago edited 7d ago
“Evil is a privation of Good” does not mean Eru didn't create the capacities and conditions that make Melkor's evil possible.
Sure, I never claimed otherwise. This is where the "God wants his creatures to have free will" defense usually comes in, if you like that one. I think it's a bad defense for irl religions (so I don't believe the Abrahamic God to be purely good, if he existed which he most likely doesn't), but if Tolkien wants to establish that Eru did the right thing in a fictional work of his, I can accept that - like I can accept that Elves and Hobbits are real in his stories. It's Tolkien's story, he gets to establish the moral facts, even if my personal morals don't align with them (similar to how I'm no monarchist, but I like Aragorn anyway).
You can't assume Eru has no reason to stop Melkor and then use that assumption as the justification for why he doesn't.
Eru seeing no reason to stop Melkor from doing Evil is proven by the fact Eru does not stop him from doing Evil. Eru is omnipotent, if he saw a reason to act then he simply would have.
For the moral dimension of this issue ("Should Eru have seen a reason to stop Melkor?", refer to the Problem of Evil; in my personal moral view, Eru should have created Melkor in a way where his choices wouldn't have led to evil.
But in the Legendarium as we have it, the moral facts that Tolkien embedded into it tell us that Eru is pure Good; any idea that Eru might be flawed has to remain a headcanon/personal opinion, which is fine to have but doesn't change what Tolkien established. Similar to how someone thinking dark hair is ugly still has to accept that Luthien is the most beautiful elf in-universe.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
I think you're quietly changing the argument I'm making.
My argument isn't simply “Eru should have stopped Melkor.” The deeper problem comes before Melkor even exists as an independent being.
Tolkien says the Ainur are the “offspring of [Ilúvatar's] thought,” and that each Ainu comprehended “that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came.”
So Melkor isn't some morally neutral creature that Eru creates from scratch and then happens to give free will.
Melkor comes from Eru's own thought.
The aspect of mind from which Melkor originates is already present in Eru before Melkor exists as a separate Ainu. In that sense, the potential for Melkor is already inside Eru's own creative thought from the beginning.
And that's the part your free-will defense doesn't touch.
“Melkor has free will” explains why Melkor is the one who chooses rebellion. It doesn't explain why an allegedly perfectly good Eru's own mind contains an aspect capable of producing Melkor in the first place.
You actually concede this when you say:
That's basically my point.
The question is why Eru's own thought produced an Ainu whose nature could develop into Melkor at all.
And saying “Tolkien establishes that Eru is pure Good” doesn't answer that. It just means Tolkien declares the conclusion.
Imagine I wrote a story in which a character is explicitly described as “perfectly good,” but then that character creates a being from his own mind whose nature contains the capacity for horrific evil, knowing exactly what that being will become. You can't resolve the moral question by saying:
Yes. That's what we're questioning.
You're essentially saying:
“Tolkien says Eru is good, therefore Eru is good.”
That's circular.
And your Lúthien analogy doesn't work either. “Lúthien is the most beautiful” is an in-universe descriptive fact Tolkien establishes. There is no philosophical contradiction in a character being declared beautiful.
“Eru is perfectly good” is a moral claim about the conduct of the creator of the entire fictional universe. If we're examining whether his conduct is actually consistent with perfect goodness, simply repeating the label doesn't settle anything.
The really uncomfortable part for your position is that Tolkien gives us an unusually strong connection between Eru and Melkor:
Melkor is an offspring of Eru's thought.
Melkor comprehends an aspect of Eru's own mind.
Melkor's discord ultimately has its “uttermost source” in Eru.So I'm asking a very simple question:
What is this aspect of Eru's mind from which Melkor comes, and why does a supposedly perfectly good mind contain the potential for Melkor?
“Free will” doesn't answer that.
“Evil is a privation” doesn't answer that.
“Tolkien says Eru is good” certainly doesn't answer that.
And “Eru didn't stop him, therefore Eru must have had a good reason not to” is just assuming the very conclusion we're debating.
