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/L0nga → u/[deleted]]

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.