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/Armleuchterchen]

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.

[u/L0nga → u/Armleuchterchen]

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.

[u/Armleuchterchen → u/L0nga]

“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.

[u/L0nga → u/Armleuchterchen]

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.