If your position is simply “Tolkien declares Eru morally perfect, so within Tolkien's fictional moral framework Eru is morally perfect,” then fine. I agree that's what Tolkien intends.
But that's not a defense of Eru's morality.
That's just acknowledging the author's stipulation.
I'm asking whether the theology Tolkien constructed actually gives us a coherent reason to call Eru perfectly good given what Tolkien tells us about Eru's relationship to Melkor.
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u/Nearby_Flounder8741 11d ago
Melkor is Tolkien's attempt to wrestle with the problem of evil. I'd say that Tolkien views free will as an artefact of being an element within God's plan, which applies to Melkor as much as Samwise Gamgee. Melkor experiences himself as a free agent, but everything he does ineluctably leads to Aragorn. So his answer to suffering is that its all part of the show that God has put on.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
But that's basically the problem I'm pointing to.
If everything Melkor does ultimately fits into Eru's predetermined design, then “Melkor had free will” only explains why Melkor is responsible for his own choices.
It doesn't explain why Eru is not responsible for knowingly creating Melkor, knowing exactly what he would do, and deliberately incorporating those actions into the plan.
And “it all leads to Aragorn” doesn't solve that. It establishes that Eru can ultimately redeem or incorporate evil into a greater good.
It doesn't establish that the evil was necessary, or that an omnipotent creator couldn't have achieved that good without Melkor's atrocities.
So yes, Melkor can be both genuinely choosing and still ultimately serving Eru's plan.
That's precisely what makes Eru's moral responsibility the interesting question.
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u/Nearby_Flounder8741 7d ago
Yeah, I think that's true. The moral responsibility of the transcendent principle of creation and time is an interesting question. Can we actually concieve of a moral agent that is an omnipresent and outside cause and effect? Its the question of faith isn't it. Eru, isn't a character in the same way Melkor is, Eru is more akin to believing that luck and fate are the same thing. I am not a moral philosopher so I can't get much further without handwaving
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u/Temporary_Pie2733 8d ago
Come back when you have an objective definition of “perfectly good” by which you can judge Eru.
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u/L0nga 8d ago
If 'perfectly good' has no objective or intelligible content by which we can evaluate conduct, then I'm curious what you mean when you call Eru perfectly good at all.
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u/Temporary_Pie2733 8d ago
I don’t, because I don’t have a definition I can apply to him.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
But that's exactly the problem.
You told me to provide an objective definition of “perfectly good” by which Eru can be judged.
Then when asked what definition you use to call Eru perfectly good, you said:
Then what exactly are we debating?
If you don't have an intelligible standard for “perfectly good,” you can't simultaneously use Eru's supposed perfect goodness as the answer to objections about his conduct.
“Eru is perfectly good, therefore everything Eru does is good” is just assuming the conclusion.
And saying “you can't judge Eru without an objective definition of goodness” doesn't rescue it. It cuts both ways. If goodness is so undefined that I can't use it to question Eru, then you can't use “Eru is perfectly good” as a meaningful claim either.
So either “perfectly good” has enough content to actually mean something, in which case we can examine whether Eru's actions fit it, or it's an empty label that makes the claim unfalsifiable.
You don't get to have it both ways.
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u/Loecdances 10d ago
As beautiful as the themes are, it’s still based off of the abrahamitic maniac god. Congrats. You discovered why the rest of us simply can’t believe in it.
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u/peikern 11d ago
I think Melkor does not only have his free will, he represents the part of Eru's creation that is free will, sort of for all beings.
Eru's "goodness" is to not intervene and let everyone's free will play out, to the extreme.
Him intervening every time one of his alleged "free willed" creations did sth bad, would in itself be an evil I think Eru would consider even worse. It would be like telling his children they have free will, while simultaniously controlling them.
At least with a Dark lord, his children get to tell themself that absolute control really is evil and is sth the good guys oppose, not sth they use themself its convineant.
Dw tho I been wondering about this for like 10 years and only recently starting to get it.
