Eru/Fate

[jammi567]

glad we've reached 101 post with just a couple of us, taking part on a very difficult subject.

[durinsbane2244]

ah, alright. no. no i don't. that would be saying that God had a bit of evil in Him. so no.

[jammi567]

i hope i'm not being rude or anything, but why don't you think Eru has even a little bit of evil. After all, He allowed the valar to distroy Numenor, for example, despite the fact that they were wrongly corrupted, and that He should be punishing Sauron instead.

[Landroval]

It depends on what evil is, considered at the highest possible level (that is, Eru's). I have no problem with Finrod's statement that the joy of His children is His main purpose. Moreover, in letter 212 it is said that:

A divine 'punishment' is also a divine 'gift', if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make 'punishments' (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained

[durinsbane2244]

good point Lan. evil is never evil to the one doing it. for all the He does He has a divine purpose, and it can be interpreted by Men how they wish.

[jammi567]

i like what you've put, but is Eru creating Melkor show that He has a mixture of both good and evil, and is capable of doing evil things, or is it that he just understands it.

[Landroval]

Is there anything 'evil', if evil in itself is only a stage of more good? I esspecially like the way Tolkien pictured this in his letter #64:

I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days - quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapour, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens! And the products of it all will be mainly evil - historically considered. But the historical version is, of course, not the only one. All things and deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their 'causes' and 'effects'. No man can estimate what is really happening at the present sub specie aeternitaris. All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in. So it is in general, and so it is in our own lives.

The same idea is reinforced in Tolkien's created universe:

Originally Posted by Notes on motives in the Silmarillion, Myths Transformed, HoME X

(Manwe) must have grasped with great clarity what even we may perceive dimly: that it was the essential mode of the process of 'history' in Arda that evil should constantly arise, and that out of it new good should constantly come. One especial aspect of this is the strange way in which the evils of the Marrer, or his inheritors, are turned into weapons against evil.

[jammi567]

don't think me stupid or anything, but what does your first quote mean, what is Tolkien saying?

[Arien the Maia]

Originally Posted by jammi567

don't think me stupid or anything, but what does your first quote mean, what is Tolkien saying?

in a nutshell he's saying that "out of something bad, comes something good". Evil can and never will prevail over Good.

am I right here?

[durinsbane2244]

yes, but that doesn't mean that evil is ok. maybe stuff like...fire! fire can be good, helpful, like warmth, cooking, and (very good analogy here) when you burn down a forest to revive it. it can also kill and be quite naughty. naughtiness is not good. it's evil. bad evil.

[Arien the Maia]

Originally Posted by durinsbane2244

yes, but that doesn't mean that evil is ok. maybe stuff like...fire! fire can be good, helpful, like warmth, cooking, and (very good analogy here) when you burn down a forest to revive it. it can also kill and be quite naughty. naughtiness is not good. it's evil. bad evil.

true, true...but were not several Maiar, fire Maiar? Arien and the Balrogs for instance? so I don't think that fire was considered evil from the get go. dangerous to some but not evil.

[durinsbane2244]

oh, i was just using an analogy there. not saying that fire is downright evil. (Narya, eh?)

[Arien the Maia]

Originally Posted by durinsbane2244

oh, i was just using an analogy there. not saying that fire is downright evil. (Narya, eh?)

good...otherwise I would have to smote you with the fire I wield!

[durinsbane2244]

ah. glad i did than. untimely death my divine fire isn't that appealing...

[jammi567]

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, i get it now.

[Arien the Maia]

Originally Posted by durinsbane2244

ah. glad i did than. untimely death my divine fire isn't that appealing...

lol

[The Telcontarion]

Originally Posted by Sister Golden Hair

The question certianly does place the reader in the "what if" position, which leaves room for a multitude of speculations. I believe that Eru was God and therefore the creator. Was he flawed in his creation or in the way he did it? Perhaps. IIRC, he left the Valar pretty much innocent and ignorant in what was going on, and revealed things to them little by little. Each of the Valar were made from a different portion of Illuvar's thought and were suppose to work in unison. However, it seems the more he revealed to them, the more they became independent of his thought. I think that once Melkor reached this point of knowledge, this is when the discord arose and the flaw in the creation occurred. Could Illuvatar have done more at that point to undo it? Did he let Melkor go too far? Melkor like the other Valar was the offspring of Eru's own thought. I'm not sure Melkor was ever good, but was just less bad in his ignorance than when Eru revealed more.

Eru was perfect in every way, and everything in his universe was intended that way; the good and the bad. Behold:

And Iluvatar spoke to Ulrmo, and said: 'Seest thou not how here in this little realm in the Deeps of Time Melkor hath made war upon thy province ? He hath bethought him of bitter cold immoderate, and yet hath not destroyed the beauty of thy fountains, nor of thy clear pools. Behold the snow, and the cunning work of frost ! Melkor hath devised heats and fire without restraint, and hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of the sea. Behold rather the height and glory of the clouds, and the everchanging mists ; and listen to the fall of rain upon the Earth ! And in these clouds thou art drawn nearer to Manwe, thy friend, whom thou lovest.'
Then Ulrmo answered: 'Truly, Water is become now fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the rain. I will seek Manwe, that he and I may make melodies for ever to thy delight!' And Manwe and Ulrno have from the beginning been allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of Iluvatar.

The conception of the other Auinu was more symmetrical. All angles and plains, rectangular oceans and triangular poles and everlasting lamps and no darkness. They probably originally concieved of rows upon rose of uniformed trees for a forest etc. ( I think I had a goog reference for that in the one those other Tolkien books too). Without Melkor there would be no snow capped mountains and no natural bridges formed by the erosion of the sea; in the world of tolkien without the destruction of the lamps there would have been no sun or the moon.

Alas, further proof:

And they mourned not more for the death of the Trees than for the marring of Feanor: of the works of Melkor one of the most evil. For Feanor was made the mightiest in all parts of body and mind, in valour, in endurance, in beauty, in understanding, in skill, in strength and in subtlety alike, of all the Children of Iluvatar, and a bright flame was in him. The works of wonder for the glory of Arda that he might otherwise have wrought only Manwe might in some measure conceive. And it was told by the Vanyar who held vigil with the Valar that when the messengers declared to Manwe the answers of Feanor to his heralds, Manwe wept and bowed his head. But at that last word of Feanor: that at the least the Noldor should do deeds to live in song for ever, he raised his head, as one that hears a voice far off, and he said: 'So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Ea, and evil yet be good to have been.'

But Mandos said: 'And yet remain evil. To me shall Feanor come soon.'

Just as president bush and his masters ( for he is just a puppet) gain there one world government, through the human spirit it will become something of pure good and become his undoing, even as they grasp it for their evil purposes (just like lord palpitine in star wars-he is playing both sides/wake up people; he is the terrorists as well as the federal government). The human spirit can not be distinguished. So as america and the constitution was a great creation, slavery still remained evil.

Bush and his masters will pay soon, there time is coming; all evil needs to flourish is for good men to do nothing; can I get an amen!!!

[Landroval]

I'm not sure Melkor was ever good

Well, in the Council of Elrond, Elrond states that

For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.

I doubt he would make a notable exception (Melkor). In letter #183, Tolkien implies states that Melkor fell - therefore he must have been good once; also there he states that:

(Sauron) had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth.

Thy mouth hath spoken the truth, brother Telcontarion!

[jammi567]

but don't you consider that is a neccessity because what would be the point of being good if there is no evil to be opposite to.

[jammi567]

anyone?