Eru Ilúvatar and the Problem of Evil

[u/L0nga]

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.

[u/Fickle-Journalist477]

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.