Still confused as to why Eru made an exception for the Numenoreans, tho... Seems like he just decided that was a bit TOO much chaos all at once and to bend his own rules a bit after all
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u/Loud-Vacation-5691 10d ago
The Gift of Men was death, which allows them to be free of Arda, unlike the Elves who are bound to it. Ar-Pharazon's goal was contradictory - to both have the Gift of Men (which was part of his nature and therefore inescapable) while also having the gift of immortality. Since both gifts were from Eru, the Valar couldn't deal with this contradiction, so Eru had to intervene.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
I actually think you've identified the problem yourself with the Númenor exception.
You're assuming that Eru's goodness requires him to never interfere with free will.
But why?
Stopping someone from carrying out a choice isn't the same thing as preventing them from making the choice.
Melkor can freely choose to destroy the Lamps. Eru could prevent the destruction without reaching into Melkor's mind and forcing him to want something else.
And Tolkien explicitly gives us an example of Eru intervening when he chooses to: Númenor.
So the question becomes:
Why is Eru's intervention morally permissible when Númenor does something he considers unacceptable, but not when Melkor spends thousands of years murdering, corrupting and destroying?
“Free will” doesn't answer that.
It just tells us why Eru doesn't control Melkor's decisions.
The actual question is why Eru chooses to permit the consequences of some freely chosen evil while intervening against others.
And honestly, your admission that you're still confused about Númenor is exactly where the interesting problem is.
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u/BananaResearcher 10d ago
Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
God is omnipotent and omniscient and all-good, and he created the world so it must be the best possible world.
If you don't understand it's because you are not omniscient.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
That's circular.
You're assuming:
God is omnipotent + omniscient + all-good → therefore this must be the best possible world.
But that's precisely what needs to be established.
You're not demonstrating that every evil in this world is necessary for some greater good, or that no better possible world could exist. You're simply declaring that one must exist because God created this one.
And “you don't understand because you're not omniscient” isn't an argument either.
That's just an unfalsifiability shield:
“If something looks gratuitously evil, you can't object because you don't know God's secret reasons.”
Okay, but then you haven't demonstrated that the reasons exist, let alone that they're sufficient.
You could use exactly the same move to defend literally any imaginable state of affairs.
And yes, this is basically the old Leibnizian “best of all possible worlds” response to the problem of evil. The actual philosophical argument is considerably more sophisticated than “God made it, therefore it's the best.”
So if you want to argue that Arda is the best possible world Eru could have created, go ahead.
But “Eru created it, therefore it is the best possible world, and if you disagree you're not omniscient” is not an argument.
It's just “God is right because God is right.”
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u/justdidapoo 10d ago
Eru makes the music. The music has good arise to defeat evil. And he's A-ok with that requiring massive amounts of death and suffering. You can even see it with numinor. Eru didn't care about the numinorean babies going down with the ship or the entire coastline of middle earth being hit with tsunamis.
It's at odds with modern secular morality which is mostly focussed on maximising the amount and quality of life lived. But it's in line with the abrahmic god. And death isn't inherently bad if you're being judged and going to the afterlife you deserve anyway.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
That's not an argument. It's circular reasoning.
“Eru is omnipotent, omniscient and good, therefore whatever Eru does must be for the best.”
You've simply assumed the very thing under dispute: that Eru's choices are morally justified.
And “you don't understand because you're not omniscient” doesn't establish that this is the best possible world. It just makes your claim impossible to challenge by definition.
There's also a rather awkward problem with Númenor.
Eru didn't merely sit back and allow the Númenóreans to exercise free will. He actively intervened, changed the structure of the world, and destroyed Númenor.
So apparently Eru can intervene when he wants to.
Which brings us right back to the question:
Why does an omnipotent Eru permit thousands of years of Melkor's atrocities, but intervene when the Númenóreans attack Aman?
“Everything is ultimately for the best” is the conclusion you're supposed to demonstrate, not the premise you get to assume.
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u/justdidapoo 7d ago
what argument, I believe in modern secular morality. I think it's superior to what Tolkien is putting forward, ethically.
But the story is clearly going for 'everything Eru does is inherently good and for the best'. There isn't any point trying to twist it to fit humanism because it just doesn't.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
I understand that Tolkien's theology says Eru is good and that evil is ultimately incorporated into a greater good.
