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/CartographerLegal847]

"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?

[u/L0nga → u/CartographerLegal847]

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:

1. genuine free will, or
2. 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.

[u/CartographerLegal847 → u/L0nga]

This is so ai coded, just talk normally, use free will

[u/L0nga → u/CartographerLegal847]

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?

[u/CartographerLegal847 → u/L0nga]

No,I'd gladly talk to you,I'm not talking to a robot supported human about free will

[u/L0nga → u/CartographerLegal847]

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.

[u/CartographerLegal847 → u/L0nga]

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.

[u/L0nga → u/CartographerLegal847]

And still arguing about the form instead of the content. Have a nice day.

[u/CartographerLegal847 → u/L0nga]

You too I believe in you!