[davem]

Dininziliel

I can see all your points, & from the perspective of faith, they are correct. But faith, as Tolkien stated, is trust, Hope without guarantees. It is faith that God, loving us & desiring our happiness, but also our spiritual growth - well, growth into our full humanity - will make all things well in the end.

Tolkien, in LotR, has Frodo, after the destruction of the Ring tell Sam 'Its like things are in the world, hopes fail, an end comes. And from the perspective of our life here, in the world, that is a fact. Its not the only fact - there is love, joy, here in the world. But it ends in death. as for there being anything beyond the circles of the world, we only have faith. So we can read LotR from a 'materialist'/athiest perspective, & we find it the story of an individual who is broken & dies as a result (going into the 'west' was always symbolic of dying in celtic myth). Hence is it inspires only a sense of the cruelty of fate & the deep 'wrongness' of the world. The only sense of joy that comes is joy beyond the walls of the world - he does not achieve happiness in this world. His 'spiritual growth brings sadness, resignation to the inevitability of suffering, evil & death (at least within Arda Marred) & desire to leave the world.

So, Tolkien is saying our true happiness (not only our ultimate destiny) is to be found only 'elsewhere'.

Quote. If we kept faith & behaved as we were created, we would not be having this discussion;

But this is exactly what Frodo does - to the fullest extent that he can - & he still suffers terribly, is broken, & 'dies' ( ok, dies to the world) & it is not a 'willing' death - one can will the sacrifice of ones life, but one does not will the death that comes as a consequence - does that make sense?

It seems to me that Tolkien is precisely not saying that if we lived as God willed we would be happy in this world. He is saying the opposite - this is Arda Marred, & whether we live according to Eru's will or not, we will suffer, because suffering is part of it - it is simply 'like things are in the world'.

But here we must perhaps separate ME from this world - the Bible tells us that we (as decendants of our 'primal parents') are responsible for the Fall, & must be redeemed. We have brought our sufferings on ourselves. In ME, Arda was marred before it was even given material form. Melkor spoiled it & introduced evil & contention into the blueprint - but Eru then chose, knowing the suffering that would result for all those, Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits who would be born into it. God creates a perfect world which then 'falls' as a result of human free will & defiance. Eru creates a world which has corruption & evil already present in it from before its creation. So, while we cannot hold God accountable for suffering & evil in this world, we can at least question whether Eru bears any responsibility for the wrongness in ME.