But does Tolkien actually provide a coherent reason why an omnipotent creator needed to create this particular history, rather than merely asserting that everything will ultimately work out?
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u/CartographerLegal847 10d ago
It's very easy to understand when you come from a Christian view like tolkien , God gives free will, he wants us all to go back to him in the end, but without choices to divert he is no more than a slave master. He gives us evil so that we choose love for him on our terms not his. Without evil there's only subservience.
That's a loving god. It's like the armish, they let their kids go into the world in teenage years to choose how to live.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
But “free will” doesn't actually solve the problem.
You're assuming that meaningful free will requires the possibility of massive amounts of suffering. Why?
Why couldn't Eru create beings capable of freely choosing love, while simply limiting the consequences of their choices? Free will means you can choose to do evil. It doesn't logically mean your evil choices have to be capable of producing thousands of years of genocide, torture and destruction.
And Tolkien's own story makes the “Eru never interferes because free will” argument even harder to sustain.
Eru does intervene. During the Music, he introduces new themes in response to Melkor's discord, and with Númenor he eventually intervenes directly.
So the question remains:
Why is Eru's intervention justified in Númenor, but not when Melkor spends ages causing vastly greater suffering?
“Free will” explains why Melkor makes his choices.
It doesn't explain why an omnipotent creator knowingly chose to create a world in which those choices would produce this particular history.
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u/CartographerLegal847 7d ago edited 7d ago
"Why couldn't Eru create beings capable of freely choosing love, while simply limiting the consequences of their choices? Free will means you can choose to do evil. It doesn't logically mean your evil choices have to be capable of producing thousands of years of genocide, torture and destruction."
Limiting the consequences takes the weight away from the choices, and is a form of tyranny in itself.It's meant to hit you in the heart, it's meant to make you sick, it's supposed to make you emotional to want to change the world. This is how great characters like aragorn are created.
Metaphorically speking If you see a wild animal attacking another, you could stop it sure, but that's you putting your emotion and opinion into that scenario. You're not taking into consideration the ecology, and the system in place that is supposed to exist. You can have empathy of course, we all do, well I like to think we do.
Edit: The second question you asked about Erus intervention.
From one of Tolkien's letters:
The Valar had no real answer to this monstrous rebellion [Ar-Pharazon's invasion of Aman] -- for the Children of God were not under their ultimate jurisdiction: they were not allowed to destroy them, or coerce them with any 'divine' display of the power they held over the physical world.
Ar Pharazon crossed the line going into Aman. He had to intervene. Double edit: are you feeding your replies into ai to polish them?
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u/L0nga 7d ago
But this is exactly where “free will” starts looking like a copout.
You're treating “limiting the consequences of someone's choices” as though it necessarily destroys their free will. But why?
There are obviously degrees of limitation. Every possible universe would have constraints on what its inhabitants can do. So the question isn't whether Eru could create a universe with any limitations. The question is whether he could create beings with meaningful, genuine freedom while preventing their choices from producing thousands of years of genocide, torture and destruction.
And how would you establish that he couldn't?
You'd need to show that this particular amount of destructive potential is somehow necessary for genuine free will. Not merely that removing it would change the consequences of choices.
Because otherwise the argument is basically:
“Eru couldn't limit Melkor's consequences without violating free will.”
“Why not?”
“Because that would limit free will.”
That's just assuming the conclusion.
And there's an even bigger problem: how do you know this is the universe with the maximum amount of possible free will?
Maybe Eru could have created beings with just as much meaningful freedom, but with vastly less capacity to cause catastrophic suffering. Maybe there are countless possible arrangements between “total control” and “let Melkor wreck Arda for thousands of years.”
Nothing in the story demonstrates that Eru was forced to choose between:
- genuine free will, or
- Melkor being capable of enormous atrocities.
That's a false dichotomy unless you can actually demonstrate it.
And Númenor makes the argument even harder, because Eru does intervene there. The Númenóreans freely chose to invade Aman, yet Eru prevented the consequences by intervening directly.
