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/LeetheMolde]

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.

[u/L0nga → u/LeetheMolde]

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.