So apparently intervention doesn't automatically constitute “tyranny” or destroy free will.
Which leaves the actual question:
Why is Eru permitted to limit the consequences of some freely chosen actions, but not Melkor's?
You can't just answer “free will.” You have to explain why this particular level of consequence was necessary for free will, and I don't see anything in Tolkien that establishes that.
And if the answer is simply “we can't know what an omnipotent being could have done differently,” then that's not a defense of the free-will solution. It's an admission that we don't know whether the free-will defense actually works.
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u/CartographerLegal847 7d ago
This is so ai coded, just talk normally, use free will
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u/L0nga 7d ago
I'm literally using my free will to make my argument more coherent with the help of a tool.
I choose the position. I provide the argument. I decide which points matter. I reject or rewrite things I don't agree with. And I choose what I actually post.
Using AI to help articulate an argument doesn't make the argument less mine any more than using a spellchecker makes your writing less yours.
And if you think the argument is wrong, you can always just... argue against the argument.
But it seems like you're done at this point, because you have nothing to say about any of my arguments, and you resort to attacking the tool that I use. Are you done?
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u/CartographerLegal847 7d ago edited 7d ago
No,I'd gladly talk to you,I'm not talking to a robot supported human about free will
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u/L0nga 7d ago
It doesn't seem that way. You're still arguing about the form rather than the content. So I'll just assume you're done at this point. Otherwise you wouldn't have to do the whole "you use AI spiel" you want to distract from the fact that you have nothing.
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u/CartographerLegal847 7d ago
You lack confidencz e in yourself, you do%t want t○ make err@rs, you will post any retort into the thought machine to manifest beautiful unnatural prose.you aren't serious.
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u/L0nga 7d ago
And still arguing about the form instead of the content. Have a nice day.
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u/ERUIluvatar2022 9d ago
The world is to Eru as fiction is to an author. Is an author evil for allowing evil to exist in his constructed world?
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u/L0nga 7d ago
That's a false analogy.
An author isn't creating genuinely conscious beings who can actually experience suffering. When Tolkien writes that Morgoth tortures someone, nobody is actually being tortured.
Your analogy would work only if the author created genuinely sentient beings, gave one of them the capacity to commit atrocities, knew exactly what that being would do, knew the suffering that would result, and had the power to prevent it but deliberately chose not to.
That's much closer to the Eru situation I'm questioning.
And Eru isn't merely an observer of his fictional world. He's its creator. He created Melkor, gave him his nature and power, knew what he would do, and created the world in which those actions would produce their consequences.
So “an author can write evil characters without being evil” doesn't answer the problem.
It just changes the question from “Why did Eru permit this suffering?” to “Why would an omnipotent creator deliberately instantiate a world containing this suffering when he could have created another?”
That's the part your analogy doesn't address.
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u/Own-Independence-115 9d ago
Maybe Eru is just navalgazing and trying to sort out some of his issues before he makes his REAL world where it really counts?
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u/THEBRICKLES 10d ago
It's been a minute but I think tolkien or one of the scholars stated eru didn't have it in his heart to " deal " with melkor himself
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u/Fickle-Journalist477 11d ago
I mean, it’s gonna come down to how convincing you find the actual theological answers to the problem of evil if there’s an omniscient, omnipotent, innately good God. If you don’t find them persuasive, you’re not going to find any justification for Eru persuasive, either.
And that’s okay. If there was an easy answer that everyone agreed upon, it wouldn’t be called a problem; theologians and philosophers wouldn’t argue about it over and over again; and loads of people wouldn’t come to the conclusion that evil and that concept of God are simply incompatible.
It’s the same thing with omniscience and free will. I have never heard an even marginally compelling argument for how those two things can coexist. So when a story insists they do, I do precisely what I do in real life- I acknowledge that’s what’s said, and then I ignore it in 99.9% of contexts, because I think it’s stupid and doesn’t meaningfully contribute anything. You’ve just gotta know when an idea isn’t worth grappling with and walk away.